2020: The New Album

Changing the subject, and sticking to the new album. If finally the new single comes out later this month, we could get the album in May, being very optimistic at the end of April.

Phil X said he will do shows with The Drils in March, and the beginning of the 2020 Tour is June 10.

Maybe the album arrives in June?

Maybe it will be released when the election primaries are over?

Hate to disagree, Captain, but all of those things actually could be true at the same time. Jon has writing credits on LOAP; but he detested it so much that he didn't even want to finish the demo. He left David and Richie to do it. After co-writing every song on The Circle, IF Shanks and Jon took over control, and shut Richie down or kept him out of the loop when it got to the studio - as they obviously have with Phil X (except when Shanks went to bat for him) - then they may not have come to life the way Richie hoped they would or thought they should. Creative differences, if you will.

Remember Phil-X saying he played on all of the songs in the first batch? Have you heard him in the first two songs? He's obviously not going to be on Lower the Flag. Go back and read the account of that recording process; and note how they decided that the drums were hindering the progress of the song after Tico flew 3000 miles to record them. Is it really that far-fetched to think Richie may have been told something similar about the guitars, perhaps repeatedly?

Richie had writing and co-producer credits on WAN, too; but Jon said, very specifically, when he made such a big deal of Richie missing a rehearsal, that they needed to rehearse because the arrangements had been changed since they left the studio. It doesn't mean that Richie wasn't involved in the work process. It didn't give him anymore time off just because they decided to change things after the work was done.

I'm not saying any of that means it was the Jon-and-John show in every situation, either. But it does suggest that it may have occurred more often than we know; and that could very well be what caused some of the friction Richie referred to as "creative differences." It could also explain why Jon said that Richie "had 'issues' with stuff and just wouldn't show up anymore."

I do hear Phil on Unbroken, but like a lot of post 2000 material it's so watered down and character-less it doesn't have personality but that doesn't mean he didn't play on it. We're creating a narrative here that the band didn't play on the new songs simply because they're boring. David's name being absent completely from Lower The Flag is a clear sign of he wasn't there that day, that's ACTUAL evidence to go on, everything else is "I assume they didn't play on it because..."

I hear where you're coming from. But Richie did press saying he spent time crafting his guitar sound on The Circle and worked with Shanks to make guitar parts sound snyth-y for something different and raved about the time he had recording it. I hear him playing on every song, I see his name in the credits. I hear Shanks playing on it too but if I hear Richie's voice, hear his playing, see his name then that's a heavy involvement. WAN had much fewer Richie writing credits and his playing isn't as prevalent. If Richie is saying he spent 30 years with the band working with no breaks in between albums and tours I have a lot of trouble believing he wasn't as involved in the albums pre 2013.

O_O That contest's getting worse and worse.
I'm starting to think we're in front of an horrible song, unless JBJ's voice does magic >_< jaja.

The new chorus is pretty uninspired isn’t it.
Just repeating Limitless.


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Jon is good making melodies. Keep calm.

I'm just saying it could be a matter of degree. You said all of those statements couldn't be true and I'm saying they could be true to some degree. We know Richie was involved on everything through WAN. The question is how much influence did he have; how involved was he - qualitatively, not quantitatively. If you hear Richie's influence as much on The Circle as you've heard it on other albums in the past that's great. I'm not saying you're wrong. I do know people have complained about the lack of long guitar solos and interesting guitar work - to the extent that they suggested maybe Jon had to use Shanks more because Richie was too trashed or didn't care enough to show up; so it sounds like there were some people who didn't hear his influence as much as you did. I'm not guitar-savvy enough to have an opinion on that one way or the other.

Jon said that there was a time when he and Richie had been so tight in the studio that David couldn't get a word in edgewise; but that Richie hadn't been that involved in the three records prior to THINFS because it was him and Shanks who were joined at the hip. I could argue that point and say that I know Richie was involved on WAN because he tweeted multiple times about trips back to the East Coast to work with Jon on the album while he was working on AOTL. But the truth is I have no way of knowing how much he did while he was there; I just know that he apparently put in the time.

I'm not creating a narrative to say the band didn't play. They're clearly in the credits for Unbroken. You said it was Shanks on the guitar in Limitless and you hoped Phil was playing rhythm. Jon named the players on Lower the Flag. I just said it doesn't seem like there's been a lot of band involvement (read: creative influence) in what we've heard so far. But that's just my opinion and I could be 150% off-track about it.

Love that line. Jon's no Mick Jagger and there's a reason for that. I'd say Richie's better respected in the guitar community than Jon is, in the singer/songwriter community.

Yeah, but Bon Jovi as a band have never been about the respect of the professionals. They were "the people's" band. And I kinda assume Richie was fine with that.

In multiple interviews, I've always got the impression that they wanted that elusive respect real bad. When songwriting hall of fame award beckoned, both went "to be recognized by your peers means the world" ad nauseam; and I don't think any musician cared about the RnR HoF induction than Jon did.
And I agree, they WERE the people's band.