How important were external songwriters for their succes?

Yeah I had a bootleg of this on CD in the early 90s. It was still available on Youtube a few weeks ago somewhere, I'll see if i can find it again.

Oh you beat me to it haha

Technically that's not correct. I remember about two years ago Desmond posted that he had been writing with Jon for a few days, but I guess nothing from those sessions made Forever, so I guess whatever spark they had back in the day is long gone - which would make sense since the last song that they wrote together that was released was "Amy Of One" which isn't great at all...

Ha, never occurred to me before - but I see what you mean!

Also Jon is credited on that Unholy Water song with Desmond and Butch Walker. I cannot wait to hear it.

Desmond writing with them and Hugh playing bass was pivotal to get the band on the "next level" which indeed was the "highest level".

Read somewhere Derek Shulmann forced Bongiovi to use outside writers because after 7800 the band owned money for the record company.

They filmed both Bad Name and Prayer videos during the same sessions in the summer of 1986 so there clearly was a master plan with those two singles.

And nothing on SWW comes close to them hit-wise. Bongiovi and Sambora sure had defined their craft and were able to write better (Wanted) but Desmond was needed many more times after Slippery to give that magical final touch on (intended) singles.

Speaking of Desmond… I just saw his latest post on FB. It was about This Is Our House. I actually never knew it was written by JB-RS-DC, who would have thought. I kind of thought it was merely just a leftover track that was used only as a background tape before the beginning of live shows by the time GH had just been released. But Desmond seemed to think of it quite highly.

I've always really liked This Is Our House. I had no idea DC was part of it either.

Wanted, I'll Be There For You, Bed Of Roses, Always, It's My Life

I don't know if I agree with the words needed or many. I think New Jersey was destined for success as Bon Jovi was one of the biggest bands on the planet upon it release.

Bad Medicine, Born To Be My Baby, and Keep The Faith is three times, I think Bad Medicine was mostly Jon and Richie? Keep The Faith doesn't really sound like the type of songs Desmond had been writing previously, so I don't know how involved Desmond was on that one; the guys from Live probably deserve more credit than Desmond on that one. I think Desmond said something along the lines of Born To Be My Baby wasn't as good as it should have been? This Ain't A Love Song certainly failed to have the kind of impact on album sales they were hoping for in comparison.

Prayer/Bad Name needed a star and Jon was that star. As I mentioned before I don't believe Living On Prayer by Loverboy would have been a phenomenon, just like If I Were A Woman by Bonnie Tyler wasn't a huge hit. You also can't discount how much Fairbairn's production elevated those songs. It was a combination of factors at the perfect time on MTV, not just Desmond,imo.

it was always kind of meh, for me.