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Updated 4 September 2000 - SIIS cd singles & UK Crush info
Updated 24 May 2000 - Its My Life single & Crush info
Updated 16 February 2000 - Crush album info
Updated 15 April 99 - Real Life single info
Updated 8 October 98 - New JBJ demo info
Updated 30 July 98 - RS acoustic tracks info
Updated 19 June 98 - New JBJ solo information
Updated 11 May 98 - New solo tracks
Updated 1 May 98 - UGLY single info
Updated 30 March 98 - Vancouver New Jersey Rehearsal Session
Updated 16 February 98 - Richie first Soul single info
Updated 04 February 98 - Richie Solo album & Jon single details
Updated 04 February 98 - Change to Power Station demo details
Updated 03 September 97 - New Slippery demos
Updated 26 August 97 - New track 7800 Farenheit period and Solo news
THE RARE & UNISSUED TRACKS
When These Days was re`released in Europe, collectors and fans
were blessed with 3 tracks from recording sessions of earlier albums
The 2 obvious tracks are Fields of Fire, from the 1992 Keep The Faith session
and Lets Make It Baby, from the 1988 New Jersey session, but not
everyone is aware that Diamond Ring has also been kicking around
from the same period. Infact the band had been known to play it
at their special Xmas shows in New Jersey before it was ever officially
released and it was given its first public performance in Sept 88
at a Westwood One New Jersey Preview Party where Jon and Richie played
an acoustic version.
Fields of Fire has also been played live although the only
occasion which I am aware of is 11 May 1993 in Birmingham NEC
and is available on bootlegs of this gig, and also on a rare bootleg CD
called Between The Covers vol 1+2. The live version was a solo
performance by Jon with just an acoustic guitar and is around 1 minute
shorter, but it gives you an insight into how it may have sounded
when it was written.
Lets Make It Baby was a song which Jon is very proud of
and had New Jersey been a double album as was originally intended
this would definitely have appeared. Jon has said it was his attempt
to do something in the style of AFKAP(Prince) but it rocks a bit
more than the purple one. The version which appears on the reissue
of These Days is also different to the original demo(despite the sleeve
notes assuring you it is a demo). The original 1988 version included
some excellent guitar/voice box work from Richie including a solo
which has remained somewhat intact on the release but with a
missing voice box. If you have the original demo you can also
hear Jon laughing towards the end before Richie goes "I want you
boy toooooo" on his voicebox(also missing from this version)
THE BOOTLEG RECORDINGS
For the avid collector bootlegs hold a lot of interesting material
perhaps the best of which actually comes from studio demos.
Singer and guitarist Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora have a lot of early
material available on bootlegs, Jon as a developing artist in the Power Station studios and Richie in pre-Bon Jovi bands The Next, Mercy and The Message whose
self-titled 1982 album is officially available on import.But first lets feature on mainman Jon Bon Jovi (or Bongiovi as his real name is spelt.)
Before being signed to Polygram, Jon worked as a "gofer" in Power Station
Studios New York, where cousin Tony Bongiovi was a widely respected producer. Being a gofer/developing artist meant Jon got to record demos in the studio during "down" time, usually early hours of the morning. As he didn`t have a proper
band at the time, anyone who could be rustled up was used for the demos.These
surfaced at first as The All Star Review Demos and later became known just as
Jon`s Power Station demos. In 1997 they were released officially,against Jons wishes, by
Tony Bongiovi, on independant record labels. The UK version has 14 tracks as opposed to Japans 10, although a volume 2 was also released in Japan which included an instrumental version of Runaway.Among the musicians used was Canadian guitarist, Aldo Nova (whose 1991 Blood on the Bricks album Jon co-wrote and produced) and a bass player by the
name of Hugh Macdonald who replaced Alec Jon Such in Bon Jovi in 1994.
Of the tracks that were recorded on thses demos, 4 made it to the first
Bon Jovi album, Love Lies, She Don`t Know Me,Shot Thru The Heart and a song called Runaway which was later picked up by a New York radio station and included on a "homegrown" album of New York bands. So popular was this song that Jon became the first unsigned artist to get state wide airplay in the USA. The sleeve of the album credits the song to Jonny Bongiovi.Surprisingly enough, the original version of Runaway was actually included on the self-titled debut album, and credited to the All Star Review.
Most of these demos are a lot lighter in musical terms than the Bon Jovi
who are regarded as one of the top rock bands around today. Shot Thru the Heart
was co-written with a friend of Jons who later recorded a version of it with his own band SURGIN. There are also around 15 tracks unreleased, although one of these
called Don`t Leave Me Tonight was recorded by Gary US Bonds after Bruce Springsteen recommended it to him. Perhaps noteworthy for Bon Jovi fans is a song
called Bobbys Girl. The significance of this being that Jon has always admitted that
he stole his wife Dorothea from his best friend, and taking it one step further to a line
from New Jersey`s Blood on Blood where he sings, "Me and Danny and BOBBY", it
probably would be safe to assume that Bobbys Girl was written for Dorothea.
After being courted by numerous record companies on the strength of Runaway, Jon finally signed to Polygram in early 1983. Jon is the only member
of the band actually signed, the other members are still technically regarded
as backing musicians in terms of the contract with Polygram.
The final studio bootleg recordings from this era are a 25 min+ recording
of an early Bon Jovi rehearsal. The quality of this recording is very poor but it does
contain some unreleased material as well as cover versions of Eddie Cochranes
Summertime Blues and Irma Franklin`s Take Another Piece Of My Heart.The unreleased tracks are American Dream, Tonight, Promises, Better Think Twice
and On With The Show (Stay).
Prior to joining Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora had been in a couple of bands
and worked as a session musician and had even toured as part of Joe Cockers band. The earliest recording of his pre-Bon Jovi days are of a gig in a bar with
a band called The Next. The material is a mixture of original material interspersed
with cover versions of We Will Rock You and Tie Your Mother Down by Queen and
Bad Company`s Feel Like Makin Love, Beatles Get Back and the Stones Honky Tonk Woman. Richie gets to sing on 2 songs, namely California Man and Shattered
This recording was made at a weekend bar gig in January 1980.
In 1982, a TV programme in America featured an interview and live performances by a band called Mercy feat Richie Sambora. This 20 min snippet
is also available on video from a few bootleg sources. It features the tracks
Any Other Girl (a track recorded by his next band The Message) and Magic Child.
The Message were signed to the Swan Song label and bootleg collectors
have a choice of a 6 track demo or an officially released (although apparently only in
Sweden) album of 10 tracks. Among the tracks recorded was Any Other Girl which
was written during the time when the band were called Mercy (see above).The 6 demo tracks are, Any Other Girl, Pessimistic Man, Swing, Lessons, It Won`t Be
Long and Is There Love.
Recordings from the 7800 Fahrenheit album haven't surfaced on the bootleg
market, possibly because the band felt they no longer needed to test the water by giving tapes to people to listen to or maybe some other reason.
The only rare track from this period is a song called Heart of America, which was only ever performed live once
at the first Farm Aid concert in September 1985. It hints at what was to come with the Slippery
album, as its a lot more upbeat than the Fahrenheit material. Sadly though
this song was never recorded, or played again, but look out for bootlegs of
the Farm Aid 1 show, if you want to hear the song.
For their 3rd and most commercially successful album, Slippery When Wet, the band changed producers and studios to record the album. They went to Bruce Fairbairn's Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver. Whilst there they used a "Pizza Pie Jury" to select the tracks for the album.This involved bringing kids who were hanging out round the corner in to the studio to hear the tracks and let them pick their favourites,a method that was also used for New Jersey.
There are 3 variations on the Slippery demos available. The first is a raw
"private rehearsal" of Jon and Richie (and possibly Dave Bryan) in what sounds
like Richies basement where they wrote most of the Slippery When Wet
album. So raw in fact is this material that Jon is heard to cough and splutter
his way through some of the tracks, obviously suffering from a cold. There are
a lot of early versions and unreleased tracks on this recording, including a
version of Wild In The Streets which has Jon accompanied solely by Richie
on acoustic guitar.Live favourite I`d Die For You appears here in its original form called Take Me All with different lyrics but the same tune. Some of the songs which
didn`t make the album also appear here including Deep Cuts The Knife, Never
Enough and Lonely in the Night. There is also an interesting version of
the Living on a Prayer "b" side, Edge of a Broken Heart which has just Jons
vocals and a fuzzed up electric guitar from Richie.
The 2nd set of demos are pre-production and actually sounds like a rehearsal
session, because there are 2 takes of some of the songs, and they can be heard discussing
the arrangements of the songs between themselves. On this set is the original version of
Social Disease with different lyrics, 2 takes of Raise Your Hands,Edge of a Broken Heart
and Without Love, a keyboard heavy version of Livin On A Prayer and a couple of the unreleased
tracks, Game of the Heart, Too Much Too Soon and also Borderline. These are all live
in the studio affairs complete with guitar solos and backing vocals, although the
quality varies song to song and the drums can be overbearing in the mix on some songs.
Unfortunately the tape sounds like only part of the rehearsal session, making you
wonder what other "treasures" are missing. There is one little intriguing snippet, where
Richie plays the intro to the unreleased Stand Up but then he stops and they play Too Much Too Soon instead. Might
have been interesting to hear an electric version of Stand Up, to complement the acoustic
version on the Private Rehearsal demos
The 3rd set of demos that are available are fully fledged production
demos including 6 unreleased tracks and also early demos of what were to become some of the bands best known hits. For instance Livin on a Prayer has no voice box, You Give Love a Bad Name doesn`t have the big background vocals on the chorus,
there is no guitar solo in Wanted, I`d Die For You has completely different
lyrics although the chorus is intact(the proper lyrics were apparently written at breakfast the morning of recording the song) and Never Say Goodbye is sung by Richie. Perhaps the reason for this is that Jon didn`t like that song at first, another story about this song is that Richie apparently dreamt the melody for it in a
dream about a soap opera(could it be he was thinking of Heather even then?)
The songs which were never released sound like stepping stones between
the direction of 7800 Fahrenheit and Slippery and with titles like Thief in the
Night and King of the Heart are probably better off lost in the archives.
Two songs which surfaced as B sides were Edge of a Broken Heart
and the excellent Borderline which appeared as a single in Japan and is
still easily available in collector shops in the Uk on CD.
The New Jersey demos fare even better for the collector because
the album was destined to be a double-set so a lot of songs on the demos are
unreleased or songs which were recorded by other artists. Again there are
2 widely available sets of demos, one is a collection of pre-production demos
and the other is available on a CD called Keep The Faith and New Jersey outtakes
although, as can be the case with bootlegs, the title is misleading because all songs on it were actually demoed for New Jersey and not Keep The Faith.
The main difference between the 2 are that the pre-production set are mostly
instrumental although most have a very quiet lead vocal, as if Jon was in the room
but not at a microphone.They contain no backing vocals. These songs are probably
closer to the finished item than the CD recordings because they feature more of the
songs that made it than those which didn`t. Included here are Bad Medicine, Born
To Be My Baby, Living In Sin, Blood on Blood and 99 In The Shade, all in karaoke
style with vocals quiet or non existant. Exclusively on this set of recordings are 2
tracks which sound like single material but didn`t make New Jersey.The 2 tracks
in question are In America which contains all the trademark Bon Jovi style of the
late 80s, big hooks and sing a long choruses and House Of Fire which later turned
up on Alice Coopers Trash album and subsequently as a single. Also on here is the
original demo of Diamond Ring (as mentioned above was released on the 1995 These Days album). Some of the unreleased tracks which appear on the CD have
been recorded here in slightly different form, indeed some of them show a stronger
influence of The Animals than is normally noticeable.
On the CD recording the original demo of Love Is War (b side of Living In Sin) is here,which was intended for Belinda Carlisle, as is Lets Make It Baby(mentioned above), Judgement Day with a trademark Na Na chorus, River of Love(not the song which appeared on Richie`s solo album), Now & Forever which was given to Paul Young but was never recorded and didn`t make New Jersey because a line in the chorus goes "Kings will be Kings with Crowns to Defend".Jon was later quoted in Kerrang magazine saying that although he liked the melody, that line gave him problems because he couldn`t picture anyone standing next to their wife/girlfriend/husband or whatever and saying it to them.. Next up is Growing Up the Hard Way which has an acapella Na Na chorus similar to Judgement Day, then we have the original demo of Rosie a song which appeared on Richies solo album but here Jon is singing and also the original of Does Anybody Really Fall In Love Anymore as recorded by Cher and finally for unreleased tracks Backdoor To Heaven. Also on there is Stick to Your Guns, Wild is the Wind and a slightly slower and groovier feeling Homebound Train. The only released song not available on any of these demos is the live favourite Lay Your Hands On Me.
Also written around this time was a track which anyone who has
the Access All Areas video will have heard a bit of called Fighter For Love
which they gave to Peter Frampton but which sadly again was never
recorded.
There is also a recording of a rehearsal session for the New Jersey album, from Vancouver, however, this is really bad quality. It sounds like its recorded by 2 fans in the same building as the rehearsals were taking place. The sound varies between sounding like you are in the same room, and actually outside as you can hear traffic going by and someone hammering on the door to get in. You can hear sections of Rosie, Bad Medicine, the end of Born To Be My Baby, only recognisable through the harmonica section that was included in the live version and an almost inaudible, indistinct unidentifiable song. There are also very difficult to hear converstaions on the tape, although occassionally you can make out Jons accent. At only 40 minutes long its really a die-hard item as there isn't really anything of merit on there for run of the mill fans.
Demos for Keep The Faith have yet to surface, perhaps a changing
of management and staff around the band or maybe not using the "Pizza Pie
Jury" to hear the songs before recording means they never will.
Apart from Fields of Fire and Starting All Over Again which was a b side of
Bed of Roses no other studio tracks were released. Infact this track actually
was included on the Australian release of Keep The Faith so where it had 14 tracks
Europe had 13 (Save A Prayer being the final track) and America only
had 12, their version omitting both of the above tracks.
For some reason this activity was again repeated on These Days
with Europe, Australia and Japan having 14 tracks, America omitted
All I Want Is Everything and the excellent Bitter Wine. On this
occasion however the collector fared better with extra studio tracks with
the first single This ain`t a Love Song having an extra 5 studio tracks
over its 2 cd versions. These same 5 songs including Prostitute, Wedding
Day and The End were included on a limited edition initial release of the
album in France but was heavily exported to other parts and then withdrawn
Australia got the familiar tour pack edition 5 months after release which
had live songs from bsides on an extra cd with the album. In America
the singles had different b sides including an unplugged style live in
A&M Studios version of Always.
Always was one of the 2 new songs to appear from the greatest
hits package Crossroads which preceded the release of These Days,
the other being Someday I`ll Be Saturday Night. When both songs
were issued as singles in the Uk they both contained an extra studio
track each, Always had the excellent acoustic style Livin On A Prayer `94
while Saturday Night had Good Guys Don`t Always Wear White, a very
rocky tune for the soundtrack of The Cowboy Way.Indeed they have
contributed some exclusive and some not so exclusive songs to the
soundtracks of films, more of that later.
Returning to the barren period between New Jersey and KTF, Jon`s
soundtrack album only provided 1 extra track on its singles releases, the
live cover version of Going Back from a charity show in London on the
10 January 1990 .Jon also made an, at the time, rare solo appearance on Rockline, an American syndicated radio programme,in August 1990. This is a definite treasure trove, because not only did Jon perform an acoustic Never Say Die and an extended Blood Money with the original lyrics, which made the song over 5 minutes long as opposed to the minute and a half version on the album but he also treated listeners to the first minute or so of a song called The Ballad of Alice Cooper. This was written around the same time that Jon, Richie and Desmond Child were co-writing tracks for Alice's Trash album. The lyrics contain references to older Alice Cooper songs such as Billion Dollar Babies and Only Women Bleed. Jon appeared to really like this song and even offered on air "Go on Alice record it for the next album, I'll even produce it for you". Alice was quoted in a magzine saying he liked the song but felt the lyrics would sound better from another artist rather than Alice Cooper singing The Ballad of Alice Cooper. Definitely another one for the wish list of demos to get released!!
Richie`s solo album only came up with 1 extra track in the Uk which was a cover version
of Jimi Hendrix Wind Cries Mary. Incidentally this track is on the end of
the limited edition US double pack version of the album but it was originally
recorded for the Andrew Dice Clay film Adventures Of Ford Fairlane. There
are also studio rehearsal demos of Richies available which as well as including
versions of album tracks, also boasts 2 unreleased songs. Maybelline is a
mid tempo acoustic style song and Broken Promises provides a more
rocky style than the cuts which made the album.These songs are all done
live in the studio and River of Love clocks in around 20 mins+ because
of the numerous run throughs recorded.
Other songs have been recorded for films including Richie
covering an old blues number You Never Really Know for one of the Wild Orchid sequels, Boys Are Back In Town, the cover of the Thin Lizzy classic, was used in
Hot Shots, Wanted was used in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
Edge of a Broken Heart (a Slippery b side) was used in Disorderlies
and perhaps one of the most unusual is a song called Cadillac Man
which they were asked to write for the Robin Williams movie of the same
name however the song was never used . It does appear on very few live
bootlegs but the most common are Hammersmith Odeon 10/1/90 on audio
and Osaka Jan 9th (2nd night) on video.
In 1997, Jon Bon Jovi released a new solo album, Destination Anywhere.
It followed its predecessors with different
countries receiving different tracks, and again it was America which appeared to lose out.
In the United States, DA was released as a 12 track album, August 7th, being the final track.
However, if you bought your CD in one of Blockbusters US stores, you also received for an initial period,
a free "PROMO" cd which had an extra 2 tracks, Cold Hard Heart and I Talk To Jesus.
Cold Hard Heart, was included on the 13 track European version of DA, while Japan
again came out tops with a 14 track cd including a double sided poster, post cards
and a Japanese lyric booklet. This version of the album included both Cold Hard Heart and I Talk To Jesus.
I Talk... has probably the funniest lyrics since Sleep When I`m Dead, it even incorporates
2 lines about Richies wife, "And Heather Locklear is my wife, Man Ain`t I a lucky guy..".
In Argentina, a 14 track album was also released, however I Talk, was replaced with a Spanish
version of Staring At Your Window, entitled Miro a Tu Ventana.
In the UK, Midnight In Chelsea, the first single, included an extra 4 tracks over 2 cds.
There were 2 new songs, Sad Song Night and Drive,which was originally a New Jersey demo, and also 2 different versions of album tracks.
A Dave Stewart remix of Every Word Was A Piece of my Heart, which because a lot of people heard
it before the album, they preferred it to the album version, and an acoustic version of August 7th,
which really adds atmosphere to the difficult subject of the lyrics.
The 2nd single release in the UK, Queen of New Orleans, also included an acoustic version of Every Word,
recorded in Sanctuary studios NJ. Also watch out for a live version of
Billy Get Your Guns from Jons first solo album, which was regularly included
in the live sets on the small tour Jon did to promote the album, and a once-only
live version of Miracle, from the House of Blues in New Orleans, July 97. The 3rd single from the album, Janie Don't take Your Love To Town also included 3 acoustic songs, which were recorded for MTV and featured an excellent stripped down version of Its Just Me. The Destination Anywhere album was re-released towards the end of 97 with a bonus "live" album, which consisted of tracks from the June 97 London Forum show including tracks that MTV didn't broadcast.
A fourth single, UGLY, had a limited European release, confined to Germany and Switzerland, in Spring 98. Jon was playing some more shows in these countries and it was released to coincide with that. The cd features a live version of Billy Get Your Guns and a live cover of Tom Waits, Jersey Girl, both recorded in Australia in 1997. During the 8 date tour Jon previewed some new tracks, said to be from a forthcoming solo album, Lifes Too Short For Days Like These, Older and Hush (or Rush depending on how you hear it). These songs are said to be more in the Bon Jovi vein than anything on Destination Anywhere. Time will tell...
As well as the new Jon Bon Jovi solo tracks mentioned above, Jon performed a new composition, Let it Rain, with Luciano Pavarotti, in Italy in June 1998. Another new solo track, Mister Big Time, is also featured on the Armageddon soundtrack. At that stage Jon also had a couple of other new tracks which he has been previewing to selected "Pizza Pie Juries", including Even Bad Times Are Good Times, These Arms Are Open All Night, Someday You'll Ride Wild Horses and Even In Your Imagination. Its not known whether these will be released as a new solo project, band album or indeed at all.
Richie meanwhile has also been busy. He wrote a track called Forever for a Japanese actor, and that was released in July 97, in Japan only. Richie doesn`t sing on
the actual single release, but he does play guitar and sings backing vocals on the track. Japan as always benefited most from Richies work, with the first single Hard Times Come Easy being released there in September 1997, 5 months before the rest of the world. It featured short, long, and karaoke versions of the song. The 2nd solo album, Undiscovered Soul was released in Japan in December 1997, almost 3 months ahead of the rest of the world. However it appears this is even more collectable than first pictured because the 13 songs weren't pressed in their final mix. All songs were near final mixes but there are traces of demo quality in them because a lot have the band warming up before the song, or Richie in typical fashion, clowning around doing funny voices and stuff before a song starts. Track 13 is actually a shortened alternate version of All That Really Matters plus a 4 minute loop of Richie repeating "You're Not Alone" over and over tagged on the end. The US version contains only 12 tracks plus all songs in their final mix including Steven Tyler contributing harmonica to If God Was A Woman. The songs are also in a different running order than on the final versions of the CD.
First single release in the UK, Hard Times Come Easy, contains excellent live versions of Jovi favourites,Bad Medicine, Wanted & I'll Be There For You, with Richie on lead vocals. It also contains a great live version of We All Sleep Alone, the track Richie co-wrote with Jon and Desmond Child, for Cher, this is a must have!!
Second single in the UK was In It For Love and the cd versions contained the Japanese edit of the song along with acoustic versions of In It For Love and Made In America as well as a live version of Richies interpretation of Prayer and for some reason again it included the 1991 live version of I'll Be There for You that was included on Hard Times (who isn't doing their job properly??)
Sex Sells (but who's buying?)
To commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Backstage fan club, a special first come first serve preview evening occurred in August 1998. Guests were invited to listen to new solo tracks and rate each appropriately before Jon gave an acoustic performance of some old and new material. Most of the new solo tracks played that night were different to the ones which lucky fans got to hear backstage on the short European tour. New songs previewed included, Older and Hush from the first batch plus, I Got The Girl, Stay, Gimme Some, Rich Man LIving in a Poor Man's House, Shadow Dancing, Good Ain't Good Enough, Save The World, Real Life and You Can't Lose at Love which was also in the first batch and apparently a favourite with those who heard it. The
acoustic performance also included Older.
In October 1998 Mercury also released THE BON JOVI REMASTERS series. This featured all band albums being digitally remastered and with the exception of the first album all included "enhanced" material in the form of one of the promo videos from that album being included on the cd, so that with the right equipment (i.e. a PC or MAC) you got an "extra" experience. You could level many criticisms at this, like "How many people don't already own the Video releases?", or "Can anyone other than professionals actually tell the difference in sound?", or, "Does These Days really need remastered after 3 years?", or "Why didn't they add extra songs instead of a video which no doubt most have seen and maybe only 50 per cent will be able to play?". On the last point, I personally think it would have been nice to have had Slippery When Wet remastered with Borderline and maybe also Edge of a Broken Heart on the same cd, that way everyone could have benefitted from the extras not just those with computers capable of playing video cds. But then I'm only a fan, what do I know?
So having reached 1999, the year of the bands supposed return, finally Mercury updated the website, even if they can't remember what year the albums were released in, but they did manage to generate excitement with the Sex Sells coming soon adverts!! Remasters raised their head again with American fans again drawing the short straw, not only were they asked to pay full price for the albums but they didn't receive anything extra!! No screensavers, no small quicktime videos, why bother? Japan benefitted most, their releases included bonus cds, granted they were of b side material already released, but at least you got 2 cds of music instead of one and a few technological gimmicks. Maybe someone someday will explain the reason behind the different market releases for this product?
The first new single from the band in 3 years was Real Life, originally a solo demo by Jon but worked up to a full version for the band, and utilised on the Ed Tv soundtrack. 3 main versions were released, the UK got one with Real Life, KTF live from 92 and a very good instrumental version of Real Life, which dare I say it a lot of people almost preferred. In Europe one version ommitted the intrumental version, while another only contained Real Life plus 2 other artists from the soundtrack, as well as the UK version which was released in some countries. America didn't have the single released despite the film opening at number 3 on its release weekend
21st Century Crush
1999 saw some changes and delays to the bands activities. During the melee of Universal buying Polygram/Mercury etc, the bands record label has changed to Island/Def Jam, and from what we understand, the personnel involved on the record company side also changed. So far, at the time of this update in February 2000, this is benefitting fans. Sex Sells didn't make it in 1999, indeed the title was changed to One Wild Night, and finally to Crush. Previews of the songs were given during webcam sessions in the recording studio, culminating in an Internet only concert which apparently crashed one of the global internet backbone servers due to the number of hits!! The Webcam was a great idea, we saw the guys recording, we saw unseen footage, we had live interactive chats with the guys and then we had the concert!! 4 songs in total were previewed, Just Older (a reworking of Jons live solo track Older), Say it isn't So, Two Story Town and Thank You For Loving Me, a ballad inspired by a line spoken by Brad Pitt in the movie Meeting Joe Black.
Bon Jovi 2000
A staggered release of Its My Life across Europe meant that we found out what extra songs were coming our way before they hit us. Somewhere along the way one version of the single got mispressed. A poster sleeve cd single which listed Its My Life, Temptation, I Don't Want To Live Forever and Prayer live enhanced actually turned out to contain Its My Life, Hush, You Can't Lose at Love and I Don't Want to Live Forever!! A corrected version was released shortly after but not before import versions made their way to the UK. Speaking of which, over the 2 cd singles we also got all 4 extra tracks plus an enhanced Its My Life video for our computers.
Europe wide the album is/was released depending on when you read this, on 29th May, and following previous releases it features a bonus track not available on the USA version, If I Could Make a Living Out Of Loving You, while Japan whose version was personally released by the band on May 17th at Tower Records in Japan, contains 2 bonus tracks, the aforementioned European one plus an excellent song called Neurotica, which if the webcast preview was anything to go by, would be amazing live, maybe it'll make it there the way All I Want is Everything did in 96???? Future singles at this stage appear to be Say it isn't So, and Thank You For Loving Me, and wth Jon and Richie having 35-45 songs spare from this album lets hope more demos get released on them as well!!!
With a plethora of songs written for Crush, we enjoyed more unreleased demos on the August 2000 release of the Say It Isn't So singles. While the formats may have varied across the world, some countries containing extra cd rom footage, the songs, namely, Stay, Ain't No Cure For Love, Ordinary People and Welcome to the Good Times were available to everyone. Everyone that is except America where commercial cd singles seem to be dying a death. Especially look out for the aussie versions which contained 2 old live tracks plus excellent cd rom footage. In September a seemingly pointless excersise from the UK record company produced a "deluxe" UK edition of Crush. Personally it seemed like a blatant attempt to extract more hard earned cash from the pockets of loyal fans. The "deluxe" aspect?....... 2 remixes of the 2 singles released so far plus their 2 videos in cd rom format. While the remixes and Its My Life video have already been available on the chart singles, you really have to ask if its worth another £15 for one cd rom video? The proposed Japanese "deluxe" release including live tracks recorded on the Crush tour seems a far more appropriate and rewarding prospect.
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