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"You can't have a Greatest Hits without the GREATEST HITS"

So I posted an entry on my blog going into great detail about the new Greatest Hits album, and my opinions relating to said project. I wasn't going to post it here at first, but I figured what the hell. Feel free to totally disagree with me, and comment me here or there:

http://thelastsong2488.blogspot.com/...95422dc5cda007

Quote:

Over the last fews years, there's been an intense debate within the Bon Jovi fan community as to what the band should do about a new Greatest Hits album, and what it should contain. The debate has cooled recently, as said album has but has been delayed numerous times in favor of new studio records Lost Highway and The Circle. In recent weeks however, the rumors have picked up steam that said GH release will be released in time for 2010's Holiday Season, and the argument as exploded anew. Inspired by Anthony Kuzminski's latest Screen-Door blog Bon Jovi: Half Way There-The Greatest Hits, here's what I'd like to do with this blog is address most of the common concerns about the GH, talk about what I think the band should do, and how I think this set can be made to appeal to the die-hards.

Career Spanning vs. Post-Cross Road:
The most heated debate amongst Bon Jovi fans on this topic comes down to what time period a new hits record should feature. Many feel that the band should simply release a "Volume 2" to their 1994 Cross Road compilation, and only include songs from 1995-2009. Now I can understand why many fans feel this way, but I honestly believe they're thinking with their hearts, not their heads. Now, Bon Jovi have released enough albums in this period to piece together a single-disc compilation, especially if the band includes the rumored new tracks. But really, there would only be two or three tracks there to really appeal to casual fans. With the shape that the record industry is in now, it makes no sense for the band to minimize their appeal like that, especially when a majority of fans buying this compilation will want the hits they recognize, which (ESpeCIALLY in America) essentially boils down to "Livin On A Prayer", "You Give Love A Bad Name", "Wanted Dead Or Alive", "Bad Medicine", "Always", "It's My Life", and "Who Says You Can't Go Home." The Post-CR approach would remove 5 of those songs, which is a horrid idea in my opinion. Honestly, and putting all of my own bias on songs aside, the most lucrative Bon Jovi Hits Collection would probably look something like this:

1. Runaway
2. In And Out Of Love
3. You Give Love A Bad Name
4. Livin' On A Prayer
5. Wanted Dead Or Alive
6. Bad Medicine
7. I'll Be There For You
8. Born To Be My Baby
9. Lay Your Hands On Me
10. Keep the Faith
11. In These Arms
12. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
13. Bed Of Roses
14. *NEW SONG*
15. *NEW SONG*

1. Always
2. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
3. Something For The Pain
4. This Ain't a Love Song
5. These Days
6. It's My Life
7. Thank You For Loving Me
8. Misunderstood (US) / Everyday (Rest of The world)
9. Have a Nice Day
10. Who Says You Can't Go Home (US featuring Duet Version W/ Jennifer Nettles)
11. (You Want To) Make a Memory
12. Lost Highway
13. We Weren't Born To Follow
14. *NEW SONG*
15. *NEW SONG*

Tiered Approach:
While I think the above tracklisting is the best option for the band, I think the potential for a tiered release approach is interesting. For those unfamiliar, a tiered release would be releasing several different versions to appeal to everyone from the most casual fan to the die hards (who I'll get to later on). In this scenario, I can see something like this:

Single Disc (For The Most casual of fan)
1. Runaway
2. You Give Love a Bad Name
2. Livin' On A Prayer
4. Wanted Dead Or Alive
5. Bad Medicine
6. I'll Be There For You
7. Born To Be My Baby
8. Bed Of Roses
9. Always
10. It's My Life
11. Have A Nice Day
12. Who Says You Can't Go Home (US has duet)
13. Lost Highway
14. We Weren't Born To Follow
15. New Song

Double Disc (For someone wanting something more than the single disc)
1. Runaway
2. In And Out Of Love
3. You Give Love A Bad Name
4. Livin' On A Prayer
5. Wanted Dead Or Alive
6. Bad Medicine
7. I'll Be There For You
8. Born To Be My Baby
9. Lay Your Hands On Me
10. Keep the Faith
11. In These Arms
12. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
13. Bed Of Roses
14. *NEW SONG*
15. *NEW SONG*

1. Always
2. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
3. Something For The Pain
4. This Ain't a Love Song
5. These Days
6. It's My Life
7. Thank You For Loving Me
8. Misunderstood (US) / Everyday (Worldwide)
9. Have a Nice Day
10. Who Says You Can't Go Home W/Nettles (Duet in US)
11. (You Want To) Make a Memory
12. Lost Highway
13. We Weren't Born To Follow
14. *NEW SONG*
15. *NEW SONG*

Box Set (For the "completist")
Disc 1 and 2 are the same as the above Double Disc set.

Disc 3 ("Fan/live favorites")
1. Tokyo Road
2. Edge of a Broken Heart
3. Never Say Goodbye
4. Livin In Sin
5. Blood On Blood
6. Dry County
7. These Days
8. Just Older
9. Captain Crash and The Beauty Queen From Mars
10. The Radio Saved My Life Tonight
11. Last Man Standing
12. We Got It Going On (LIVE)
13. Whole Lot of Leavin'
14. When We Were Beautiful
15. Hallelujah (LIVE)

Disc 4 (DVD)
Preferably a live DVD, but could also go in the direction of all the band's music videos, or even the brilliant Access All Areas documentary from 1990.

The Die Hard Question:
Any Bon Jovi Die Hard reading this will notice that NONE of my ideas (even the Box Set concept) aren't super friendly to us, but frankly they're not supposed to be. A Greatest Hits collection is purposely built to bring in people who DON'T own every album a band as ever released. Now personally, while I'd love to have something catered very specifically to us, I can understand why we wouldn't get one this time. For starters, we've already gotten our major gift in the 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong Box Set, which featured essentially 4 full discs of never heard tracks, now it seems that the band is ready to cash in on their legacy. Now, speaking of legacy for a moment, I've heard the common complaint thrown about that a new GH would be whoring said legacy, but I completely disagree. Bon Jovi have never been one to do that release-wise, and in fact have only released Cross Road as far as compilations go. The only other releases that even come close are This Left Feels Right (Which is an "acoustic" re-imagining) and Tokyo Road (A compilation of the band's "rockier" tracks that was only released in Japan) Now, with all that being said, there are certainly ways that the band could make this collection appealing to Die Hards, and for evidence I prompt you to look no further than Fall Out Boy's 2009 hits comp. Believers Never Die. I know the idea of even using Bon Jovi and Fall Out Boy in the same blog will piss some of you off, but hear me out in this. The BND comp features every single the band released, all of which are owned by someone who has their discography. However, it also features 2 new songs, two hard to find rarities, a DVD featuring all of the band's videos, commentary by the band on EVERY video, new cover artwork, a large photo-filled booklet, and liner notes from each member of the band. I'm not saying these are the exact things that Bon Jovi should do, but rather simply the idea that a lot of work was put into the release.

Well, I think that's about it for now. I welcome any and all ideas and criticisms.

Personally I think the best way to cater to die-hards would be a double edition version of the (single CD) greatest hits with CD2 being completely unreleased tracks, even if it was just demo versions of the songs we know and love/like/loath.

Although I'd obviously rather have completely new songs!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crushgen24/88 (Post 1003122)

The tiered approach seems the best idea to me. The casuals would buy the 1 disc, and the bigger fans, like myself, would get the double disc. I personally think that they also could release a new GH 95-now and bundle it with Cross Road in one package or sell it separately. That would be the best value for people like me who already have Cross Road.

But we're not the people they're trying to cater to, that's really the point I think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crushgen24/88 (Post 1003133)

But we're not the people they're trying to cater to, that's really the point I think.

True, but just think. If it weren't for the people like us who go to their concerts time and time again to hear them play the same stuff, and who go buy all of their albums, and probably will keep going to their concerts until they die or we die, where would they be?

That's true, but we're not who this release is geared for. And honestly, we're not who this release should be geared for.

i think the band should follow aerosmith's route with the 'young lust' double disc compilation. that way there's enough room for all the classics, the more modern tunes and a few new tracks as well.
to include absolutely no classics does seem a bit of anti-climax.

Now that I think about it, I already have most of the tracks that would be on the GH album. I would only be interested in the new tracks.

If they come out with 2 disk version they have to price it reasonably
not many ppl outside die hard fans want to spend $25-$30 on a CD
One of the reasons boxset didnt sell well was the high cost
In some countries it was priced at $150

As someone said before, the 2-discs anthology is the best idea in my opinion. And since it will be over 100 minutes, it will go Platinum easier :D

Another idea would the Wal-Mart deal, that's what Journey and Kiss did in their latest releases.

Disc 1: New material
Disc 2: Greatest hits
Disc 3: DVD with live show

But I high doubt they made a lot of new songs.

Best regards,
the Sexx

They never tried to go out and do a 90's based set list on a tour, even at KTF Tour. There were times when they didn't do This Aint A Love Song for example and did BTBMB. They are too much obsessed with the 80's IMO.

And honestlly I prefer way better their 90's, its a lot more mature.

If they decide to go on a single disc 95-2010 compilation they'll have my support, but if they do 1985-2010 the fans in this board should stop bitching about the set lists.

Here's a question; why do we all care so much about having a greatest hits CD that caters to us die-hards?

We have all the songs, we can make up our own playlists/mixed cds with whatever combination of songs our heart desires.

What benefit does a 'die-hard' GH give us apart from making us feel good?

A GH should obviously cater to the broadest audience possible and cram in as many recognisable songs as it can.

All we should really worry about is getting new songs.

I thought this was a quote from one of the guys.....

Aloha !

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crushgen24/88 (Post 1003133)

But we're not the people they're trying to cater to, that's really the point I think.

Yes we are. If we really weren't they wouldn't put new songs on there in the first place. We very much are the group they try to cater to as well, as they know that album sales are bad and they want everyone to buy the greatest hits, not just the average Joe. Your whole blog inspired by another blog is wrong.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I think you're right that Greatest Hits don't do that well anymore because people already have the songs they want (casual fans). Cross Road was not only a decade ago, but combined several big hits with the super-smash hit "Always."

I think they should record a couple more new songs and pick the best of the bunch. Let's hope Jon's right about "This Ain't Love" being too good to release as a bonus track for The Circle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by crimson_05 (Post 1003171)

This is VERY TRUE. We already have all these hits that would be on the GH anyway. I mean, I have the studio version of Prayer, plus 3 live versions.I have the studio version of Bad Name, plus 2 live versions. And I also have a live version of almost all the BJ songs on my iPod. We can just get the new songs on iTunes and call it a day. Let BJ and the record lable figure it out.

I prefer something that complements Crossroad. If Crossroad is not OOP, then there is no point releasing something that replaces it. Want LOAP, Bad Name, Bad Rx? Get Crossroad. Releasing a career spanning double disc GH would be like VH releasing BOBW after BOV1. Sure it sold decently but it didn't make them more popular in any way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supersonic (Post 1003184)

Aloha !

Yes we are. If we really weren't they wouldn't put new songs on there in the first place. We very much are the group they try to cater to as well, as they know that album sales are bad and they want everyone to buy the greatest hits, not just the average Joe. Your whole blog inspired by another blog is wrong.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

The core group of people they're targeting this at are the type of casual fan who know several of the hits, and even who've seen the band in concert, but don't/won't own 11 studio albums. The new songs are clearly there to draw in their die hards and inflate album sales, but we're the sprinkles on the sundae in this scenario.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yomamasofat (Post 1003199)

I fully agree. That's totally my point too.

About the Van Halen issue: Calling the first GH "Vol. 1" seemed like a stupid idea in the first place. I already knew back then there would never be a "Vol. 2".

Crossroad is a fine GH of the old material and I don't see why it should get replaced.

First off... Well written and thought out.

I don't necessarily agree with your track listing though. What not "Everyday" in the us? It was a Grammy nominated song.

Although it's a "Greatest Hits" a band like Bon Jovi would want to represent each album with the anticipation of getting someone to buy that particular album. This would include the Box Set, OWN, TLFR, or even DA (solo). I could see Wanted 03 on there just like Prayer 94 was on Cross Roads. Or for Example, the logic if some really likes Radio Saved My Life Tonight, they would want to look into the box set. Remember, there is a marketing strategy behind everything...... Not saying they would def include these songs but it deserves a mention

There are also hits that never made it to Cross Roads that were never mentioned. When I go to concerts and see the younger fans singing Saturday Night b/ they think this was a huge hit being on CR (not realizing it was an added track) and then having no idea what song Living in Sin is, makes me nuts.

What I think they will most likely do is a double CD (hint: 5 new songs) of everything. It'll be priced fairly cheap at 12.99.

At this point, to really do Bon Jovi right, would be to release a 3 CD collection. To really include all hits. solo, live, box, etc. But that it'll be in their "Anthology" cd a few years down the road.

This topic has been discussed over and over again, so I didn't read most of the posts in this thread, but I have to say this - yes, you can't have a "Greatest Hits" album without the greatest hits, but you nicely have a "Greatest Hits, part 2" album with only more recent hits instead of old tunes. An album, that wouldn't hurt the credibility of the Cross Road album, which according to wiki has outsold every other Bon Jovi record with the exception of Slippery, obviously and has sold over 20+ millions. So do you want this bestseller that is Cross Road album to become completely pointless?

The DVD was a good reminder, they really need to get the videos out there officially as they stopped at Crossroad. Commentaries and other bonuses would be nice too of course!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walleris (Post 1003280)

That's the nature of Greatest Hits records. The Eagles first GH is one of the three BEST SELLING albums EVER, and they've released about 6 more GH compilations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabriel Shoes (Post 1003160)

Oh yes they did. Just take look at the 1996 tour for example. Most of These Days, Always + Saturday Night plus KTF tracks make more than half of the setlist. OF course the KTF tour was more 80s oriented, it was their first album in the 90s, so how could they?