#25 - I Want to Be Loved

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Have A Nice Day
Other Versions: There's a version of the first verse/chorus with slightly different lyrics - not hugely different, but it is different.
Era: current "power pop rock"

Lyrics

I am a sucker for the talkbox. Another one of those inexplicable "I just like it" kind of things. It's a quick way for a song I don't like to earn some brownie points.

I don't particularly like this song. I don't necessarily dislike it, I just can't really get into it. The lyrics are a bit teeny-bopper - it sounds like something Avril Lavigne would write. Do people still listen to her? Musically I've kind of regressed into the 80s, I have no idea what most teenagers listen to. I'll stick with the Avril comment.

But I digress. The point is, Bon Jovi's albums as whole works, and usually the songs individually, have always represented really well where they are as people. The first two sound like music a group of young 20-somethings would make in '84/'85, SWW and NJ are a bit more mature, KTF and These Days are very 30-something "innocence is gone/life is different" music, and their 2000s stuff is very "older wiser looking back" kind of music. So such a teenager theme - "I hate my parents/My parents are awful" - just seems out of place.

Not that I doubt the sincerity of the lyrics, although I know that's what it sounds like. I refuse to claim I know what the guys were feeling when they wrote any song, because I'm not them. What I will say is if there's anything on this album that smells a bit of a strong desire for commercial success and high album sales rather than artistic vision, this and Complicated are it. But that's only if.

All that said - it has talkbox. Talkbox used very well. It's a fun sing-along song, and I bet it's a fun driving song. Musically it's average, lyrically it's a bit below, but remember how I said talkbox = points?

My Rating: 6/10 (without talkbox, we're looking at a 4.5...at least I'm honest about my standards)

Edited 3/25/06: Added lyrics