Saw a vagabond king wear a Styrofoam crown

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

09/06/96 : These Days - Bon Jovi


I am aware of Bon Jovi but I would have thought that '96 was somewhat past their glory days, so I'll be interested to see what I make of this...

Having listened to it, "past their glory days" sounds harsh - let's settle for "repeating their glory days".  There's nothing wrong with it, but you wouldn't swap it for "Shot Through The Heart".  I think I recognised "This Ain't A Love Song" and "These Days" (which I actually quite liked) but the rest of it passed me by at the time - and tbh it did the same this time as well.  And it's another unowned album - 9/30.

We're at #11 with a re-entry this week - is this our first re-entry?  I tried to check but it was just too tricky, so let's just say it is - who's going to argue with me?  Their first run was 42 weeks from July '95 to May '96 (with the first four weeks at #1).  It then came back for another 14 weeks - I assume a single was responsible, maybe Wikipedia will tell us.  The top five this week were Metallica (a new entry),  Alanis, George, The Fugees and Celine - and there are no other new entries in the top ten, with the next one being Gloria Estefan (#12).  We also have another interesting re-entry at #19 - Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms, on its seventh chart run (and it's managed another 22 runs since, last being seen in 2017).  Something weird Dire Straits-y was going on this week because they had five re-entries in the charts - I can only assume it was to do with their new entry, Alchemy which reached the dizzy heights of #94 where it spent one week (and it deserved far better than that!)

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting (160 milliPeppers) and it tells me I'm totally wrong - this is Bon Jovi's glory days, with many considering it to be their best album.  The critics even liked it and it sold by the bucketload - so well, that they re-released it as a special edition, which is the reason for the re-entry.  However, it didn't go down so well in the US for no obvious reason - a bizarre critical comment from over there was "the group happily forsakes conventional corporate rock for a loud kind of adult pop. Think Whitney Houston with guitars".  None of which seems to make any sense to me.  I did however learn that Jon Bon Jovi's real name is Jon Bongiovi - I guess that kinda makes sense!

"Customers also listened to" Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora albums - I wonder why?  I thought this was "fine" - perfectly listenable, but I can't really see what got everyone so excited about it.

02/06/96 - One top track, the rest not quite so top
16/06/96 - An unexpected surprise

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