Well, technically, it doesn’t say he’s taking vocal lessons RIGHT NOW FOR THE NEXT TOUR, only that he is/has been Katie’s alumn, which we all know. Wanted to point that out before anyone did ;)

But in reality I don’t freaking care. I never believed he doesn’t see a vocal coach, or that he doesn’t know how bad he sounds (really? there are plenty of recent interviews where they show him clips at concerts where he sounds like a dying goat) and just thinks that the fans are blind (deaf really) idiots who worship anything he does. I really believe his voice, his BJ voice, is gone forever. He lost it somewhere between 2005 and 2008, coincidentally where he allegedly reprised his vocal training (or worked harder on it). What he’s been doing during these years IMO is trying to find A VOICE that can fit both the new material and the back catalog. That voice sounds good on newer records (and I’ll say mostly ok live) but it’s been downhill in older songs. I’m talking about how he sounds not the “technical quality”, just to be clear. Maybe the “tone” is what I mean, I’m not a singer nor I claim to know anything about singing techniques. To me no matter how technically proficient he was from 2008-2011, how many notes he reached, he didn’t sound like the same voice I fell in love in the 90s.
I’ve come to terms with it. It took me a long break from the band where I had that feeling of betrayal many in this board also felt/feel (eg. how can he smoke when he’s been losing his voice since the late 90s? is he ****ing kidding me with his vocal coach and then he treates his voice like crap?) and I acted consequently: didn’t buy the records, didn’t go to any concert. I felt like he was ripping me off, so I said bye bye. But I doubt it’s as simple as “JBJ is a lazy bastard who only cares about #1 tours and will keep on going with minimum effort until someone points it out and his pocket starts feeling a little bit more empty” and that’s what’s gotten me back here again, among other things. His voice, I know, is lost. Whatever damage he did in the past is moot point now, it’s past the point of no return, the two last tours were a wreck and his voice was no longer a taboo/something nobody noticed. So he finally got to the point where he can’t get away with it any longer, carry on with his emperor’s-new-clothes routine. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, he still can get it back and start from scratch. I’m obviously not referring to his voice, but the magic of BJ the band in a live show. 90% of the attendants couldn’t care less about vocal perfection (it’s a damn rock concert, not opera!) they are there for the music/the quality of the show. And that’s the band playing tight and specially FREAKING JON BON JOVI DELIVERING A GOOD SHOW. That has nothing to do with his vocal abilities. I’ll still cringe a little bit every time I hear his nasal mumbling, not gonna lie, but if he works his ass off to do his job, no complaints.

To me it’s very simple. Good that he’s getting those vocal lesson if he is. But would you prefer he delivered the most perfect song of his post2000 career standing still behind the mic, holding for dear life, red like a tomato, or would you rather see him moving, engaging the band and the fans, feeling the song? I’m past the stage where voice is essential. I’m past mourning the loss of one of my favorites voices ever. But we still have JBJ right? Again, pretty simple.

He sounds uneven in BB. As far as I know, we still have no idea if all songs were re-recorded VOCALLY or just re-worked depending on the stage they were before (meaning some got new vocals and music, some just music). The three that we know for a fact are new (title track, WDR, Teardrop) sound quite nasal, so either he put no effort in sounding better or it's the voice he has now and no training/trickery will change it. Fingerprints I haven't found when it was recorded but again very very nasal (I was extremely surprised when I heard it live, it sounded 10x better). The others vary from almost no nasal (the Sat. song, I'm Your Man) to differents degree of nasality. With no time frame for them, it's difficult to judge.

So we don't know if he's using studio tricks or maximizing his work on the studio based on the last album. If we knew for sure he sang "Who Would You Die For" recently, we would be all in stitches waiting for the new album, but sadly it's not the case. I'd say it's realistic to expect more polished vocals on the new album, but who knows if he likes singing nasal or it's the only way he can...

ETA: I haven't listened to WAN more than 3/4 times so maybe I'm off, but I remember thinking how robotic he sounded and I could still hear his *lovely* nasal voice. I admit I hate it so I'm partial here, but it makes me believe if he's taking vocal lessons it is to sound better live. The album he will either try a lower voice (which I love BTW) or sing it to the best of his ability.

If he is still taking lessons from her, the last tour was not a good advert for her services. Hopefully next time out we can see what he has left, before this point the vocals had been shaky and dodgy at times and perfectly passable at others.

I still believe that all vocals were (re-)recorded for BB, or are at least no older than WAN. Why? Because you can hear what I can best describe as "having too much spit in your mouth or something". That started with WAN, he sounded pretty clear before then. Also keep in mind, that in the studio, you can do all the tricks in the book, like recording the song in a lower key and then pitching the vocals up, etc.

BTW, what does that "ETA" mean that you always write? The only meaning of ETA that I know of is "Estimated Time of Arrival" ;-)

I would guess at "Edited to add"

Thanks, that makes sense! :-)

I'm not a doctor, but... I don't know, his problem sounds more like... like it's a physical thing, like he needed therapy or some thig like that.

I remember when Steve Tyler did a surgery on his chords and he sounded OK yet. Maybe he should use better his time off with the band.

I saw them in 2008, 2010, 2013 and to my ears in 2010 he was fantastic. In 2013 he was much better than the recordings from the WAN tour would have you believe but not as good as 2008 or 2010.

Now it might have been my imagination but in 2013 in Manchester I'm sure his voice had a weird 'electric' quality to it for a few seconds in some songs, especially in high notes. It sounded bit autotuned which is something I imagine they can do live. I wander if this is something he does and he will do in the upcoming tour.

I saw them in 2008, 2010, 2013 and to my ears in 2010 he was fantastic. In 2013 he was much better than the recordings from the WAN tour would have you believe but not as good as 2008 or 2010.

Now it might have been my imagination but in 2013 in Manchester I'm sure his voice had a weird 'electric' quality to it for a few seconds in some songs, especially in high notes. It sounded bit autotuned which is something I imagine they can do live. I wander if this is something he does and he will do in the upcoming tour.

For whatever upcoming tour it may or may not be, they might as well put a cardboard cutout of Jon on stage and have them play the studio recordings of his vocals instead. Sure would sound better, and almost no one would notice any difference as he barely moves around the stage anymore either.

Just my two bitter cents worth of the day.

Good idea! What about a hologram from the 1980/90s shows? ;)

He sounded fantastic from 2008-2011. Not like in the 90s, but he could do pretty much every song in their catalouge justice.

Fantastic is perhaps pushing it IMO, but most definitely he sounded acceptable to good and I'd have been happy with that vocal ability. But from -11 to -13 was like night and day. And from -13 to -15 it was just atrocious.

Only if it shakes its ass and waves its arms. Otherwise casuals may notice :p

Not to my ears, but as I said, it's a matter of personal taste so I accepted that it is what it is and moved on. When my 2008 show ended I was like "Wow, he nailed Always. HE ****ING NAILED ALWAYS!!", pretty ecstatic. Listening to my recording and other bootlegs it wasn't as great as I remembered, but in the end I FELT it was and that's my memory of it. The stellar shows, the good songwriting are all he has left and that's why I'm hoping for the best. There's plenty room for improvement in these areas. Enough for me.

If all vocals were re-recorded, why do they sound different, *nasallity*-wise? (Is that even a word? lol). Why sprinkle pixie dust on some and not all of them? There's a clear difference between let's say the Sat song (or the awful WDR chorus), where he sounds as you describe, with his mouth full of something (don't need any ideas here, thanks :D), and other parts of the album. I guess they didn't put too much effort and didn't want to spent too much on studio trickery for an album they were going to ignore shortly after.

This won't be the case for the upcoming album so the mystery will be solved. As long as he sings like in Teardrop and WWYDF I'll be a happy girl. A vast improvement from WAN. Don't care if they have to process the new songs to death and break all their computers.

Doesn't anybody use ETA anymore? Damn, I'm getting really old! I've been using this for like almost 20 years now! I guess I need a new dictionary on forum jargon, mine it's quite obsolete now :cool:

Im really bored of no news on the new album :( can someone make something up at least ?!

If the rumour of Richie touring with the band is true, has anybody thought of the possibility that Richie is redoing all the guitar parts on the new album and therefore there are delays and no release dates released yet due to the fact that the guitar rerecording isn't complete?

Richie isnt coming back for this album hes working on his solo/with girlfriend album

And that album seems to be delayed all the time as well. Maybe Richie is working on some guitar parts for the house album.
Hmmm, I wonder!

I think if this album were coming out in March, we'd have a date by now and a first single. They're talking about albums that are coming out in April on EW Radio already.

Didn't Jon say May/April on a fanclub Q&A?

Stranger things have happened, but this is something that I HIGHLY doubt will happen....

He did. At the one at BB King's. At the Dallas Q&A he said "first half of the year" for the record and "mid to end of 2016" for the tour. And in the FC letter he said "The new album is almost done and we anticipate it coming out in 2016 followed by another tour" with no month specified. Unless he's said something since then, I don't think a release date has been announced.

I think the March date goes back to a report of the Kuala Lumpur Press Conference. Yesterday I told a friend that the only dates I had heard Jon say were around April-May and she sent me a link to youthhealth.com and asked, 'then where do all the articles like this come from?" So I followed the links in that article (which did in fact report that Jon had said the album would be out in March) and traced it back to a Star2.com report, which reported that Jon had said the album would be out in March in the press conference in Kuala Lumpur. There was no link to the press conference but Googling that led to this video, which ends abruptly, granted; but at no point in the video does he reference March.

https://youtu.be/UA-yuqEiGP4


So here's the thing. When I googled it I found no less than 25 different reports of that statement and they were all linked, directly or indirectly, to the report from Star2.com. (And that doesn't include the numerous fan sites, FB pages, blogs, and non-English sites, all of which I skipped. These were just the news, radio, and gossip rag sites.)

If you'll notice, in the comments under the video, someone asked Linnora if Jon said anything about March 2016 and she didn't respond. The only other comment she made about it was to say that all the interesting stuff was said before the cutoff point in the video, so I assume that he didn't give any dates in the cut-off portion either. There may have been other press events where he may have actually said, "March"; but if there are, they didn't pop when I searched.

So it seems that a whole slew of reports were published with a trail that leads to what appears to be erroneous information. Not only do reporters crib other people's information and spew it as their own, without checking the facts, but they take it a step further in many cases, by adding their own spin to it (based on incorrect info). The end result is ppl read the same (sometimes erroneous) information reiterated so many times that it becomes "fact" in their minds, often with no basis in reality. Not only that, but it seems that the speaker made the comment numerous times when he may have only said it once, if at all!

Life would be simpler if reporters just checked the facts, or better yet, did their own f'n research instead of taking the easy way out!

End of rant. Back to our regularly scheduled topic...

Stranger things have happened...
 

Conspiracy theorist that I am, I have been toying with this theory since Jon's Q&A at BB King's. I'm not altogether convinced that Richie and Jon (or their managers) haven't been working behind the scenes for sometime to work things out. A lot of things fit with the theory (Azoff's rep for reuniting bands; Shanks' solos, IMO, sounding a lot like he's emulating Richie's style, possibly to make it easier for him to come in and redo them; the fact that, IIRC, Jon said the new album set a new direction for the band and my own curiosity about how a new direction could be set for a rock band with such an important piece, i.e., a "lead guitarist" not yet in place, that we know of anyway; why he said "the album is done, but now we gotta sit on it 'til April or May"; the increasingly vague release date; and then Roth's statements about rumors that even tho Richie wasn't on the recording he would be touring with the band, which a lot of ppl have questioned since it wouldn't make sense to them that he would tour an album he had no part in). I admit that there's nothing concrete to go on. It's just a gut feeling. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it happened.

That didn't stop him from doing it with any of his three previous albums.

I also recall Richie saying, in an interview about Stranger, that there was pressure for him to hurry it up so they could get on with KTF but he wasn't bending to the pressure because "it takes as much time as it takes" or something like that. I'd have to look it up. Seems like he's said something similar about this album as well. Not the "pressure" part, but taking as long as it takes. But I'd have to check that, too.


So, I don't think it's as far-fetched as some might believe. I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. :D


PS: Don't y'all love it when I have snow days? C'mon, you know you do! :p

While an interesting point, there was never really a time where he was working on a concrete album of songs AND a band record at the same time, barring What About Now and Aftermath. I truly think having to juggle both albums at once is what lead to Richie's dissatisfaction with WAN and the band's sound. He wasn't able to put his own fingerprint on it due to his own album. Regardless of how or why the schedules for both albums changed he just wasn't as involved as he usually is and for that reason I think Richie not playing on House but touring behind it is bunk.

Him playing just the solos and not writing it would lead everything down the same road that happened in 2013. Him touring behind an album he's meh about. I don't forsee them throwing the whole album out to start from scratch.

I'm not clear on the timelines Stranger was recorded, was the band still on hiatus at that point not knowing if they'd get back together at all?

Them sitting on House does seem odd considering they can do whatever they want with it, I agree.

Would be a miracle if Richie play at the new Bon Jovi album. Sorry, that will not happen. The reality is will be an album and Tour without sambora. While Richie Sambora launch his album with orianthi and make small tour.

Jon leave pass the time for people to forget the drama out of boredom. A smart guy. So we just have to wait for the result, and if worth continue without Richie in this new cycle.

But he didn't have a guitarist and co-songwriter/producer for a girlfriend on any of his three previous albums. ;)

THAT.

They sat on House because they had to release BB + tour first, didn't they?

The most logical (and possible) thing I can see with them sitting of this release for so long is that deals on how the album is being released haven't been finalized. Jon is very particular about having his album be a priority release (I think the whole mercury/island thing around the Crush album was mentioned when answering why it took so long for the record to come out). It's happened before that after they think an album is done, Jon and co-songwriters write new material for it and record the new songs, at which time the album has to be remastered so with all this time off that could also be a reason. But I doubt Richie has anything to do with it....

I think all of you are reading way too much into everything... It's just all about timing. I think historically, as far back as I could remember, BJ albums always get released a few month after Jon gives his initial date. Why? Who knows why? Why was Beautiful Day / Finding Neverland pushed back by two months last year? Why was WAN pushed back in 2013? Common sense would say that all the stars need to align...It could be tour based, seasonal, prior success stats, similar band successes, is Jon ready to promote, other competition, etc... It's going to go from 0 to 100 once it starts...

Considering the tour and tickets haven't gone on sale yet, 1 of 2 things will happen. It's all going to happen soon or it's all going to get pushed back until the Fall... It's almost March already so if Jon wants a Summer tour, he better move quick...

BTY, Richie laying down tracks is the worst assumption I've read on this board to date. There is no way Richie will enter the studio and lay down guitar parts over what is essentially a JBJ solo album without having any other creative output. If it was 1988 and album sales mattered, then maybe the right amount of money could convince anyone but not at this stage in the game.

We don't know. Jon might have had one album left on his contract and released BB's by choice to just end it... instead of using HOUSE music to fulfill it at a later date...

I thought this was already confirmed by Jon himself? Burning Bridges was a release just to fulfill contractual obligations.

Fulfill, yes? But what was Burning Bridges? Was it thrown together by Jon so he could get out early (his choice) and save the new album for the new record company??? or did Island demand a release and BB was something Jon had to whip up...

Basically, if Jon didn't release BB, could they still be tied to date with this current release

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He quit the band nearly three years ago. When he was working on those three previous albums he was still an active member of Bon Jovi.

Richie coming back for this album is wishful thinking. He would never participate on an album that didn't contain any of his own creative input. Not to mention, Jon has said this is a "pissed off" album and that he had a lot of material to write about after Richie quit, he lost the bid for the Bills, and severing ties with the record label. Do you honestly believe Richie would come back and play songs that may have been inspired by his departure from the band?

Putting his guitar parts in would be considered creative input!

Exactly. Jon feels betrayted, Richie's departure caused them many problems so why would they welcome him back? Richie is now a solo (or with Orianthi) artist and how will he return to Jovi taking into consideration the "surpriiiiise I'm leaving in the middle of the tour, good luck finding a lead guitar player for the rest 100 shows" incident? This can not and must not happen!

Yes, that's what he spent his time repeating. He owed UMG one more album (+ 1 tour, most likely) before leaving in 2015 (Idk Jon's contract but based on my experience in the entertainment industry and major record companies, I'm convinced that the label demanded an album before the end of 2015 because Jon's contract was to be renewed or not last year. UMG has been going through major changes these last 2 or 3 years, lots of sub-labels CEOs and less important execs have been fired, Grainge himself was threatened to be fired) so he chose to release 8 songs that he didn't and still don't like* (re/his "fuhgeddaboudit" attitude whenever he spoke about this album, "My latest is not my next") + a FYUMG one to fulfill his contract (which demanded quantity, not quality) and save This House, the "real new album" as he called it, for his "new career" with a new label.

* WDR is the only song that he seems to like since he played it during the mini-tour and explained, "It’s sort of a hint as to where we’re going musically".

http://wcbsfm.cbslocal.com/2015/07/2...ot-next-album/

:lol: *thumbs up* That's a good one!

That's minimal compared to Richie's past roles. Writing, coproducing, musical direction, backing vocals, etc...

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