New Studio Album - Forever

river runs dry is a great song.

Crush deffo had a lot of Jons left over solo stuff on it

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Totally. I remember in promo interviews for Bounce (I think it was Metal Edge magazine?) Jon saying the difference between Crush and Bounce's songs was Crush was a half Jon record and half Jon and Richie and Bounce was a full Jon and Richie album

Bounce era was pretty cool. It's kinda soured by the fact that it could have been even better and then got bookended by a very derided live document instead of something more substantial... but it's the last album where certain things were still in place. Actual demos and b-sides, for one.

True! But with HAND and LH there's still a lot of bonus tracks, duets,... It was a productive era too... With The Circle things get worse: short album, more less bonus tracks,... A few great tracks but it feels like something is missing....

"This Ain't Love, This Is Life" is technically from The Circle and was dropped as to not "get too little attention", so it was relegated to Deluxe Edition Only status for a greatest hits... such a shame, it might be my favorite track from the The Circle era.

it's a shame indeed, even if it's not one of my favorite, it's a solid track... But the saddest thing about this track is the optimistic change into the lyrics... "This ain't love, This is life" means something more interesting than "This is Love, This is Life"... A lot of bad choices were made after LH, in my opinion...That's the beginning of my feeling "The band doesn't feels/sounds like a band anymore" and year after year, sadly, it gets worse...

The Circle was the absolute height of Jon's asshole years IMO; the whole "I am not the singer, I am the CEO!" schtick plus that documentary where he went on record to state as much time and time again.

It certainly hasn't aged well, with his most important employee walking out, the CEO himself being unable to do his *other* job (i.e. singing in tune), the brand taking a hit... Plus "lol i am no rock n roller i am a BUSINESSMAN : DDD" not being the best look at all, like, AT ALL, in lieu of two economic crashes within the last 15 years

I don't know if I'd say getting the demos of songs as b-sides was that usual up until Bounce anyway though. Any demos we got of songs that made the albums, we had through non-released means. I'd say the last era we got where it was a barrage of "what didn't make the cut" was THINFS. Between the b-sides and Burning Bridges, we had enough to make a second album.

I meant "demos" as in "rejected but demoed tracks" such as Postcards From The Wasteland, or the These Days b-sides.

But Bounce especially saw Undivided/One, Everyday and All About Loving You released in demo form.

The documentary always bothered me. I applaud Jon for getting to understand the business side of things, and diving into it fully, not many musciains do. But he just came across as too much of a business man, almost to the point where the music was a secondary concern, and it made him seem cold. It wasn't a good look for him, in my opinion. There's was little balance. A world away from the man he was in Access All Areas, which is fine, we all change and grow up, but he just seemed...dull...and the band didn't really seem that close like they did in Access. A lot of it felt forced for the cameras.