In case you haven't noticed it, the price of concert tickets have gotten out of hand lately. There was recently some kind of legislation that was supposed to fix it, but if you have bought tickets in the past couple of months, you likely never noticed it. This isn't a new thing either. It has been slowly getting worse and worse over the past couple of decades.
Given that fact, it's often a rare treat to be able to attend an artist's show even once in your life. Then, there are those extra special bands that for whatever reason you have seen more than once. Of the dozens of concerts I have attended in my life, there are probably only about ten that I have seen more than once. Give or take.
If you are a new reader, you might wonder what any of this has to do with a dog. Well, just give me a second. As much as it can cost to see a specific artist twice, there are also those artists that you love so much that you would go multiple times, no matter the cost. Bon Jovi just happens to be one of those artists. I think I have seen them at least three or four times and my wife has seen them probably five or six times.
In fact, my wife loves them so much that we named our dog Jovi when she was still with us, so there you go.
There is a good chance you have heard of Bon Jovi before, and there is also a good chance that you know all of their hit songs. Those anthems and ballads that hit the scene in the 80's and are still relevant and loved today.
Today though, for #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze, I want to dig into some of their lesser known stuff. There is a whole era of music between the big hits that I don't feel gets the recognition it deserves.
When the whole grunge thing started to take hold in the 90's and early 2000's, many bands had to make a choice. The majority of hair metal bands either broke up, or just kept doing what they had been doing. Of course, there were also a few who tried to lean into the new grunge sound, but for the most part failed pretty miserably. In fact, they were so forgettable, I can't think of a single one to give you as an example. Bon Jovi on the other hand decided to kind of recreate themselves and avoid the whole grunge sound while still holding onto their rock roots.
The album Crush came out in 2000 and while you might recognize the songs "It's My Life", and "Thank You For Loving Me", most of the other songs on the album never hit the radio. "Just Older" is one of those songs that was pretty great, but never got the mainstream traction that it deserved.
With my birthday looming in the near future, I felt it was pretty appropriate to share this song today. It was a hard toss up between this and the David Bowie inspired "Captain Crash & The Beauty Queen From Mars". If you get a chance, listen to that one on your own. A little homework for you!
In 2002 Bon Jovi followed up the album Crush with Bounce. This is probably the point where Bon Jovi started to lose the limelight with mainstream radio, but that didn't mean that they were irrelevant. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that radio in general became fractured. There were so many new and different genres and stations had to start focusing on just a handful of artists. I wouldn't doubt there was a lot of money involved between the record labels and promoters as well.
You might have heard one of these songs if you were listening to a specific rock station, but for the most part, none of them probably ever got played on the radio except maybe "Everyday".
I picked the title track from the album "Bounce" because it's just a really great song. It has that classic Bon Jovi sound and it is a fun one to dance along to. It definitely has the "Have a Nice Day" feel to it if you listen really close.
After their brief dive into the world of country music with the Lost Highway album, Bon Jovi came back in 2009 with the album The Circle. I've gotta be honest, this is one of my favorite Bon Jovi albums of all time. I'd even hold it up there with some of the earlier stuff. There are so many good songs on this album that you have probably never heard before unless you are a real Bon Jovi fan. "We Weren't Born To Follow" did get a bit of radio play, and it is a really great song, but my favorite song from this album is "Superman Tonight" that I am sharing with you here.
If you ever get a chance, visit the Wiki page for some of Bon Jovi's albums and look at the track listing where they show who wrote each song. It will really give you a picture of just how amazing of a songwriting duo Jon and Richie Sambora were. It's sad that they can't figure out a way to reconcile all of the stuff.
So there you go. Those are my three songs for you this week and hopefully they are some tunes you have never heard from a band that you know quite well.
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