After a very limited release schedule of new music in the 90s, Bon Jovi became a different beast at the start of the 2000’s releasing more frequently. Almost yearly.
Was it the Napster effect?
100% it was.
When fans of music could get their music fix for free or by cherry picking from the iTunes Store, it meant the old business model of living off the royalties of your past successes and releasing music every two to five years was challenged and a new way was needed. Suddenly not a lot of people wanted the album, just the “hits”.
And because of the internet, people moved on to different artists and sounds quicker than ever before. So in order to stay relevant and in the public conversation, artists had to release more frequently. Which Bon Jovi did.
There was no escaping “Crush” released in 2000. “It’s My Life” was everywhere and Bon Jovi had another Super Bowl title win with this song. It’s no surprise that the hitmeister of the day, Max Martin co-wrote the song, in the same way Desmond Child co-wrote a lot of the Jovi hits back in the 80s and early 90s. I even got “Collectors Edition 05686”, whatever that means.
And I got all the singles from this album because they had so many unreleased tracks on them. Check em out.
“One Wild Night Live 1985–2001” came out in 2001 and I purchased it, to hear Jovi, still firing on all cylinders.
“Bounce” released in 2002 is one of my favorite Jovi albums. There is a lot of Dropped D riffing, it’s heavy and it’s angry. It’s written post September 11 and everyone who saw those images of the planes hitting the towers could forget em.
And I purchased the singles because they had a lot of B sides to them. Something that Jovi was doing really well.
“This Left Feels Right” came out in 2003. Sambora went to town here, re-interpreting all the classics in an acoustic folky way.
“100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong” is one hell of a box set, released in 2004. This is the jewel in the Jovi crown. There is so much history on this.
“Have a Nice Day” came out in 2005 and it had some cool tunes on it as well. I’ve got the Aus Edition with bonus tracks and a DVD I haven’t played.
“Lost Highway” released in 2007 was interesting, because I liked it. I liked the ballsy change to country rock.
“The Circle” was released in 2009 and after the GFC so it had songs on it about the working man doing it tough. It was interesting how people took offense to Jovi even attempting to write an album like this while he was so far removed from the working man.
Regardless, it still had some cool tunes on it and I was still on board.
Coming up is my Jovi collection from 2010 to 2020.
destroyerofharmony 
This is the decade where I started off liking them but just gradually started to lose interest… Crush and Bounce definitely had good stuff and they were doing great shows back then. The box set was awesome too. But by the end of the decade I was getting bored with them. The Circle was the last album of theirs I bought. Cool collection, I never really looked into singles back then… feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff!
Just to clarify… I already was a fan at the start of the 2000s. Just realised the way I wrote that looked like I started getting into them in 2000.
Nah I got that you were a fan.
I should have stopped at The Circle as well.. but I kept on going for a few more because of Dry County. And the focus they gave the singles early on, ceased to continue after HAND.
I’ve not even heard more than a few songs since then. But nothing I’ve heard has made me want to hear more!
Dry County is brill. The was a Madison Square Gardens DVD that was filmed around 08/09 or so… great version of it on that!
I thought I was reading a Mike Ladano post with all the singles and everything haha.
Scott is right you have a cool collection here Pete and thanks for sharing all this Australian only discs.
Cool stuff
I’ve been noticing that Mike Ladano has been posting some Jovi recently as well. I think Jovi did the CD singles early on in the decade very impressively.
Mikey is huge into the singles and rare tracks like yourself
You guys have the bases covered
This is awesome stuff. Love those singles. I liked this version of Jovi up until Have a Nice Day. After that, I have pretty much checked out. Nothing good since…IMO. This reminds me, I still need Have a Nice Day on Vinyl, one of the only ones I am missing.
I agree. I kept going with a few more albums to see. But I really checked out once Sambora checked out,
Yeah, good time to get out.
Goood reading