These Days [Remastered] - Bon Jovi

...Love Song, Damned
Timeless: These Days, My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms, Diamond Ring

Hey God: Bon Jovi kick off their album with this all-out rocking tune, and you're immediately thinking, "Oh no, here they go again... yet another You Give Love A Bad Name". With the anger and profanity on this track (the lads from New Jersey rarely ever sing with either), you ask yourself what Bon Jovi are miffed about. But it's ...
...while - at least until These Days hits you. 8/10

This Ain't A Love Song: This used to be a track that I frequently skipped over, but in the last two years I've found myself listening to more of this absolute jewel of a ballad. It doesn't rival their masterpiece Always off "Crossroads", but is a great opening ballad to the album, and despite their staunch insistence that "This ain't a love song", you know it is. ... more

If you ask me, Bon Jovi will never make an album as deep and soulful as this one ever again. In the same manner that "Slippery When Wet" or "New Jersey" were never duplicated in terms of energy or commercial success, so no Bon Jovi album will ever come close to the absolute perfection that they achieved with "These Days". The arrangement of this album around its strengths (brilliant song-writing, superb musical backing) make it a listen worthy of, and even better than, "Slippery When Wet" and "Crossroads". An album that starts off on a high note, and continues on in a bluesy vein with some very introspective lyrics, "These Days" depicts Bon Jovi in their rawest and truest form, quite unlike the image they've cultivated with their later releases, "Crush" and "Bounce".

Must-Listen Tracks: Hey God, This Ain't A Love Song, Damned
Timeless: These Days, My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms, Diamond Ring

Hey God: Bon Jovi kick off their album with this all-out rocking tune, and you're immediately thinking, "Oh no, here they go again... yet another You Give Love A Bad Name". With the anger and profanity on this track (the lads from New Jersey rarely ever sing with either), you ask yourself what Bon Jovi are miffed about. But it's just the creative energy working itself off. I often couple this tune with Someday I'll Be Saturday Night from their "Greatest Hits" album because it's got the same bitterness, to a certain extent. Richie Sambora shows us why he's revered so much on guitar, while Tico Torres absolutely hammers his drums to a pulp here. Bon Jovi often launch their albums firing on all cylinders, and the same applies here. Hey God provides the energy to fuel the rest of the album, and it winds down well, with the guitar-strumming at the end merging into Something For The Pain beautifully. It's a shame Bon Jovi don't make rockers like this anymore. 9/10

Something For The Pain: Listening to the guitar winding up on this track, you're convinced that there's something special about it, but it's just a humourous song with some very vibrant lyrics ("I don't need no lover just to get screwed, They don't make no band-aid that's gonna cover my bruise"). Sambora's solo into the third minute of the track is unlike all of his other ones in that it's so short, but his vocals right afterwards more than make up for that, in my opinion. Due to its constant repetition and its catchy riffs, Something For The Pain will be stuck in your head for a while - at least until These Days hits you. 8/10

This Ain't A Love Song: This used to be a track that I frequently skipped over, but in the last two years I've found myself listening to more of this absolute jewel of a ballad. It doesn't rival their masterpiece Always off "Crossroads", but is a great opening ballad to the album, and despite their staunch insistence that "This ain't a love song", you know it is. The emotion is so inherent in its heartfelt lyrics, and the wailing guitar accompanying Jon's sad lyrics testify to that. The track closes with such a tender and soft guitar-lyric duet that you'll want to listen to it all over again. 10/10

These Days: The track that lent its name to the album, and what an absolute cracker it is. David Bryan's piano work here is amazing, his opening sequence is so haunting and chilling in my opinion. One of the best tracks on the album. Listening to this song is a treat because it has everything - meaningful lyrics, flawless solos, in addition to some excellent harmonica playing from Jon. Four tracks in, and you have this monumental track where the music and lyrics blend in so effortlessly. Torres keeps the time on this track beautifully, along with Sambora, and together they back up Jon's philosophical words ("Even innocence has caught the midnight train") in a manner untouched by the rest of the album. 10/10

Lie To Me: The second ballad of "These Days", and just a notch below This Ain't A Love Song. For some reason, I can never quite sit through the whole song without feeling as though Diamond Ring (one of the later tracks of the album) should have been switched for it in terms of track-listing. Lie To Me is a little weak with its lyrics, and this is quite uncharactertic of Bon Jovi, but it's the second half of the track that saves it, mainly because the instruments pick the song up, and speed it along. Granted ballads are supposed to be slow and mellow, this pseudo-ballad (if one could call it that) seems to be of the harder and louder kind, and appears to be one of the few points on "These Days" where Bon Jovi eased up on the pedal a tad. 8/10

Damned: An acoustic track of the best kind from Bon Jovi. I wish they'd make more tracks like this, but I suppose the variety is good. By the end of the first minute, Damned is cruising along, with Sambora working his guitar to death. The highlight of the album is the infectious riff that Sambora comes up with. Don't believe me? Just listen to it, and you'll see. An angry track, but less bitter than Hey God. 9/10

My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms: The title of this track is so reminiscent of The Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps. This is quite a depressing song, and if These Days was the highlight, so this proves to be the opposite for its utter gloom and sad lyrics. Halfway through, the track picks up pace, with Sambora and Torres once again lending a hand to Jon's brooding and melancholic words. If it weren't for These Days, I would pick this to be the majestic track of the album. If it's true that artists and musicians work their best when they're down and things are going badly for them, As My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms provides sufficient justification. 10/10

It's Hard Letting You Go: This track is so angelic and heavenly sounding, and you feel immediately uplifted from the gloom of the preceding track. Sambora proves that he can match Jon's sadness with his guitar, and does just that with the acoustic transformation of certain words of the song into chords. Torres' recreation of a heartbeat is deeply engraved into the track, and the track closes out with a crash. 8/10

Hearts Breaking Even: The opening sequence of this track is an illusion, the rocking nature of this "ballad" make it a pleasant and enjoyable listen. This is one of the few tracks on the album where you'll be drawn to Jon's lyrics (These Days and Diamond Ring being some other tracks). Hearts Breaking Even has nothing that really makes it memorable, but is just an anomaly of sorts. Where all the preceding tracks were more or less defined in their emotional content, Hearts Breaking Even sees the lyrics soaring high and then low, and the pattern continues through its five minute duration. 8/10

Something To Believe In: An ominous beating of the drums from Torres and a "battle cry" sounded by Sambora set the mood for this track. Bryan once again lurks in the background with his piano, but it is Jon who takes the spotlight with the depth of his soulful words. His transition from a whisper at the beginning of the song to a full-fledged howl and scream toward the end and then back again make for a great addition to the strength of his lyrics "If I don't believe in Jesus, how can I believe in Pope?, If I don't believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope?, If there's nothing but survival, how can I believe in sin?", and you can't help but admire the true heart of this track. It offers no frills, it sounds so true and fresh. 8/10

If That's What It Takes: Sounds so much like It's Hard Letting You Go and Hearts Breaking Even were spliced together to produce this track. Like Lie To Me, this a somewhat weak track in spite of its high octane drum-and-guitar combination. Entering the fourth minute, Jon, Torres and Bryan combine together superbly to give the lyrics of the moment an almost human quality to complement the sound of one falling down and hitting the ground. As with Lie To Me, Bon Jovi ease up a little here, but come back immediately with a stunner of a close - with Lie To Me, it was Damned, while it is Diamond Ring that picks up the pieces left by If That's What It Takes. 7/10

Diamond Ring: What a lovely way to close out this stunner of an album! Jon's lyrics are accompanied perfectly by the guitar and drums. It's hard to single out what's so beautiful about this track. It is not as long as the other tracks on this album, and is certainly not as complicated as, say, My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms. Perhaps it is the fact that Diamond Ring is such a fragile-sounding song, yet shines like a beacon at the end of such a dark and lonely album - almost like the light at the end of the
tunnel, so to speak. The personal quality of the words of this song, backed up by the simple guitar and drums arrangement, make this a song to treasure. 10/10

"These Days" ultimately proves to be an extremely stripped down album with some very raw and creative energy coursing through it. Each album that Bon Jovi have released has been different and unique in its own right, and what Bon Jovi started off with "Keep The Faith", they have finished off here, despite the interruption of their "Best Of" package. It's not a happy album, but artists often excel when in a gloomy and depressing period; it would appear as though Bon Jovi were trying to break free of the mould of being a hair-band from the '80s trying to make it big in the '90s. Most people will agree that "Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey" were chock-full of stadium anthems and fun songs, but will overlook "These Days" because of its lack of a standout track, with the exception of the title track. The truth is that most of the tracks on this album will not stand out immediately, and if they do, it's because you're associating Bon Jovi with their earlier success as a radio-friendly group. All the tracks from "These Days" are woven of the same fabric - depressing circumstances, anger, rejection and gloom. Even the soft Diamond Ring exudes this with its constant "There's nothing that I wouldn't do for you", sung by Jon in a pleading tone, for fear of being lost. Try the album, I highly recommend it - it's been, without a doubt, a good friend to me through good times and bad ever since it came out 8 years ago.

Thanks for reading, and happy listening! 

...less