Have we heard the last of the big jovi ballads??
 

Just a thought as thankyou for loving me came on shuffle on my ipod...even the key change/scream at the end is out of reach now so that got me thinking

Are we looking at make a memory and when we were beautiful as the new form of jovi ballads, obviously slower than the uptempo ones but without the power of the older songs and more work on the lyrics themselves?

Would love to know what you all think, even if they recorded something in the style of i am, i could see jon struggling!!

In answer to the question in the title:

Yes.

Well, I just listened to the LH album today, and "Make A Memory" is one of the best songs they have ever recorded imho, so I'm quite fine with the "new" type of ballad.

Make a Memory and Superman Tonight will probably be the traditional type of ballad we hear from Bon Jovi for the forseeable future, however when you listen to how Jon still belts out I'll Be There For You and Always and Bed of Roses, I don't see any reason why he can't still create a song in that vein. The problem I think lies in the fact that Jon is not prepared to push his vocals that far on the record anymore, because I assume he doesn't have as much trust in his voice that he once did. I can only hope that given how much of an improvement there's been over the last two tours and how competently he's handled the "bigger" songs in that time will convince him to sing a few more like that.

With all the pseudo-political themes on the last record, Jon almost sounded proud of the fact that "there are no boy/girl love songs." I'd give anything for them to write another boy/girl love song. That's Jovi at their best.

Yeah, the question is if they really want to anymore. I guess they are too old and "serious" for that type of song anymore. It's more ambivalent now like "Superman Tonight" or universal as in "What Do You Got". Let's not forget about "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore" though, a total boy & girl song, even a duett.

Can you really imagine a bunch of 50 something's writing boy meets girl ballads? It would also be creepy. They're doing just fine and maturing at just about the right rate. People need to accept this and remember the better times

Good point. Some people are also nostalgic for Jon's hair/fashion look of bygone years but when I looks at rock stars hanging onto the 1980s and 1990s, it creeps me out. Grow up and move on already.

Aloha !

They're not maturing. If there's anything Bon Jovi aren't doing the past 10 years it's maturing. This Ain't A Love Song isn't a boy meets girl ballad yet it works really well. All this bullsh1t about Bon Jovi evolving and maturing is just a bunch of nonsense. They're completely dead and have been rehashing the same stuff over and over again and their lyrics get more silly and dumbed down with every release.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I don't know, there's stuff they have written lyrically on HAND and LH that is actually fairly graceful. Whole Lotta' Leaving, Novocaine, Memory...those are proper 'grown up' songs I find and have no problem listening to them.

For most of it, you are right. When I hear Work for the Working Man (luckily not often), I want to beat them up. That's lyrics written by a cretin.