Bought this at Encore Records for $10.
BON JOVI – These Days (Special Edition, 2010, Universal Music)
Just as a general comment on the series of Bon Jovi “Special Edition” remasters from 2010: They’re crap. Sorry but they are. A couple unreleased live tracks? That’s it? Come on. They remastered these things 10 years ago and I bought them all then. I’ve bought almost every Bon Jovi album, in some cases multiple times. These Days? Three times now, just to get all the bonus tracks scattered hither and yon. For that reason these Bon Jovi remasters are in my $10 or less purchase range.
As for the album, These Days, I think it’s the best Bon Jovi album. It’s definitely more laid back than any previous Jovi platter, but it has a genuine quality to it that I like. You may like the cheesey 80’s keyboard sounds yourself, but in 1995 Bon Jovi couldn’t release an album like that. Keep the Faith was a great success, but These Days took the band to a new, darker, more soulful place. The production, once overly glossy, has been reduced to a purer, more live sonic clarity. This is a very organic album and many tracks sound live off the floor, such as “Diamond Ring”. Tico’s got a great drum sound on this album too, the snare has a great tonal quality.
Lyrically, Jon has never sounded more real and heartfelt. A song like “These Days” gets me right where it hurts every time. Unfortunately, the biggest hit from this album was the single “This Ain’t A Love Song”. Well, it may not be a love song, but it sure sounds a lot like others I’ve heard, like “Always”. Contrasting the generic ballad were some heavier rockers. “Hey God” is positively angry. “Damned” has swagger. Bon Jovi are always melodic, but the chorus in the infectious “Something For The Pain” is just awesome. “If That’s What It Takes” and “Hearts Breaking Even” are memorable and as strong as any previous Bon Jovi hit, but sadly remained overlooked. The quiet “(It’s Hard) Letting You Go” is one of Bon Jovi’s best ballads ever, because it’s so understated, with the actual vocal delivering the song.
The best song is the brilliant “Something To Believe In”. If I was going to pick one song as the absolute peak of Bon Jovi’s entire career, it could be this one (tied with “Dry County”). Driven by some sparse dark bass and piano, it soon picks up the pace. Richie’s backing vocals punctuate Jon’s powerful chorus beautifully, and you won’t be able to get that “Hey! hey! hey!” out of your head.
Yeah, I’m a sap. I love this album!
I like Eddie Vedder best.
What really sets These Days apart are the sweet harmonies of Jon and Richie. They’ve always done great work together vocally but These Days is a whole level beyond that. If you are a fan of Richie Sambora, I think you will enjoy These Days. In a very real sense I think this represents Sambora’s greatest contributions to Bon Jovi.
This new remastered edition has two live bonus tracks, which unfortunately are both ballads. “This Ain’t A Love Song” is one, I guess because it was the hit single. Shame they didn’t use “Hey God”. “Diamond Ring” is the other live ballad. This one was a bit of a cult song I guess. They wrote it back in the days of New Jersey and almost released it, a few times. It got bootlegged and became an underground favourite. This live version is recorded in Italy. It’s great to hear Jon and Richie singing together like this, but again, I wish they put on a rocker instead of a ballad. Richie’s guitar solo is awesome though.
My preferred edition, which I will cover in a separate future review, is the European 2 disc edition. In a beautiful magnetic digipack, it contained lots of bonus tracks: “All I Want Is Everything”, “Bitter Wine”, “Fields Of Fire” (Demo), “I Thank You”, “Mrs. Robinson”, “Let’s Make It Baby” (Demo), “I Don’t Like Mondays”, “Crazy” (live, lead vocals by Tico Torres), “Tumblin’ Dice” (live, lead vocals by David Bryan), “Heaven Help Us All” (live, lead vocals by Richie Sambora).
There are other editions with bonus tracks, including an Australian edition with a live CD (this is on my “want” list). There were plenty of singles, and I’ll cover each of those in future reviews as well, because they each contained notable bonus tracks. One was a track called “Lonely At The Top”, which to me sounds like it’s about Frances Bean Cobain. It has the lyric, “Tell Frannie I’m sorry she didn’t get to know her dad.” There was even a (great) cover of “Rockin’ In The Free World”, as well as a cover of “634-5789”, which featured Jon cracking up and laughing right in the middle of a verse!
So there you go. Get this album, but buy wisely. Choose an edition that suits your bonus track needs (or lack thereof).
5/5 stars for the album, -1 for this ripoff edition!
Below, pictures and tracklists for all the singles that I have from this album, as well as the Special Edition 2 CD set from 1996. It was a digipack with a neat magnetic clasp to keep it closed.
mikeladano.com 
I bought this when it was first released and well it left me puzzled,I don’t know what it was but I just did not find it very good as after the opening track I lost interest. Having said that Keep The Faith I found my attention starting to drift as well except for Dry County and Keep The Faith which to this day I find as very strong tracks..who knows was I moving on? I guess,perhaps after reading your review I should dig it out again and spin it!
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Well Deke I’m in agreement with you on Keep the Faith. For the most part those are the two songs I coming back to. Also I Believe.
I think These Days is the last Bon Jovi album with real artistic integrity.
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Artistic integrity? Like when he lost the poodle hair and started wearing flannel during the grunge period because, really, he was headed in that direction anyway? Hahaha yeah SURE.
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As Motley Crue said, “Don’t judge by the hair and image – judge us by the albums.”
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Didn’t they steal that line from Metallica?
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No it’s from Guitar World May 1994 issue.
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Did you have that memorized, or did you have to go look it up?I was so sure that was Lars’ reply to the reaction to Load and Reload. Haha but don’t fret, man. I’m just yankin’ yer chain.
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The honest answer is I had it memorized :)
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An exhaustive review and a ton of photos, well done sir. It’s obvious you like this one! I owned it, back in the day. I used birthday money to buy it. It was good enough, I suppose, though it surprised me – I hadn’t been playing the home game with these guys’ albums, and this one sort of hit from left field – I was used to the older stuff. Still, strong songs, like you said.
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The last great Jovi album. Still like this one… might even be my most listened to of theirs. Especially like the opener, title track and Something to Believe In. Shame the reissue is a ripoff.
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I guess I could agree with the artistic integrity comment,I know what your trying to get at…they shifted gears from Jersey to Faith than another shift from Faith to These Days…I see the point they were advancing and not getting into a same ol same ol approach to there sound and I respect that..but man the focus on most of the singles at the time were the ballads….
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Yeah this is true. Which is a shame because songs like Hey God were just as heavy as some of the better stuff from Keep the Faith. Ahh well.
Regardless, whenever the change happened, what is now touring as Bon Jovi is really very bland and faceless to me.
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Yeah absolutely Mike…
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‘Bland and faceless’ – one of the great tragedies in music, for whatever reason that’s what the crowds want to see! Nice review – I remember hearing Hey God and thinking, wow that’s a change of pace! Never had the album though, I’ll have to check it out.
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What can I say except I like it? If others don’t I can understand why, there’s a lot of ballads and slow things, but I think it’s the last great Bon Jovi album.
Having said that I do like the Bounce album, which is pretty heavy, and I’ll take a look at that one in the future.
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In my opinion, Keep The Faith was the last great Bon Jovi album. This has its moments for sure. I can find 5 or 6 really good songs, As My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms might be one of the best songs they ever recorded, but the rest of the album is goes from mediocre to boring to crap. This is where the downfall started and they did never recover.
Today’s version of Bon Jovi are a joke!
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We agree on that part! I like this one though, I kind of consider this to be the last one before the downfall, although the softening up started here.
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First of all, Richie Sambora with a mustache and beard is tragic! Second of all, thankfully, I don’t care about the bonus tracks (I’m just happy to get the album). Third of all, great review! One slight criticism, “Something to Believe In” sucks and if anything, I’m glad to have the “hey, hey, hey”‘s out of my head lol! “Hey God” is amazing and they should play that one live more! I love “Hearts Breaking Even” too, it’s fun to sway my head back and forward to.
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Ouch, harsh take on Something to Believe In! I think I’m going to play it now just to get my fill of “hey hey hey”!
I played this album last week, and all the B-sides. There are some amazing B-sides. There is one written for Kurt Cobain’s daughter called Lonely at the Top that is very good.
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Well, I’m glad my comment made you want to listen to the song again!
I listened to “Money at the Top” now and this is just my opinion, but it’s a bit slow and depressing. But that’s probably because I’m not a Nirvana fan.
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I’m very very late again to one of your threads. Just like that Pyromania cassette one. But I had to say this, Mike. These Days is not just Bon Jovi’s best album, it is one of the most complete, coherent and beautifully crafted albums in Rock history.
Bon Jovi’s better albums (Keep the Faith and These Days) have been a victim of the band’s own ability to write sinfully catchy stadium rock anthems like no one ever could, or still can. So the critics never warmed up to them, and as a result it became traditional wisdom that Bon Jovi were not a band you take seriously. But then traditional wisdom is almost always, bollocks. The entire world has slept on this album.
These Days is not an album that reaps immediate satisfaction. Esp if you go in expecting “Bon Jovi”. You give it time, and listen to it without distractions, the entirety of it, focus. If someone does this at least four times and still doesn’t like it, that person shouldn’t be let near well crafted music ever again.
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Hi Kumar!! Wow, thanks for another terrific comment. You are pretty much bang-on correct. I find myself defending my love of this album a lot. I hear the same complaint – “too soft”! Well, it’s definitely not too soft compared with the band today!
I do disagree about one this. I did get immediate satisfaction on These Days. I loved it from Day One. It just hit me!
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Oh you’re right, it hit me immediately as well. I was talking more from the perspective of a casual fan (the one who listened to all the big singles on MTV and probably bought CrossRoad) or the fan who just wanted more of Slippery and New Jersey and just binned it after 20 minutes. That’s why the large window of 4 focused, complete listening sessions :p
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That was my first year of working at the Record Store (94-95) and although I was not surprised, I was disappointed it didn’t sell out quickly like other albums that year. But I sure did play it in store a lot.
I think today my favourite song is “Something to Believe In”. That “Hey! Hey! Hey!” refrain is simple and perfect.
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I was in the High School at the time. I actually gifted the album to a lot of my friends on their birthdays that year. Needless to say, their reactions mirrored a lot of what I read on this thread. Not helping was the confusion that I, the designated “metalhead” of the group was pushing them to give this a chance. Half of them probably thought I was joking or trying to trick them into wasting their time.
Something to Believe In is a masterclass in songwriting. The only thing better BJ have done is Dry County. The vocals towards the end where Jon holds the “somethiiiinnng” and finishes with a blood curdingly powerful “to believe in” gives me chills to this day.
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