Bon Jovi
These Days

For Bon Jovi, 1995 represents a turning point. The year of a stylistic shift following the incredible success achieved just a few months earlier with Always, the year of change after bassist Alec John Such left the band to make way for Hugh McDonald, the year of transition toward a type of sound not yet fully tested for the New Jersey band. The 80s were the years of Livin' On A Prayer, You Give Love A Bad Name, Bad Medicine, in short, they were the years of 80s music, carefree songs, millions and millions of albums sold, sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
At the beginning of the 90s, after Jon Bon Jovi's first solo experiments (with the soundtrack for the movie Young Guns II, Blaze Of Glory) and Richie Sambora (with the album Stranger In This Town), a sort of maturation occurs, which could be better identified as an adaptation to what's happening in the international music scene. Nirvana's grunge is all the rage, and Guns 'n Roses are making their mark... you can't come back on stage with a new Bad Medicine (which everyone expected), but the move is toward the more mature sound of Keep The Faith.
A few years later, once they have definitively left the 80s behind and gotten through the transition period between two different musical styles, we see the birth of the album initially titled Open All Night (a title they always wanted to write a song about, and now there are two!) but ended up on the shelves with the name These Days stamped on the cover.
If one were to put Slippery When Wet or New Jersey in the CD player, and then directly after These days, the initial reaction would be to think it's not the same band. A decisively softer sound, an album mainly characterized by ballads, or at least mid-tempo songs, only occasionally interspersed with what could properly be called rock tracks.

Opening the album, as usual, is one of these: "Hey God." Definitely one of the heaviest songs ever written by the four fists of Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. The theme of the song is a sort of frustration toward the Almighty who doesn't take enough care of all his billions of children. A sound decidedly unusual for those used to associating Jon & Co. with songs like I'll Be There For You, Bed Of Roses, or Always...
Next is "Something for the Pain," a pleasant mid-tempo rock that later turns out to be the song that will achieve the most success with the audience. The lyrics, written by the fortunate trio composed of Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child (see Livin' On A Prayer...) deal with the state of mind of a man who has seen love fly away. A kind of anthem to dispel loneliness and sadness... but in the end, everyone knows that the only true medicine, the only real remedy for this pain, is nothing less than love!
The third track features the single that paved the way for the album, the first true power ballad encountered on the record. We're talking about "This Ain't A Love Song," written again by the Bon Jovi-Sambora-Child trio, evidently trying to emulate the success and beauty of Always, not quite with the desired result, but it's certainly not a work to discard.
Following is the album's title track. "These Days," a rather melancholic mid-tempo rock song written by Bon Jovi and Sambora. The theme is the world these days... something that is always deteriorating, but nonetheless must always be faced. A significant verse of the song goes "I know Rome's still burning, though the times have changed." A sort of optimism contrasted with the pessimism that perpetuates in the world.
The next track is "Lie To Me," perhaps the Bon Jovi song that most testifies to the influence Always left on Jon and Richie's songwriting. A typical Bon Jovi love song dealing with love at all costs... "If you don't love me, lie to me" Jon pleads with his hypothetical partner. The result is, however, pleasant.
Following is the second rock track of the album. "Damned" presents a sound definitely less hard than the opening track "Hey God," but we're still faced with one of the "less soft" songs on the record. The theme of the song is always love, but this time the story is told with a sound decidedly less sweet than usual.
The following track is one that I personally consider one of the three best on the album. The title is "My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms," and here we find ourselves in a crossroads between rock and ballad, with decidedly melancholic and not very happy lyrics. Evidently, the song was written in a moment of little inspiration for the band, or perhaps it tells the story of how one feels when life seems to have little to offer (symbolic is the phrase "I can't write a love song the way I feel today, I can't sing no song of hope, I've nothing left to say"). The curious thing is that Jon admitted he found the inspiration to write this song by thinking about Richie Sambora's love story with actress Heather Locklear, who had recently married and were very happy...
At this point, when the number eight appears on the display of our CD player indicating the track, we're listening to "(It's Hard) Letting You Go," the first acoustic ballad by the band. Enhanced by the sound of David Bryan's keyboards and the light stick tapping of Tico Torres, the melancholy of the lyrics written solely by Jon Bon Jovi is evident throughout the song. The song is once again about a lost love, but this time the pace is much more subdued than the previous Something for the Pain. Still, the text is beautiful, almost poetic, I would dare to say. A little gem for soft genre lovers.
Track number nine is called "Hearts Breaking Even," once again we are faced with a fusion between a rock song and a ballad, with various mid-tempo influences amidst the notes. As suggested by the title, the song written by Jon Bon Jovi and Desmond Child talks about hearts breaking, yet again. The beauty of it is that while treating roughly the same theme in several different songs, we face three songs with a vastly different style from one another and with almost imperceptible thematic resemblance. Certainly one of the talents of the author Jon Bon Jovi, supported by Sambora.
Next, we find another of those three songs I prefer on the album (the missing one of the three is the title track, "These Days"). It is "Something To Believe In," a song whose sound is not very rock, to be honest, quite the opposite, but which particularly highlights the great vocal abilities of Jon Bon Jovi (who wrote the lyrics alone) and Richie Sambora. The lyrics talk about a man who loses faith in everything and everyone, and in a world that gives you nothing, he just needs something to believe in.
The next track features another very pleasant mid-tempo, with a theme always centered on love, a difficult love, a love that is ending, but that one wants to try to save in every way possible. The title is "If That's What It Takes," written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. To close the international version of the album, there is a second acoustic song that was actually written in 1988 to be included in New Jersey, but then discarded because it wouldn't have had much to do with the rest of the album. For These Days, the song was picked up again and slightly "modernized." We are talking about "Diamond Ring," a song made essentially by the voice of Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, and the latter's acoustic twelve-string. The theme is once again love for a woman, but this time just that, no crisis, no love to rebuild... just a love song in the truest sense of the word, sung using a diamond ring as the "reference object" which would be the "materialization" of the woman and love for her.
For those who own the European or Japanese version of the album, there are still two songs to listen to. These are the bonus tracks "All I Want Is Everything" and "Bitter Wine," both written by the Bon Jovi-Sambora duo. The first is a rock song with a particularly heavy sound where Richie also dusts off the old talkbox he had abandoned nine years earlier in Livin' On A Prayer. The second is a semi-acoustic ballad with a fairly pleasant sound. This latter is included as a bonus track, unlike "All I Want Is Everything," even in the North American version of the album.
Ultimately These Days is an album that represents a maturation of the group from a compositional standpoint, in other words, it could be defined as the first true "singer-songwriter" album produced by Bon Jovi together with producer Peter Collins.
Who plays on the album are: Richie Sambora on electric and acoustic guitars, as well as backing vocals; David Bryan on keyboards and piano, and background vocals; Tico Torres on drums and percussion; Hugh McDonald on bass and background vocals; and of course Jon Bon Jovi, lead vocals, percussion, and harmonica.

The album was very successful in Europe and Japan, while the North American audience remained more skeptical about this album, as was the case with Keep The Faith, unlike the albums from the 80s. However, the album has sold about 10 million copies worldwide today. During the year, Bon Jovi receives several accolades, including the most important, the award for Best Rock Group at the MTV European Music Awards in Paris, during which Bon Jovi also indulged in a great live performance of Hey God.
After this album, Bon Jovi will embark on a long world tour starting in India and ending in New Jersey after traveling through Europe, South Africa, Japan, and South America. In Italy, the venue is the Aquatica in Milan, where they perform to a full house. Subsequently, the band will take a five-year break before the release of Crush, a break interrupted only by the solo works of Jon Bon Jovi (Destination Anywhere, 1997) and Richie Sambora (Undiscovered Soul, 1998).