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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm not wishing I was back in the USA, coz I come from Morecambe and the skies are grey

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 15/11/24 : Earth To Grace - Massive Wagons I will listen to the new entry at #1, but there's absolutely NO WAY I'm writing a whole entry on it - so instead we have this which I know absolutely nothing about. But it has to be better than the abomination at #1. Well, it's something you don't hear too much of these days - I guess "hard rock" is probably as good a description as any. It’s not going to win any awards for musical complexity but it’s quite catchy - I was r eminded of Gary Moore in his heavier days that teenage me used to like. It also certainly doesn't take itself too seriously - "Free And Easy" tells us "I don't shoot guns, it's not healthy - I drive a Ford C-Max I got off my dad and it's filthy" and "Rabbit Hole" offers up an amusingly sceptical take on conspiracy theories and then abruptly ends "Auf wiedersehen, adios - this song fucking ...
Read more

I saw your mum - she forgot that I existed

Image
Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 22/12/23 :  Stick Season - Noah Kahan Well, this week surprises us on a couple of fronts.  Firstly, and probably the least expected, this is possibly the album I've heard most this year - because obviously I'm a massive Noah fan. Well, it might not surprise you to hear it's not me but my delightful daughter - but you might be surprised to hear just how much my youngest absolutely LOVES Noah, particularly given his folkiness.  She's got tickets to see him next year and (excluding festivals) they're the most expensive gig tickets I've ever bought.  But despite having heard the album loads, I've never actually listened to it, so I'm interested to see what I make of it on a one-on-one basis. You know what - the headline is that, having actually listened to it I can report that, at least in places, I liked this way more than I previously did.  I listened to it over headphones for the first time and t...
Read more

Time is the fruit of patience

Image
Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts. 27/05/90 : Passion And Warfare : Steve Vai I know that Steve Vai is a highly respected guitarist, but I've got no more clue about him than that.  I also don't have a great history with albums from highly respected guitarists, so I'd have to say my confidence isn't sky high going in to this one (and nothing would have convinced me to buy it - 7/32). Ohmigod, this is rubbish.  The guitar playing is indeed of a very high quality, but man cannot live on guitar playing alone and everything else about it is just pretentious bombast.  "The Audience Is Listening" deserves a specific mention for being particularly rubbish, with a teacher introducing "young Steve Vai" to the class to play a lovely tune and then providing an increasingly histrionic running commentary on how much she doesn't like it.  I can imagine he's very impressive live, but such virtuosity often doesn't translate onto an alb...
Read more