The first track on the album, ‘Keep the Faith’ was “I Believe” which was also the fifth single and released in the UK Where it went to #11. The song was written solely by Jon Bon Jovi and was released on September 20, 1993. The single is not the album track, but the single mix down by Bob Clearmountain thus the name Clearmountain Mix. The B-Side of this UK version of the single is a live version of the song. So, both versions on here are not really album tracks.
The song is about hope. Believing in yourself to fulfill your hopes and dreams. The main protagonist is disillusioned by the world, but yet they still have things they want to do and accomplish. They need to look from within to find the power to still believe in themselves. A pretty great, positive message. Jon really pushes himself on this song and album to be a better songwriter and I think he succeeds.
After 16 months of touring for ‘New Jersey’, the band was simply exhausted. Without so much as a goodbye, the band members went home and did their own things for awhile. Jon Bon Jovi became real disillusioned with the music “business” so he fired everyone from management to advisers to even agents (which was Doc McGhee). Jon took control. And in October 1991, he brought the boys back together down in St. Thomas in the Caribbean where the band hashed out their issues and decided it was time to work again.
In January 1992, the band headed back to Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver, Canada to start work on their fifth album. They tried to get Bruce Fairbairn back to produce, but he was busy with a little band from Boston called Aerosmith and their smash album ‘Get a Grip’. So, they got the next best thing, Bob Rock, who engineered their last two albums with Bruce so he was taught very well. They worked on the album through August of that year and wrote/recorded over 30 songs for the album. Of which, 12 made it and a couple were used for various bonus tracks whether in Japan or Australia.
Things had changed significantly since their last album. Some thing called Grunge had taken over and even Rap was growing in popularity. But the boys ignored all that, they also ignored their old sound which was full of cliches. Instead, the focused on righting real songs about more serious topics. Now, not all the songs were that way, but enough were that we got a band that sounded more mature, more focused and more serious.
The album came out on November 3, 1992 and would spawn six singles – four in the U.S. and two around the world. The album would chart at #5 in the U.S., #1 in the UK and high on so many charts around the world. It would sell over 8 million copies worldwide and have 3 Top 40 hits. Bon Jovi was back and in a big way. They were actually more popular around the world then in their home country. Why did this album do so well, let’s dig in to the songs and see.
After a sixteen month tour for ‘Slippery When Wet’, Bon Jovi immediately went back in to the studio so they could prove that their third album wasn’t a fluke. They packed their bags again and headed back to Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with Bruce Fairbairn back as producer and Bob Rock as the engineer. The band was ready to record and they record they did. This time around, they wanted to experiment a little with their songs and their sound, but at the same time they brought back a team that understood them and what they wanted.
The were so inspired on tour, that they had a ton of material to record. So much so, that they wanted the album to be a double album and it was going to be called “Sons of Beaches”. They had Desmond Child back to help with some songs and this time around they even had a couple other very famous songwriters, Holly Knight and Diane Warren. They really wanted to make sure they could repeat their previous success. When all was said and done, they had around 26 songs. However, the record company was really nervous about releasing a double album. They were worried that it would price them out of the market. So, they made the band release a single album.
That album would end up being called “New Jersey” and it was released on September 19, 1988 and was it as successful as ‘Slippery When Wet’? Uhhh..basically, yes! It went to #1 and had 5 hit singles and sold over 7 million copies (I think Slippery has had over 12 million). I would say that was another massively successful album. The sound of the album was really middle-America with a rock, country flair that felt like a Rock & Roll Western at times, but still that Arena rock overall filled with even more great ballads. It is a quintessential 80’s Rock album. Let’s get to the music.
Bon Jovi had two moderately successful albums under their belt. However, they weren’t happy with the fact they weren’t superstars yet. So, changes had to be made. Not in the band line-up as it was still Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Tico Torres, David Bryan and Alec John Such. Nope. They needed to change their approach. One of the first things they chose to do was bring someone in to help with the songs. That person was Desmond Child. Desmond didn’t try to change who the band was with the songs, but he helped refine them, make them better. Jon and Richie wrote well together, but with Desmond’s help, the songs became stories that connected with people, but first they had to record them.
To do that, they changed even more stuff. Jon was listening to Black & Blue’s album ‘Without Love’ and he loved the production of it. So, he reached out to Bruce Fairbairn and he was hired as producer..with some other cat named Bob Rock as the engineer. The band moved to Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver, Canada and the record was started. The album was finished and released on August 18, 1986 and would become a 12,000,000 selling album making it Diamond. It would spark 4 Top 40 singles of which 2 went to #1 and would see the band tour massively. They would start out the tour as an opening act, but by the end they were the headliners. The band got what they wanted and they were now Superstars!
But before we get to the music, let’s talk about the album name and cover. It was inspired by a trip to The No. 5 Orange strip club in Vancouver. The boys saw this stripper who stripped all the way down to nothing, stepped in to a shower and lathered herself all up. That was motivation for the boys to finish the album and inspired the Slippery When Wet name. One of the original names was ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ and had the boys dressed as cowboys, but that was scrapped. They did use that cover for the single though.
The band was in trouble after ‘Done With Mirrors’. What was supposed to be their comeback album, flopped big time. The drugs were still a big problem. So the band had to make a huge change…and they did. They got sober! ‘Permanent Vacation’ is the first album the band has ever made that they were sober…no drugs, no drinking…clean and sober. And people reacted to that in a big way. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer had a lot to prove and they couldn’t do it alone.
The studio that the first batch of help should come from a great producer. At the helm this time around was Bruce Fairbairn and his amazing engineering staff of Mike Fraser and Bob Rock which is one of the most impressive crew behind the boards every in music history. Heck, Bruce even played trumpet, cello and sang background vocals while Mike Fraser played something called a plunger mute. Huh??? Well, that is a trumpet with an attachment on the front that mutes the sound a little. I don’t see where Bob is credited with anything other than masterful engineering. The recorded at the very famous Little Mountain Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia. If you saw my interview with Paul Laine we talked about that studio a lot.
The second row of help came from some song doctors, however, this was one big area of contention with the band. They were forced to work with outside writers much in the way Cheap Trick had to with ‘Lap of Luxury’ that we discussed earlier this week. The biggest contribution came from Desmond Child who co-wrote 3 of the tracks, 2 of which were massive singles for the band. They also had help from Jim Vallance (Bryan Adams writing partner) and Holly Knight (Kiss and Cheap Trick).
Continuing the saga of all the 12″ Singles I picked up at the big Metalocalypse sell at Noble Records, we are now on a 4 week run of singles from The Cult. First up was from the band’s 1985 album ‘Love’ with “She Sells Sanctuary” and then we took a look at the lead track and third single form the band’s 1987 album ‘Electric’ with the song “Wild Flower” and from that same album we did the song “Love Removal Machine”. And finally we are on “Fire Woman” written by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy off their 1989 classic ‘Sonic Temple’. Like “Love Removal Machine”, this copy was still sealed, but since it wasn’t expensive and music should be listened to, it is no longer sealed and it sounds fantastic now that it finally gets to breathe and be heard. I could feel it sigh with relief when I broke the seal. I swear I heard it say softly…”thank you”.
This 12″ was a “Specially Priced Maxi-Single, whatever that means. The song “Fire Woman” was produced by Bob Rock and is the first song I think I really heard by them that made me take notice because when I did, I was hooked. The song is about a femme fatale who is fiery and hotter than hell. She might be a dancer the way the moves around like a flame or she is really wild and sexy…probably all of the above.
We are now on our 4th Producer Extraordinaire in this series. We have seen Robert John “Mutt” Lange, Brendan O’Brien and Bruce Fairbairn so far, and now it is time for Bob Rock. Bob Rock actually got his start as a recording engineer and mixer under the great Bruce Fairbairn so he learned from one of the best.
Bob’s musical career started back in 1979 / 1980 when he started engineering from Bruce as well as joined the band Payola$ who had a big hit in 1980 called “Eyes of a Stranger”. They were pretty successful in Canada and won a Juno Award in 1983 for Single of the Year. However, Bob’s real talent (or at least to me) is his ability to work with bands and produce amazing albums.
METALLICA:
Bob Rock has worked with some of the biggest bands in the world, but they don’t get bigger than Metallica. Bob was selected as the Producer for the band’s biggest album they had ever done, however, at the time they did not know it would become so big. “The Black Album” as it is commonly known made Metallica cool in the mainstream world as well as the Thrash world.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 