These Days/Crush
 

I'm a fairly new fan (last three years or so), so please excuse what it probably a stupid question.



What the hell happened between These Days and Crush that caused the band to go from their best work to what is mostly mediocre pop-rock?

They can't have been trying to recreate Its My Life, cause it hadn't been a hit yet! Why did Bon Jovi start in the direction that they followed right through to HAND?

Well first of all, "mediocre pop rock" is an opinion. Although Crush is probably my least favourite Jovi album, I think in general it probably was the right album at the right time. As far as I can remember, hard rock was pretty much dead in the water by the end of the 90's and beginning of the 00's ... no major acts were really putting out big selling hard rock records at the time. The 'in things' in rock music at the time were things like nu-metal, garage rock, and indeed pop rock. So maybe it was just that it made sense in the musical climate of the time.

Also, if you look at Jon and Richie's solo albums that were released between These Days and Crush, you can see that both of them took a notably more pop-rock direction than their last solo efforts, and Crush is kind of a combination of Destination Anywhere and Undiscovered Soul (mixed in with a return to the more poppy anthemic sounds of the 80's albums); much in the same way as Keep The Faith was kind of a mixture of Blaze Of Glory and Stranger In This Town

I totally agree that KTF was a combination of Blaze and Stranger but I hear nothing of Undiscovered Soul on Crush. It almost sounds like they dropped the blues-ish influences for that album forward.

These Days flopped in The States, that's what happened!

They were tryin to write a song that resembled Livin'g on a prayer, hence It's my Life.

Jon lost his voice.

He is still singing, maybe he found his voice back.

very funny...I am laughing myself to death...ha ha ha

Crush sounds more like Destination Anywhere than Undiscovered Soul IMO, but also when you think about it, alot of the songs written for Crush were by Jon intended for a follow-up solo album to Destination Anywhere. In early/mid 1998 Jon did a solo gig and played, at the time, new songs, some ofwhich made it onto Crush, Just Older being one of them. So it's quite an obvious explanation for why Crush is more like Da and hence why Crush turned out to be a more softer, poppier album.

And as for re-writing Livin' On A Prayer, It's My Life was I think written almost at the last minute of the album sessions, up untill then the working title for the album was Sex Sells.

I think I rambled a little!

they changed direction new decade new sound

look

80s hair metal
90s more bluesy and personal
00s more pop live my life shite

Oh dude that's in not a stupid quest, that's the same question I ask myself for the last 6 years.

And tell you what? We're not the only ones!!!

crush was good bounce was ok then HAND is just crush and bounces leftovers

Slippery was good, NJ rocked, KTF would made me wet if I were female, TD would give me a instant orgasm if I were a female, Crush is the hangover, Bounce the detox, TLFR the throwing up & HAND getting a bit back on the road again...

I would'nt really call the 90s stuff bluesy in general, it's only on TD that it really shows. KTF and the new stuff from Cross Road isn't too bluesy.

Ehh I'd say KTF was more bluesy than TD. TD was more R&B so in that respect, you're right. KTF was closer to straight up blues especially on songs like Little bit of soul.

all tru
 

I agree with many of your opinions. But at the end of the day These Days was bon jovi's biggest dissapointment in terms of the expectations (following SWW)I believe the band had for the album. Richie mentioned many times (during the late 90's) that he thought these days was their finest work. The response to these days by the US (who were in the last days of the grunge era) was flat out pathetic. I moved to the US in 1996 after living in the UK the previous 3 years and was shocked to learn that the album had pretty much no chance due to america's obsession with trends and fashion. In Europe and Asia, the album established them as heavy weights that could always make noise on the music scene, in the US it began whispers that they were over (popularity wise). Jon once said when crush was released that he looked at the billboard charts and had no idea where he fit in. So although i feel that crush was a weak follow up to what i consider their best work in terms of creativity, i cannot deny the pop-ish approach was instrumental in bringing back the american audience, and continued bon jovi's internationalism following TD and KTF.