Could this album be less commercial??
 

Just picking up on a few things that have been mentioned in recent interviews: The interview with Robbie, jon was heard saying its not about the success, but about the artistic achievement etc....would he say that if he was aiming for an album with a successful lead single?? Also an interview backstage at iheart radio he said he cant see the album fitting onto current radio.....just seems a different approach from the one he took when talking about albums bounce-the circle

i could be completly wrong of course and we could have an album full of 4 minute radio friendly hits, that wont get any airplay, and will inturn do the band no favours at all

Thoughts please
x

Aloha !

Jon's said the same about The Circle and in fact he's been on his "artistic achievement" nonsense ever since Bounce was released. Yet he let Ebbin and then Shank produce his stuff. I think that says enough about any artistic things he tries to achieve.

What he means to say and knows very well is how he's lost his touch to write and create a decent hitsingle nowadays and has no clue of how to incorporate nowadays music in his own music, thus trying to sound like anything but themselves. That's not something you'll hear him say though, because it's not exactly a good way of trying to sell your music.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I think he's just covering up for the fall in sales. Bon Jovi albums have grown more and more commercial as time has gone on.

Jon is clearly driven by an incredible hunger to be "successful". I think he's absolutely sincere when he says that he will never be the fat Elvis and as soon as it becomes a nostalgia act that he will bring the band to an end. What's interesting for me now is to figure out what Jon defines successful as being.

Undoubtedly since Crush, having hit singles and successful albums has been his litmus test for success, and the band's direction has followed there from. Crush was made to find both a new audience and attract the old fans (hence IML and TYFLM). Bounce was created the way it was to follow in the footsteps of the success of IML. HAND was entirely created, musically, visually, promotionally to be a commercial success, and Lost Highway was written to commercially capitalise on the success of Who Says. None of that is necessarily a bad thing at all (afterall the same was true and then some for Slippery, New Jersey, and Keep the Faith) but it's very clear the motivation for the creation of those albums in their form was commercial success. I also don't think that a desire for commercial success has to be (or was in Bon Jovi's case) in conflict with artistic integrity.

Personally, I've been hoping for the last number of years that Jon would begin to change his mind set on success. I hoped that he would recognise that Bon Jovi are now at a stage in their career where no matter what they do they will never have a big hit single or an album that sells 10 million, but that success could be had in other ways; writing great songs, building loyalty with your existing fan base, and being a massive touring force. Happily, I think since the Lost Highway tour, that has slowly but surely become the case.

I think the success of the Lost Highway tour probably took Jon by surprise and made him believe that he could continue to achieve amazing success through touring rather than album sales or hit singles. My hope was that believing this could provide Jon with a new artistic freedom and to forget about writing another number 1, radio-friendly song, and simply concentrate on creating songs and albums that are most true to him. In my opinion, The Circle was a major step in that direction. Then when I heard what he said in the iHeart radio interview, I was overjoyed. That was everything I wanted to hear him say. Now what I'm waiting for is the evidence to back that up what he said. It's one thing to say such a thing, it's another to follow through and create music that's consistent with that mindset.

Songs like Old Habits and Not Running Anymore are straight from that mindset. At no point in listening to those songs do you ever get the sense that Jon was writing them with a desire for them to be radio friendly. They are just pure artistic creations; love them or hate them. My hope is that the songs that make up the forthcoming album will have been written from that place rather than from a (conscious or unconscious) starting place of "chasing a hit single". Everyone tends to say they was another New Jersey or KTF or TD; I want another Destination Anywhere! I want to see that song writer back. Whether it's writing big rock songs, quiet acoustic songs, socially conscious songs, party songs, love songs, it doesn't matter if they are being written from that place or that state of mind.

This is why I'm looking forward to What About Now more than any other Bon Jovi. I think it is has the potential to be both the best or worst album of their career, and could well define the direction the next decade of their career will take.

If this is true, then it's bad news.
"Artistic Bon Jovi" is crap.

Amen to that! These are exactly my feelings and I wouldn't change a word of your post if it was mine :)

No
 

The last time a Bon Jovi album came out which was a true reflection of what they wanted to say was 'These Days'. It won't happen again. Jon writes largely from the perspective of 'what do the fans expect me to do' rather than 'what do I want to say'.

That's why I enjoyed 'Aftermath' so much and Richie's gig in London as they were the two most personal statements I've seen from a member of the Jovi camp in years.

Expecting 'What About Now' to be a mix of 'Born to Follow' type songs and 'When We Were Beautiful' type stuff.

I'm looking at the name of the tour and thinking... he's still in that 'Live my life' mindset. It's sickly sweet positivity that has become stale.

I'm not holding out hope for anything spectacular any more, which is why I haven't bought gig tickets yet and may/may not do so depending on the new album.

Spot on. I think the days of Bon Jovi having hit singles on the charts are over and Jon knows it. It has nothing to do with the band or their songs but just the cycle of the music business. Jon knows it, his been around long enough. The charts are for young singers aimed for the young audience. The lead singer in Bon Jovi is 50 and his the youngest member! Not just for Bon Jovi but I see this for U2. They will be big in touring and album sales but no more hit singles. I think this sound might be different on the new CD.

As much as I'd love to agree with you, I can't. These Days is undoubtedly my favorite album of all time, but what they did with These Days is no different than what they did with Lost Highway... just a million times better.

The reason These Days is These Days is because of Always. If Always hadn't been as big as it was, These Days would have probably been something different. I guess only they know where they were when they wrote that album. They have said they were in a good place, which is pretty contradictory to the album itself. Plus, how he can smile while playing Hey God is beyond me (London). It was just a dark time for Rock and they knew another Prayer wouldn't be a hit for them. So they married their success with Always with some of the dark themes coming out of Seattle and sprinkled a little Aerosmith on top and there it is... my favorite album.

Fast forward 10 Years later... the majority of HAND relies on the success of IML (as did Bounce), but they did put one foot out the door with WSYCGH. It was as big of a hit as they could hope for... then they gave us Lost Highway.

The big difference is Always is an epic song and Who Says is well... who says. Epic, it is not. I don't believe they were any more sincere when they wrote Always, they just had the desire and ability to write a powerful song.