Happy Birthday - Crush
 

Album is 17 years old today...Kicked off Bon Jovi MK II

Thoughts? Like it? Hate it? Stand the test of time?

For me its the start of "patchy Bon Jovi"

IML kicks in and its followed by the tame Say it isnt so then the awful ballad. Picks up again in the middle and again towards the end.

Some great songs on here including the timeless Its My Life, Next 100 years, One Wild Night but some real crap on here as well like Thank you for loving me, Capt Crash and she's a mystery.

How Neurotica didn't make the standard album Ill never know.

Over to you lot.......views...

It was the time I became familiar with the band. And that's it. 'It's my life' blasting from loudspeakers all the time it became really annoying but I did like the talkbox even though I didn't know what it was at the time. I just liked the sound of it. And then I remember 'Say it isn't so' and 'Thank you for loving me' although these two weren't as big. And I remember having a pirate copy of the album (I was a teenager and totally broke, so pls excuse me) and listening to it but the band somehow didn't win me over. It took me roughly 15 years to catch up and when I fell for it, I fell BAD! I've been a fan for three years more or less and there's virtually nothing else I listen to on a everyday basis. I don't even listen to the radio which is crazy! And I remember watching the vid and being pretty fascinated with the story in it but the guys did nothing for me. I'm a late bloomer I'd say haha

Actually the only BJ album I could listen track by track without skipping anything is New Jersey. Oh man, I've never thought I'd like cowboy themes that much!

17 years ago. Remember it still vividly. Doing my first year Uni exams in Stratford long before the Olympics made the area less of a dump and bought the CD from the old shopping centre years before Westfield was a thing.

Managed to get to the TFI Friday performance, sadly couldn't get to the CDUK show which I think was the next morning or the TOTP show.

Also remember all the build up, with Say It Isn't So being touted as the lead single for many months beforehand and then It's My Life just appeared out of nowhere. Just like in the These Days period, it was great to have BJ all over the radio - they were played on Capital frequently, unheard of now! As a chart nerd though I was gutted they didn't make No.1 in the singles though.

Also, watching the preview webcast overnight in an Internet Cafe, when Jon was very proud of TYFLM, thinking of it getting an oscar. Not quite Jon!

Im sure the review I read said that this was a fairly heavy album for BJ and IML seemed to suggest it was. But SIIS and TYFLM really kills the flow. TYFLM was the start of a bad batch of ballads. Such a lazy song they even nick the "these 5 words" line from IBTFY. Just a horrid song.
Two Story, Older, Next 100 Years help to pick it up again.
Capt Crash and Shes a mystery are dirge and Save the World could be great but the lack of solo is baffling.
Mystery train aint bad, I got the girl, One Wild Night and I could make a living are great tracks.

7/10 For me.

It is patchy on a song-by-song basis, but so is nearly every Bon Jovi album, even the better ones - SWW, KTF both have their share of fillers. The reason why I (and many others here) rank TD and NJ so highly is because their lack of misses, but even they have 99 In The Shade and If That's What It Takes.

Speaking of Crush, I think that much like Bounce it suffers from their identity crisis - Jon and others were probably not 100% sure what was their new desired Bon Jovi sound and if you remove vocals from that album you'd think there are like 3-4 different bands on that record. Say what you want about HAND or LH, they don't have that problem - both very consistent records.

I still think IML, TYFLM, MT, JO, CCATBQFM, and OWN are old good/great songs. Rest, not so much.

Yep. Costistantly crap

Me and you are at total different ends of the Bon jovi spectrum.
99 in shade and If that's what it takes fillers?

Plus you like CCATBQFM & TYFLM ??? How???

TYFLM was not an original song in a movie, so it would never have been nominated for an Oscar. I'm sure Jon knows that since he has been nominated for an Oscar before. I don't believe he ever said it would be an Oscar worthy song.

Mystery Train remains one of my favorite songs. I like most of Crush. As usual, I think that the weaker songs are ballads. Thank You gets no love from me. Not too fond of Save the World either. I love Say It Isn't So and Just Older.

As many stated before - it's very patchy. Probably the most inconsistend record together with Keep The Faith for me. When it's good, it's really good! But when it's weak, the tracks don't do anything for me. It's a very unsteady album, many songs seem so unconnected to each other. And I just can't stand Thank You For Loving Me, Captain Crash and Save The World. The others get a pass and I actually like the mellow feel of She's A Mystery (probably the only one on here), but the album has about three or four standout tracks to me and then it drops off significantly. Keep The Faith at least had about 8 really good ones.

That being said - it's also the album where I can't understand why so many of the brilliant demos and B-sides didn't make it. Neurotica, Temptation, Stay - they could've made for a killer record!

The last album that actually feels like a band album to me. You can hear the band perform as a unit and the sound feels quite "live", and though Bounce also has that feel in parts it's not the same as Crush. The band clearly knew they had to follow the trends of the times but I honestly feel that the songs were crafted because the band wanted to do this kind of music, not becaus they needed to. In that sense it's one of the most important album in their career. They got the huge hit, they delivered an album that proved that Bon Jovi still was relevant and wasn't living in the past.

I love Crush. Songs like Say It Isn't So, Just Older, Two Story Town, Mystery Train are up their in the top for me. The one song I never got into was Next 100 Years. Can't really say why, for me it feels like they wanted to create this huge number with orchestral elements, the huge outro but it falls flat and from the third chorus and forward it's just messy.

The Crush Tour DVD was what got me into Bon Jovi. I must have watched it more than a hundred times. The Crush songs sounded great in a live setting, and I remember even then being impressed with how good Bon Jovi's new material stood up against the older ones.

In America, the album didn't live up to the hype of IML and probably one of the reasons why Bounce did so poorly... Crush failed to produce a second successful single... If Thank You had an 80's vocal and production, it might have had potential but instead the song falls flat and lacks that raw passion...

As a fan I knew it was different and not in a good way... I had to convince myself to like it... it's got some nice moments like Save The World which was the sequel to Always and I also like the music in Next 100 years which is Dry Country part 2... but other than that, it doesn't move me like the prior releases did...

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Remember listening to it driving home from Wales and was so disappointed. Loved IML & Just Older but really struggled with the album as a whole.

It's still a patchy effort with tracks I skip although I like it more now than I initially did.


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Save the world is a wasted track. I really like the sound but the lack of solo is bizarre.

Well I'm paraphrasing a 17 year old webcast that I watched in the middle of the night, but he definitely had high hopes for the song and made a quip about accepting an award for it. I'm sure someone could dig out the original concert as I'm sure it's in my loft gathering dust, but at the time pre-release it seemed that Jon had it as the next Always type hit.

Yeah, I think patchy describes it best.

Great tracks: It's My Life, Thank You For Loving Me, Just Older, Save The World, Captain Crash, I Got The Girl
Ok/filler tracks: Two Story Town, Next 100 Years, One Wild Night
Bad tracks: Say It Isn't So, Mystery Train, She's A Mystery

I'd have definitely included I Could Make A Living Out Of Loving You and maybe Neurotica instead of some tracks that actually made the album. And maybe added some more of the Sex Sells songs/demos...

This album will ALWAYS have a soft spot for me.

Crush was the album that made me become a fan. I will never forget listening to It's My Life for the first time and absolutely loving it. I was only 7 years old at the time but it was the first ever song that I connected too. The video was also superb.

My first ever Bon Jovi single that I got was 'Say It Isn't So' - My brother and I with a friend of his went into town when it came out and we went into HMV and seen a screen on the ceiling with a photo of the cover and all went 'YEAAAA' like little fan girls. He then bought me the single on cassette tape and I remember going home and listening to that and 'Ain't No Cure For Love' for weeks and weeks.

I was devastated that I couldn't see them as I was too young according to my parents but I remember having loads of tapes made with tons and tons of shows and live performances that I still have to this day.

Watching absolute rubbish on the music stations waiting for One Wild Night to come on. Just loads of little memories that I'll always remember.

Also it was around the time I got to meet Kev for the first time so it also has some really bad memories. I joke, of course.

In terms of album quality:

I don't think it's that good of an album, it's not bad but it's not great either. Some highlights that I will always love. It's My Life (Not in my top 50 songs probably but I love it for the memories), One Wild Night and I've always had a soft spot for Mystery Train.

Also remember gasping when I heard Jon say 'Shit' in 'Two Story Town' - I was only 7 years old!!! Jeez Jon!!

I miss the hype around Bon Jovi.

I wasn't following them then so I didn't hear it; but was it perhaps a Grammy award that he mentioned?

Nope, love that song.

Crush is the album I never thought we would see. I honestly figured that these guys were over. Everyone I loved had either quit or changed considerably in the mid 90s. Southside quit and moved to Nashville. Bruce fired the E Street Band and hired the "other" band and then eventually went solo. I figured after These Days - Bon Jovi was gone with maybe Jon doing some solo stuff - and he did.

But then came IML and Crush. I was not the slightest bit critical about the album - I was just glad that it existed. Bruce had gotten the E Street Band back together for a reunion tour in 1999 and once again they blew me away. I was worried that Bon Jovi might not do the same for me and I was really looking forward to the 2000 show at Continental Arena in November. I need not have worried - they sucked me right back in and I have been here ever since LOL.

I can be more critical about the album now but it's impossible for me to dislike it.

To me it's a mediocre album. Some good songs, some bad songs, some songs I don't really care about.
It's My Life was huge. Back then I wasn't a fan yet. But my friends and I agreed that it was an awesome song with a great video.
Thank You For Loving is the last real Bon Jovi ballad in my opinion...the last ballad in the vein of the big ones...I'll Be There For You, Bed Of Roses, Always and This Ain't A Lovesong. Every ballad afterwards just didn't come close to that quality. To this day I don't understand why it failed to connect with the fanbase.
I also like Captain Crash, it's a fun mid-tempo rock & roll song. But unfortunately played to death by Jon.
Next 100 Years stands out because of the outro solo. Not a bad song at all but except the outro nothing special either.
Say It Isn't So and Two Story Town are the two songs I will never understand how that could happen on a Bon Jovi record. Both don't fit the Bon Jovi catalogue at all. Every other "experimental" Bon Jovi track (Let's Make It Baby, Temptation, Put The Boy Back In Cowboy, When We Were Beautiful) somehow fit their style and thereby have their right to exist. But those two songs...no.

So looking back on that record with 17 years in between and all that knowledge we got nowadays it becomes obvious that it's a wild mix of Jon's third solo effort and band material. They tried to mix both and make it one. But under that aspect they failed miserably.
BUT...by saying that it's not a bad record at all. It just can't keep up with Bon Jovi's standards set with Slippery, New Jersey, Keep The Faith and These Days. And also later records like Bounce, Have A Nice Day or The Circle are a much better unit as an album than Crush.

Crush is the album that hooked me in Bon Jovi, I remember listening to the cassette tape in my dad's truck, and I loved it instantly! She's A Mystery and Thank You For Loving Me are the album's only two weak songs IMO. I for one love Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars! it's one of my favorite Bon Jovi songs

Just to clear up a few points I've read...

1. TYFLM was never written for a movie. It was a line used in the Brad Pitt movie, Meet Joe Black that came out a couple years prior. Jon saw the movie, stole the line, and wrote the song. That's It... After IML became a hit, Jon was back on top and thought TYFLM was going to close it out. I remember him saying sometime later that he bet the house on that song becoming a huge hit and lost.

2. Keep The Faith could have and might even have been a solo album if the guys didn't figure it all out... Jon coming off his solo album wrote half of KTF himself... Crush was going in that similar direction however I think the minor difference between the two is, Jon had a different direction in mind with Sex Sells becoming Crush, whereas Revenge and KTF had the same direction... However, both albums are known to be the most inconsistent when it come to song selections. Bounce is a close 3rd because that was reworked too after the events of 911

Suprised how many people that dislike Thank You For Loving Me. I think it's a great songs and is probably the last real "power ballad" from Jov. All About Lovin' You, Memory, Amen, Scars hasn't that feel imo. I get that TYFLM isn't up there with Always and Bed of Roses, but without comparing it to this and that it holds up very well.

I still remember that time very well. Walking a few miles to the recordstore to buy the IML single & recording everything I was able to find on TV. Jon promoted U-571 and soon after that the promotion for the band started. MTV & other music channels still played loads of BJ so this was a great time for a fan to see a lot of your fave artist.

I remember thinking that there was suddenly a "different" Jon. Maybe he really thought he was about to become a big movie star. It all looked way too polished and stiff to me.

The record itself was a disappointment to me. For starters I thought the booklet was a joke. No lyrics, no nothing. And there were only a handful of songs that I liked right away and I hadn´t experienced that with a Bon Jovi album before.
IML, Say it isn´t so, Two Story town and yes She´s a mystery were the only ones I liked right away. The rest grew on me and I became a big fan of OWN after hearing the 2001 version.

Back than it didn´t (couldn´t ?) live up to my expectations but knowing now everything that came afterwards it stands tall on my list.

Yep!!! This is a carbon copy of what I would have wrote too... Less your song choices

It's not a terrible song and the live versions do bring some fire to it... I just think Luke did a horrible job producing it...

You can't be serious?!

Do you reply to everyone who doesn't love a song that you do?

I don't hate ITWIT, but on a masterpiece that is These Days, I find it to be a filler. I do admit that it's a much better than your average Jovi filler on an average Jovi album, but it still illustrates that no Jovi record is perfect start-to-finish.

I don't know. If you see any posts referring to someone disliking any song, please PM me and I will act accordingly? Thanks. :)

I love the song. I always paired it with 'Hearts Breaking Even' and considered that the weaker song.

I find Diamond ring to be the filler on this album. Awful.

Not many albums are perfect from start to finish.

For me its just a lazy song.
Stolen words from anther song.
Crap solo
Just dirge