Pre Release HAND
 

Forgive me if this topic has been talked to death here.
This is my first post, and in looking at old threads I didn't see this topic anywhere.

I got a cd of HAND about 6 months before the official release, and I was stunned when I heard the official release.

A number of great songs were cut, inferior ones put in and the mixes and changes in lyrics and production were baffling. To this day, I cannot stand listening to the official release. The original I have I consider to be the finest record they ever made. The offical one, not so much.

Anyone agree?

Aloha !

Not the finest record they made, and it's also not better than the original that's available in stores. At least they kept Unbreakable out of the original tracklisting. Have A Nice Day, the title track is slightly better than the original though.

And no, I don't want anyone to send me e-mails if I'd like to send it to them because I won't.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Takes all kinds, Sonic. Unbreakable and Nothing were my favorite songs.

I also think the original mix and lyrics to HAND were better. And Complicated, Bells Of Freedom and I Wanna Be Loved. He changed POV in some lyrics, and added some cheesier lines, IMO.

Ditching Keith Urban was a great idea though. I could barely tell them apart.

I am so glad I have the pre release.
It is my favorite thing they have ever done.

Aloha !

Complicated should never have seen the light of day, it's just as worse as Unbreakable. I agree about Nothing though, that one should have been on the original.

That the final result is cheesier is true though. I don't understand why the lyrics of HAND were changed anyway. They're not better and sound more like they're rehashing old lyrics (again)...

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I liked the original version of Have A Nice Day in parts - I like the short, quiet break after the solo - but prefer the final lyrics in the chorus.

I have the orignal versions of Have A Nice Day, I Want To Be Loved, Complicated, Bells Of Freedom, Nothing and Who Says w/Keith Urban. As for the other tracks however, are they at all different to the final released album?

well, Wildflower, Last cigarrette, Story of my life, and Novocain wernn't written yet.
Also Dirty Little Secret was written after Jon took the album to be reworked.

Yeah, Nothing should definitely have made the cut. An enormous mistake IMO.

Ofcourse, but I meant the songs that are on both albums - Welcome To Wherever You Are, Last Man Standing, I Am and Who Says (non-Keith Urban).

I'm not sure.
I know that I wanna be loved had some changes in the lyrics, the ones before were a bit braver. HAND we all know how that changed, bells has some better lyrics now, Who says is the same. Complicated is exactly the same except for one line, and the song sounds a bit rougher or faster in the earlier version.

That's really all I can tell, Last man standing is practically the same aswell.
But the mix on the earlier version does sound rougher, a bit more rockier if you will.

Thanks for the info.

I have IWBL, BOF, and yea, the original lyrics are better on both of them. The mp3's I have are the lo-fi ones not the wavs that are floating around, so I can't really tell about the original mixes.#

Hint aside - This album has gotta be the rarest of Bon Jovi rarities. You just can't find this album anywhere.

Is this version of HAND still available anywhere?

Just had a look on ebay, but no joy :(

I have a couple of the Songs somewhere already, just the Who Says with Keith Urban and Complicated.

Ditto on both of these comments.

Braver is good way to put it. It was more confrontational. And the mixes were crunchier and punchier.

I liked the early version better. I prefer Nothing and Unbreakable to Wildflower and DLS. I like the original lyrics of I Want to Be Loved Better. They were braver as someone else said. And, naturally, I prefer the duet with Keith to the duet with Jennifer. *I* don't care that Jon & Keith sound similar. It would have been a hit either way.

where can you get this version of HAND (the album)?

Guess that explains why I thought WTF when I started reading this post. LOL!

Me too. Never even heard of it until now.

Last man standing is better on the 100,000,000 box set.

and the line "God makes no mistakes" from WTWYA - is possibly, nope. it is the worst line ever written by JBJ. I hate it.

Was Nothing included as a bonus, extra track, b-side, whatever on any official release? I haven't found anything, but I thought I'd ask the folks that know everything!

No, it was not. I like Nothing but Nothing and I Am are in the same vein (sound wise) so I think they kept the better of the two.

deb

:confused: If it was never officially released then why was that guy abused in the other thread (about 2 weeks ago IIRC) for not buying the album to get it?

I must have missed that. But, no, never released by the band as they gave the song to Bo Bice (from American Idol) and it was on his cd.

deb

Thanks, Deb. Considering how thorough I am with my BJ eBay-ing, I figured I'd have seen it if it had been released, but I wanted to make sure. ;)

Found it!

http://www.drycounty.com/jovitalk/sh...ad.php?t=44723

Obviously file sharing isn't allowed hence the thread being locked, but if it was never released by the band, then buying the album doesn't make sense. :-?

I've only heard the pre-release HAND. Never heard I Want To Be Loved. How did it differ?

The album version of HAND had better lyrics, but the demo version sounded better and harder, and the whispering section is good too. Heard clips of Bells and IWTBL but they was no drastic changes on those two.

I haven't heard any other version of I Wanna Be Loved but I prefer the pre-release HAND and Bells (the final version feels too repetitive).

I think that Nothing is better than I AM (although I know that not all will agree with me), and is probably one of the best songs from the HAND sessions

The HAND demo is nice, if bits from the demo (the chorus lyrics, the quiet bit following the solo) had been combined with bits of the final version (the verse lyrics, the "Ooooooh!" after the solo (either after the quiet bit or somewhere else), and the "Hey!" at the end), it would have made for an even better version of the song IMO, an "ultimate mix" if you will

I remember when Nothing first got leaked onto the net not long after Have A Nice Day was released that everyone thought it was the greatest post 2000 song Bon Jovi ever wrote, saying it's better than I Am. Yeah, it's good, perhaps slightly more daring that what we're used to by the band these days, but it's still nothing spectacular. But had it been the other way round, Nothing made the album, and I Am was dropped, we'd be saying the same thing about I Am

Let's be honest, we're just lucky we're able to listen to both and it's not like Nothing would have ever got released as a single. Even if it did, it wouldn't have set the world on fire or turned the bands public image around for them.

Another issue, it is really stupid why we didn't get these original pre-release version song as b-sides on the HAND singles. Instead we got the same old live tracks we always seem to get. Ah well, I guess there's always the next box set...

That is actually still my humble opinion. I'm very passionate about that song.

Managed to find the pre-release on a torrent site, bloody thing won't start downloading though! :(

Bit of a bump.

While I have Nothing on a mp3 and can hear the mix, my Have A Nice Day is just a YouTube conversion so the mix is really lost in the conversion, it's a shame because I really like the song but it sounds so mono. Is there a "proper" mp3 at all, and does it sound any better than some YouTube conversion?

Edit, while I'm here, I have a live recording of the song where they actually sing the proper song but near the end use some of the demo bits, quite good, I must find which one it is.

Charis.

The mp3's available are "lo-fi" quality, not CD quality but very decent, and in stereo. Certainly not Youtube rips. Then ofcourse the CD album (from what I'm aware of anyway) is ofcourse CD quality.