Richie Sambora!!!

I've just came across this interview on youtube...

What a great one! Richie is cheerful, outgoing, making jokes...but answering questions coherently, really in a very good shape. I miss those days.

https://youtu.be/mhVjFxiAIwQ

He doesn’t look or sound well in this clip��

I suddenly started wondering about the scale of things as they are. A thing that I came up with was to check up on the monthly listeners in Spotify: Bon Jovi 18,7 millions, Richie Sambora 137k and an obscure Finnish band from the 80's 20k (I am from Finland).

Obviously Richie has a huge part on the Bon Jovi listeners and this is just one of many ways to look at it. But still, I found it a bit stopping that basically as a solo artist, Richie is a nonentity. Orianthi has 300k and nobody cares about her.

I think Richie’s lack of Spotify listeners isn’t (just?) a lack of popularity. His solo discography isn’t overly big and he hasn’t released a solo album in nearly a decade.

I don’t know how many listeners Orianthi had last year, but she released a new album last year, so it would make sense if she gained some listeners because of that. (She’s also quite active on social media which gives her more exposure, especially amongst the people who are actually Spotify users.)

Bon Jovi also gained 2 million listeners since last fall (I know because I checked their monthly listeners to do some calculations when my Spotify Wrapped 2020 told me that I was amongst the top 0.001% Bon Jovi listeners that year ).

Additionally a significant portion of Richie’s fanbase probably doesn’t even use Spotify, so you’ve got a lot of people who just bought his music on iTunes or don’t listen to it digitally at all but rather on CD.

It’s gonna be interesting to see how his monthly listeners will change when he finally releases new material.


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He looks and sounds absolutely fine in this clip. Sure he's lost some weight and when you lose weight as you get older it does age people. Remember the guy is 62!

Spot on - last time he released an album I doubt much more than 5% of his fan base would have been using spotify. I know I wasn't. Rock fans were/are one of the last to move to digital & streaming. The numbers are dissapinting, true, but I think we need to judge it after he has released a new album. You will get a true reading after that.

It's a tough thing to compare Richie and Ori streaming wise. Richie has had buckets of hits but none under his own name, Ori's had a hit under her own name and has a younger fanbase more likely so stream. At this point neither of them are THAT well known.

I don't think it's about sales at this point. I think it's just for the fun of making and releasing new music and playing some shows.

Despite Richie having a small fan base, they still shows minimal interest in his new music, and his shows still sell out, at least in Europe.

I think that's the key. I don't think Richie is thinking about the billboard or things like that. Thinking of Joe Perry for example.

Today, anyone can release their own music on iTunes and release a limited run of their albums in physical format.

You just have to wait for the right moment, and I think it's closer.

Joe Perry is a good comparison. He's the same sort of "celebrity" guitarist from a big rock band, with a fan base of a similar age. Although his solo stuff is nowhere near the quality of Richie's. On Spotify he has almost 54,000 monthly listeners compared to Richie's 137,000.

All very valid points. Another one probably is Richie's lack of solo releases. Even in fan circles (I mean regular ones, not the three or four crazy diehard users here ), he's more and more regarded as a has-been.
If some random music fan who might've liked Bon Jovi and Richie's solo stuff looks into it, they realize it's been 8.5 years since he left Bon Jovi 'cause he needed that artistic freedom and yet hasn't released a solo record ever since. It's been quite some time by now. If it was a band I had randomly followed from time to time, I'd also be lead to believe that he simply isn't into making music anymore.