Why you wanna tell me how to live my life?

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

25/09/05 : Have A Nice Day - Bon Jovi

Were Bon Jovi still going in '05?  Given that I had no idea they were, I can't say my expectations are massively high for this - I'm expecting it to be very clichéd indeed.

And you know what?  It is, but a lot of it is also surprisingly enjoyable - I'd go as far as to say that the opening title track and "Who Says You Can't Go Home" are actually pretty good.  Yes, it does all get a bit samey over the course of the entire album (particularly Jon's ridiculous vocal style) but I found it a lot more bearable than I was expecting - it doesn't deliver any surprises, but that's kinda the whole point to it.  I'm also conflicted about the album cover - I can't decide if I like it or not, but it feels very un-Bon Jovi like.

We're at #2 with a new entry this week on their start of a nine week run, which is more than I was expecting.  The rest of the top five were David Gray, Barbra Streisand (a new entry that I wasn't expecting in '05), James Blunt and an Ian Brown best-of (another new entry which is surprisingly good) and the next highest new entry was Daniel O'Donnell (#10 - what a rock and roll week in the top ten!).

Wikipedia tells me this is their ninth album - who knew they lasted that long?  And, even more amazingly, they've just announced they will be releasing their sixteenth - who was asking for that?  Apparently, they weren't very happy with the music business at the time and various arguments delayed the release by nine months but the critics were nice enough about it in a "well, it could have been a lot worse" kind of a way.  It did very well commercially though, getting to #1 in a load of countries, but only #2 in the US, although it did sell over a million copies there.

"Customers also listened to" Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Bryan Adams and Def Leppard - I'm fine without most of them in my life.  As I would generally say for Bon Jovi (apart from "Livin' On A Prayer" obviously!) but I'm surprised how bearable this was - and even enjoyable in places.  What is the world coming to?

18/09/05 - The beginning of the end
02/10/05 - Enough variety to make it bearable

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