2020: The New Album

I will say that I hope Shanks drops the dreamy,echo-y reverb sound soon, it's way over-done. Works in some cases but really repetitive. And I adore Phil's Beautiful Drug solo. I wish Brothers in Arms had a more complex solo then just repeating that riff again and again.

Agreed. I wish we could see Phil and David more involved in the whole process.

I gotta say my favorite song in The Circle is Brokenpromiseland (Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks and Desmond Child).

There’s a couple of other bootleg video sites still going one being Jovi bootlegs, if any anyone needs there live Jovi fix.

I’ve suspected what @liljovi93 has said re Jerry and being on Bon Jovis pay roll. He gets info way before it’s in the public domain like dates of releases, changes to track lists.
He is definitely a Bon Jovi influencer. No one could be that positive and have so much info about everything the band do.
Some of the info he puts out you think how would you know that without being involved with the band.


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3 days out of the board and what I missed!
I saw the other day that tweet to Matt asking to remove the videos but didnt knkw that behind that Jovi fan account was Jerry.
That guy is not right in the head.It is clear that he is mentally unbalanced.
If I was on the Jovi camp Id be careful about him.
A person whos life is only say everything BJ does is perfect,who has no sense of criticism is nothing but a fanatic in the bad sense of the word,like the religious fanatics.
Ive blocked him a long time ago.

The problem for me is that Richie's playing was completely based on the blues, and that always shone through, whatever he style was playing. I hear zero blues in Phil's playing. He's a fantastic player no doubt, but I think the foundations of what the Bon Jovi guitar sound was is missing.

However, I completely agree that letting him get more involved in the creative process would be a game changer, and maybe force Bon Jovi 2.0 to create their own sound, rather than a continuation of the bland, generic sound we've had for the last few records. Though 2020 was a step in the right direction on that front, sound wise, it needs to be taken much further and Phil could definitely be the key in that...

That's true, but based on his Drills stuff, I'm not sure I would want to hear that. I prefer blues or "bland" stuff as you call it...

It's a strange one with Phil, I think. He's clearly a very talented guitar player and when he's let loose (Keep The Faith, Always etc...) he does add a lot. However, for current Bon Jovi, I do think Shanks is suited to the style of music more. Don't get me wrong, I like the Beautiful Drug solo but even that one seems a little forced. The melodies to Blood In The Water & Luv Can are some of my favourite guitar work from the band in a long time and all of them seemed to be Shanks. The outro to Story Of Love was superb.

Same with Burning Bridges. I loved the guitar work on the album even though we didn't get a spectacular solo or anything. It just seemed more fitting.

Yet when I go to a live show, I do love when Phil X has a bit about him. Strange.

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This is my take on it too, yeah. I could see live, Shanks's playing is less impressive. It services the song well but in a live setting what he does doesn't have the energy and excitement when Richie was on his game. Phil brings that youthful faster playing.

It's a tricky tightrope to walk this late in the game.

I'm no fan of The Drills. I tried, I just couldn't get in to it. But as a player Phil X is much more than just that stuff. He wouldn't be writing the tunes himself like he does with The Drills either, just complimenting what Jon does, and maybe making it a little more diverse.