My take on this is that Richie was burned out on the band long before What About Now. He'd lost interest. Jon was pulling the band in a certain direction that Richie wasn't into. Also, all of those songs are written with a third writer, we have no way of knowing how much or little of those songs is Jon and/or Richie.

After a 5 year break from each other I think they would come at writing together with a fresh perspective. Get back to basics, just the 2 of them in a room, and I think that they could find that magic together again as songwriters...

Only heard first two lines as I write this but good god that soundS abysmal.
He's done.
I wont be paying to watch them live anymore.

I've have to disagree as much as I'd want this to happen. They didn't seem to have anything more to say as a writing team way before WAN. Same with Shanks, their collab wasn't bad overall, but it's running out of steam too.

They should bring new people if they don't want this ship to sink definitively.

Well, that was my point really. Richie was losing interest, Jon was bringing in too many outside writers, etc. It's amazing what a break of a few years can do for the creative juices.

Bringing in new people will just take it further away from what Bon Jovi is. They need to get back to basics and rediscover what made them great in the first place, otherwise there's no point.

That's more what I'm getting at. Richie is lost in a world of fifty genres with RSO. Simply plopping him back in the band and saying "go" isn't going to wield classic songs because we know both of them have the capability to write them, they just never make it far enough into the world. Both of them need to reassess and rethink what they put out into the world.

That was the worst "Its my Life" ever.But not only Jon,I dont also like how the band sounded,they did it worst than a bad cover band.
"Bad Name" was better,but also not a good performance.
Very very sad,and the worst thing is thinking on what will be the HOF performance

The “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is a a beautiful and romantic concept, but if Richie wasn’t super involved in LH (arguably the album that had the best lyrics before BB) and then was all over TC, they already had that gap between albums to start anew with a fresh perspective, but the songwriting didn’t improve at all. They are obviously at different stages of their careers now, have wildly opposite personalities and in their case it didn’t work. I don’t see them being able to reignite that spark, honestly. You can’t simply erase that baggage.

I have to disagree with that. It seems that people here rank very highly lots of the tracks they’ve done with new collaborators (Any Other Day, Lonely, Roller Coaster and especially I Will Drive You Home) or those where they’ve changed the style quite a bit (Walls and *edited to add* Born Again Tomorrow or Take Back The Night). It’s the same discussion about the producer, no new writer is going to make Jon go “aha, I was lost and now I know where to go” but wouldn’t it be great to add a new voice if it means Jon has to stretch his wings and think outside the worn-out formula?

Upvote for this

No because bringing in too many outsiders is where Jon went wrong in the first place in my opinion. For me, The JBJ/RS partnership started to dissolve once Jon started bringing in more outside writers, and Richie, I believe, began to feel pushed out. He would rely more on Falcon and Shanks at some points than he would Richie.

You bring in another outside writer and they are just going to be another JBJ yes man like Shanks, and you'll end up with the same old sound regardless. The thing about Richie is that he would challenge Jon. I remember reading stories, when Jon would bring him in a song and Richie would say that the chorus is weak and they'd come up with something better. Maybe in the end, Jon didn't like that and that's why he would go more to other people, but I think Jon needs that to bring the best out of him.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder is nothing to do with what I was talking about. I'm talking about creativity, not them longing for each other. My point is that is you work with someone constantly for 30 years it may eventually get stale. Step away from that for a few years and come back to it and it will be somewhat fresh again. Both have new experiences that they can bring to the table, new ideas that they may not have had before etc. I've seen it happen in many cases. Not always, but quite often.

Yes, Jon is out there giving us the same old generic formula or trying to sound like anyone other than Bon Jovi and Richie out out there doing every style under the sun. But you get those two together in a room and I would bet that it would just sound like Jon & Richie again. Whether that would translate on to a record once is anyone's guess, I suppose.

All just speculating of course, we will probably never know if there is any JBJ/RS magic left in there...

For Jon and Richie to re-unite as writers would IMO imply they're not just churning out tunes in the studio to meet a deadline because old habits die hard and they just so happen to be in the same band. The writing sessions for WAN were probably short as hell, given Richie was recording his solo album pretty much at the same time. If they were to re-unite, I'd assume they realized what they got with each other and treat it with more care.

Plus, if he has RSO to do his more left field stuff and BJ for the bread & butter rock tunes, that'd help a lot. I don't feel like eating pizza all the time either, even though I really like the taste.