I don't know if I agree only because It's My Life somehow managed it by updating the band's sound to modern and for as much as they want to say it was a happy accident, it was incredibly forced. I'm not saying they can do it again, I'm more saying it's possible for older bands to find success again by modernizing what they do.

I don't think that's really comparable. Not only because it was a completely different time for the way people accessed music, but also because it's much easier for a band that are in their late 30s to appeal to a younger audience than it is for a band in their late 50s...

Fair, yeah. I didn't factor in how much older the band are now and forcing a hipper sound just makes it more obvious.

How many new fans did they get? How many more old fans listened to it?

Appealing to a new audience is not the same as rekindling interest in an old audience. It's still the same audience, only slightly more interested for a period of time. Furthermore, this is exactly what I am saying - it is possible to be pretty succesful by appealing to your own old fans; especially for a band like Bon Jovi that has a few nations worth of those in the reserve. Trying to look past them and appeal to a new audience and be "relevant" will not work and that is my point. Bon Jovi should stick to doing what they do best and their fans would be happy. Fans who by now have paid for their own houses and cars and as such are a far better audience for let's say a frontman that sees his band as a business ;)

It's not even debatable It's My Life brought in a younger audience for the band. Speaking directly about North America, had they released something not sounding modern they would have drowned. It's not like Real Life re-invigorated their popularity. I was in Grade 10 when It's My Life was released and it was everywhere and people knew who the band was and Crush was a pretty significant record in the school (For a time period at least) but I don't think it's naive at all to say it brought them a younger audience as well as the people who never stopped listening to them.

Whether we like or dislike what they did is irrelevant and a different debate but it DID work for them in terms of gaining fans.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that rock itself is dead. But the sort of rock that Bon Jovi made probably is. You either need to go heavier than they ever did into proper hard rock (Alter Bridge, Shinedown) or metal (Metallica, Slipknot), or go full on pop (Harry Styles etc) . Whilst only Metallica really have the legacy of Bon Jovi in terms of the rock bands, they release new music that I'd argue is relevant in its own right, not because of who is baking making it.

Those were the days!

I don't know if they could repeat a similiar success once again...even if Jon could still sing and if Richie was still in the band.
What they did back then was promo, promo, promo. When we worked on the Crush tour for our touring website we had as many promo shows/appearances as we had tour shows. The Crush Tour wasn't very long, yeah, but still the amount of promo gigs and appearances they made was insane. And to me that was part of their success they had in the early 2000s. After Bounce they did lesser promo for every record. It was still enough for their casual fans to buy the albums. But it was after Bounce where the mistakes have been made with them (Jon) thinking that they don't need to promote their stuff that much anymore to get some new audience. They rested on their laurels way too much.

Couldn't agree more with this assessment. They did less and less as the internet grew and radio shrank but didn't really replace the amount of promo with another medium, they just just kind of....stopped! Like a lot of labels I feel like they took too long to adapt to new technology.

I guess I am alone with this, but I would give them about 0.1% chance even if they did all the promo in the world.

What Bon Jovi was is not repeated anymore due to market being much more divided. Furthermore I still stand behind the fact that the rock is dead. Sure we love it. We buy records. But -we- are irrelevant in the popular culture scene. Face it guys (shameless generalisation coming, also girls and the rest etc but:) we are oooold.

Ariana Grande is relevant in 2020. Bon Jovi is not. And before you go saying anything about the kind of "art" she creates - stop and just try to put that into your grand parents mouths about Bon Jovi in the 80's...

What they could do is have a hit. That would be great. But still what I wrote about young people not wanting to listen to the music their parents did, stands. We and the like - and people who didn't even like Bon Jovi at the time, but who can relate to the era - would buy it.

Think about old bands, because that's what Bon Jovi is, and consider how many of them have ever - ever ever - been able to catch _and_ _keep_ a new audience 30 years after their peak? Even Let's Dance was far sooner in Bowie's career.

But. I have made my point and derailed the thread too much already. I fully understand that you might not think and feel like me about the issue, but one last thing: The best chance they have is not only get Richie back and get Jon into the best voice therapy on earth, but also hire Desmond Child for the next record. Pretty much 180 degrees on the current plan of staying relevant and appeal to new audience. In my non scientific and very subjective opinion :)

I don't know what Desmond Child would bring to the table though. His last successful co-write with the band was "(You Want to) Make a Memory". Before that was prooobably Misunderstood I guess and even that is tough to qualify as a "hit". It's been nothing but album cuts since then. I think you were right the first time, they're too old to have a hit on pop radio and swerving their style into modern would be disastrously transparent.

I suppose they could use DC to lean into the 80's anthem sounds but some of the current songs ain't THAT far away from that style of production, it's just less keyboardy (in my opinion).