Have to say the picture in your signature is pretty funny.

I remember Box Set videos of 2004 in the studio. Jon and Bobby were recording the guitars. No David... No Tico... No Richie... I guess if we have another box set for this year, Jon and Bobby are finished the songs with the help of other musicians. Not surprise me that Phil is in this, maybe that's why he was invited to join The KOS.

Actually, there're videos of the whole band doing one. There's even a funny one where Richie mocks Jon.

Edit: here it is . But maybe it's from the rehersals for that show they played songs from the boxset.

It was a Soundcheck. Borgata concert.

Just edited to say that, thanks for the info. Still, wouldn't be nothing weird. Bandiera has solos in Have A Nice Day and Phil X played in the lastest compilation.

Correct. Bobby has had some solos on the HAND Album, I think Wildflowers is one. And others who do not know. I think Phil recorded some guitars for What do you got. But is similar to Richie's demo, I mean it's the same guitar solo, just with more layers.

See now it's a whole new issue. To me it's not Bobby touching up band tracks, it's the band releasing music that was Jon only and marketing it as full band. I have no qualms with Bobby adding guitars to I Get a Rush only because Richie had zero to do with the song in the first place. Didn't co-write it, didn't play on it, didn't sing on it so Bobby finishing a song he played however many years ago sits fine with me.

If you were to say to me "Richie didn't play on this list of songs, just did the solo and backing vocals" from the last decade I would not be shocked.

Well, there are songs in the last decade that we know is Richie who plays guitar, his licks and solos are recognizable. That's why most songs Box Set 2004 does not have great guitar solos, because practically Jon and Bobby with the help of Obie reconstructed those songs. But I agree with you.

I have no doubt that the drums and keyboards are added in 2004. But do not think all songs was completely redone. Even in the box set, you can recognize guitars solos and licks made ​​by Richie. Possibly were recorded when they began the demos in his era.

Anyway, the box set 2004 has a lot of JBJ's solo songs.

Oh at no point was I saying the majority of the songs were reconstructed on the box set. The majority of them have Richie's involvement, I'm talking 2005 forward. I've always had this hunch that Richie had little to do with the 4 "new" HAND tracks, a part from solos and backing vocals. WAN I really think it was the same. Majority of the guitar work done by Shanks and solos and backing vocals (and some random guitar parts and over dubs) by Richie. You can easily tell which riffs are Richie and which aren't.

Completely agree. Dirty Little Secret, These Open Arms and Nothing were more authentic than Last Cigarrete, Novocaine, Story of My Life and Complicated. Wildflowers was a JBJ song. Unbreakable sounded artificial, ok, but it would still be fun to finish the album.

Yea, I've been reading all along and I agree too.

Also added, with Richie living in LA and Jon in NYC / NJ he's not going to have Richie come out for session work plus I'm sure he comes with a price.

Bobby being a local guy is more convenient and comes much cheaper. This has always been Jon's band and being that's the case, I would think he pays guys to come in and lay down tracks, even for demos. Unless they do it out of the kindness of their hearts. My guess would be sometimes yes, sometimes no.

That'd be sad reasoning on the band's part if that's the reason they use Bobby, to save money on a plane ticket. Demos sure, final album versions should never have outside players playing big parts. Weren't the four HAND additions LA tracks?

Jon should keep Bobby around for solo work only. Though I firmly think it's more Shanks playing the parts than it is Bobby.

I get a bit confused with Crossroad and These Days recording sessions. From what I quickly read here - Always and Saturday Night were recorded after These Days as its last recording session? And that was in March of 1994. Sorry, I might not have understood it correctly or just skipped something but it doesn't make sense. It's not a surprise for me that it was Hugh playing the bass but I thought Alec was fired/left after Crossroad was released, so it couldn't be mentioned in the article that Hugh replaced him. Why would they wait from March 1994 to June 1995 to release the album? March 1994 also doesn't make sense in terms of writing and recording for 11 months when KTF tour ended in fall of 1993. And it also couldn't be March 1995 because Always and Saturday Night had already been released by then.
Sorry too confused. Id there anyone who can retell the story with a proper timeline?

Btw, I love those stories, I love reading those old interviews where you can still feel the passion music. No mention of politics and crap like this. Just music. Awesome music.

Boxset - I wouldn't be surpised if it was tweaked in the studio. I still like even though there are many Jon's solo songs. I'd love to learn more about the whole process of preparation for release. Or would I? Knowing too much sometimes kills the fun. When I thought that Jon is the best singer in the world, the boys are a family where everyone loved each other and I had a few amazing live shows, I was much happier with music and the band itself than I'm now :D And it's being slowly revealed (for me) that there always were some issued between them or at least Richie and Jon, some of the fanclub magazines prove it. It hasn't always been so idyllic.

No, Always and Saturday Night were cut for inclusion as b-sides from a single from These Days, we're not talking about the original recordings.

So they simply re-recorded those two songs in March 1995? Now it makes sense, apart from that I don't know the reason why?

From the scans I understood that Saturday Night was originally meant to be on These Days and when the recording company convinced Jon to release a greatest hit album they used it there along with Always which had been written (and recording by Jon alone) during the KTF tour and was meant as something like Blaze OF Glory, Jon's solo soundtrack record. The lyrics were also written according to the movie. And because the movie being crap, Jon pulled it. However he liked it enough to make it a band song for Crossroad. That's probably why the lyrics don't correspond with the videoclip. It now kinda fits and makes sense :)

Yeah, as I read this they did "live in the studio-versions" of both Always and Saturday Night for inclusion as B-Sides on TD-related singles.
As far as I know only Always (live at A&M studios) saw the light of day on some This Ain't A Love Song singles, tough.

There's a What Do You Got demo floating around?

Don't underestimate studio pros. Solos are one thing, but emulating Richie's licks isn't that hard when the songs feature almost none of them.

There's an alternate version of What Do You Got that accidentally leaked online a few years ago. It was never confirmed to be a demo and it was a theory we all had here. My gut says Phil just played some rhythm work on the final version. That solo melody is pure Richie.

The "demo" version leaked online was recorded with Shanks during The Circle sessions... Phil X was brought in when they re-recorded the song with Howard Benson in August 2010.

Let's call it an alternative version:

Did we ever get confirmation on that? I seem to remember this version popped up on a random music site and that's theory we all went with. I recall Jon saying the 3 songs were written for the GH and This Ain't Love was the only leftover track from The Circle.

Didn't know about that one, thanks!

I like the final arrangement better. The chorus has more punch in it, and the guitar slides in the chorus are a nice touch.

Since the tone and "idea" of the solo is pretty much the same as in the final version (and also slide-ish), I'm kinda puzzled as to why the slides in the chorus were added later.

What Do You Got was also started during The Circle sessions:

"Bon Jovi says two of the new songs, the single "What Do You Got?" and "This Is Love, This Is Life," were started during "The Circle" sessions but didn't fit the album and were finished for "Greatest Hits," along with "This Our House," an MP3 download premium for those pre-ordering the album. The other two, "No Apologies" and "The More Things Change," were written specifically for the compilation."
http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...cle-tour-wraps

And the alternate version was uploaded to Soundcloud by an official Universal account:
https://soundcloud.com/umpg/bon-jovi-what-do-you-got

Also, I remember Jon saying "we re-recorded What Do You Got the same week we released it" (sorry, I don't have a link for this).

So you're right, we never had an official confirmation, but based on all these elements I'd say our theory is pretty accurate.

Story of my Life is a great and underrated song. I love it! Complicated might not be the best they've wrote but it fits the whole record.

They're really a year late on calling this an anniversary edition. No 1 glamorizes a 26 year milestone...

Oh cool, I didn't know ANY of that. Yep, that sounds dead on then. Thanks!

Wow that alternate What Do You Got sounded like an a cappella version at the start.

According to the most recent article that Becky posted, Jon wrote 15 of the 30 songs himself for KTF. My collection has 26 songs listed so I'm missing 4.

Aside from that, does anyone know the 15 songs that Jon wrote himself?

I agree completely... especially with Story. Great Bon Jovi song.

It's not perfect, but HAND is still easily the best record the band has released in the past 15 years. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, the last 20 years.

DLS and Nothing Should Have been on the album, Wildflower should have been dropped. Not a fan of Unbreakable at all. These Open Arms is pretty good, though.

I just pre ordered the NJ Super Deluxe on iTunes and downloaded the two demos available. It's my first time hearing both and it's gotten me pretty excited about the release.

This is now my fourth time buying this album. Lol. Got it in cassette, then on CD, then the '99 remaster, and now this. Smh.

How is the quality of the demos you got off of iTunes versus the "versions" we are used to?

The I tunes version is better.

Is the new jersey super deluxe version available in the UK? I can't seem to find it anywhere to pre order apart from Amazon and its 75 quid!

New Jersey: Amazon.co.uk: Music

New Jersey: Amazon.co.uk: Music

Thanks guys :)

Out of interest does anyone think that New Jersey Deluxe will be on Spotify?

Eventually but not right away.... hopefully