Borderline with Richie Sambora on vocals

I was thinking the same. Could be, as he was also using Rosie and he cowrote some tracks with David Bryan for the album. But on the other hand I dont think these recordings belong to the BJ vault. I dont expect Obie just to play some Richie solo stuff.

And lets face it we dont have much Richie vocal recordings from this era to compare it with. A demo version of Never Say Goodbye and some live stuff but thats a total different setting.

I do agree though it sounds a bit more modern than 1986. Perhaps because its a 2024 mix?

Obie has been rumored to have been involved in leaking the cassettes that later became known as Sessions From The Vault. They included some of Richie's demo takes as well. So he may have had them.
Or they had carried on the track for whatever reasons into the 90s like they had done with Let's Make It Baby. There's many options, I doubt they themselves know it anymore.

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When did that Obi leak happen? Those Stranger rehearsal recordings were certainly circulating in the early 90s.

Never knew Obie was involved in the leak. I bet it was not his intention? Because I asume Jon was not very happy with that and they still work together.

The thing is Borderline was already released by the band in november 1986 as a single. As an A-side. I see no reason and no clues they had plans to re-do it. All this speculation is funny but its getting a bit of the rails.

I have to agree. Let's Make It Baby and Diamond Ring kept being reworked because they were never finished, and never released. I can't think of another track that they went back to and re-worked after it had already been fully recorded and released (not including TLFR versions, Acoustic versions, etc). Once they were released, they never went back to them again. I find it stange that they would revisit Borderline. I really don't think Richie would have considered it for Stranger.

But it's fun to speculate and I guess we will probably never know the real story behind this...

Let's Make It Baby and Diamond Ring were somewhat low key, sparsely arranged. Borderline has blaring 80s synth. I don't really see them revisiting that one post 1991.

Exception: 2004 box set re-recordings

I actually bought the Japanese import Borderline maxi single back in the 80’s.

This has always made me curious : Why was it a single in Japan and nowhere else ? It was a final polished recording from the SWW sessions, it didn’t make the album, yet it was a single.

What is the rationale behind this ?

Mu guess...Japan often did cool exclusive releases, for many artists. At this point Borderline was unreleased in Japan (it was B-side to Bad Name in most countries. The live tracks are also from the UK blue vinyl of Bad Name.) and this was just a cool way of putting in out in Japan as a collectable release. Or maybe someone at the Japanese label thought the song would appeal to the audience there.

Japan would just do their own thing a lot of the time back then. That's why they had singles for album tracks like Burning For Love and Price Of Love.

Thank you. This makes sense to me.