From the burning ashes of Vinnie Vincent Invasion, we get Slaughter. Singer Mark Slaughter and Bassist, Dana Strum, decide to make their own band after the end of the Vinnie Vincent catastrophe. With a quick record deal, they were off to record their debut album, ‘Stick It In Ya’. After 5 studio albums, a live E.P., a live album and various compilations, we basically have their main catalog now in the collection so why not go through it. We talk about the beginning of Slaughter, their love for Vinnie and how their career went. A short one it is, but it is a good one.
So go check it out as it will be live tonight, August 11, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
Welcome to the final post in the Bon Jovi Collection Series. I have spent the past 14 months going through everything in my Bon Jovi collection and that included full reviews of ALL 16 Studio Albums. I had done a Ranking back in 2020 after the album ‘2020’ came out but that was based off what I thought listening to the albums only. No deep dive. I will admit this one is slightly different than before as I spent a week with each album and dove deep in to the songs. It isn’t entirely different as the #1 is the same, but there is a lot of movement below.
I am not going to go in to the band’s story here because you can read that if you want by going through the reviews yourself by clicking on the links at the bottom of the post. Bon Jovi has been through changes and some challenges, but they are still going strong…not necessarily with the same crew but Jon, David & Tico are still there holding down the ship…well Jon is as it is his ship as he is the dictator…I mean captain if we are staying with the ship analogy. So, hoist the sail, raise up the anchor and let’s cruise through the 16 Studio albums and see what is the best and what is the worst…I hope you enjoy.
To Celebrate the end of the Bon Jovi Series, it was time to do a show on The Collection where we walked through the Bon Jovi vinyl. For Part 1 was last week and we walked through their peak years of The 80’s & The 90’s. For Part 2, we are going to go through the vinyl in the collection that covers all of The 2000’s from 2000 to 2024. We will capture all the studio albums, compilations, and even some 10″ Picture Discs. Come join as we talk all things Bon Jovi from the 2000’s Crush’ to 2024’s ‘Forever’. I don’t know if this is everything you can get in the 2000’s, but it is everything in my collection and that is the show!
So go check it out as it will be live tonight right now, September 9, 2024 at 8pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
We are now on the 13th Studio album by Bon Jovi and the first without Richie Sambora. And this one has an interesting story behind it. Bon Jovi was at the end of his contract with Mercury and had been with them for 32 years. They could not come to agreement and this was the end of his relationship with the label. This album, ‘Burning Bridges’, is the final album to fulfill his contract with the label. And to say Jon was a little pissed is an understatement. He didn’t sit down to write a whole album because he was so pissed (as you will hear on the title track) and only wanted to end this deal and move on. I believe the label kept the rights to the masters and that didn’t sit well.
He grabbed a bunch of unfinished songs and actually finished them. He did write a few new songs, but most were leftover songs that needed to be finished. As a result, of the turmoil between Jon and the label, neither cared about the album. Heck, the label put cheap packaging on it (my copy is a cardboard sleeve and no liner notes) and didn’t even really promote it. And I will tell you that is a complete shame as this is the first album in years that I actually felt was a good Bon Jovi album.
The last three albums were so boring, but this one felt fresh to me and interesting. The reason I think this is better is because Jon didn’t sit down to write a full album and follow his paint-by number formula he had been using for years now. He grabbed from his archives left over tracks that created more variety and surprisingly the whole package struck a chord with me and I truly love this album.
Here is the funny thing to me. He left Mercury, which is owned Universal Music Group, and was signed by Island Records, which is owned by Universal Music Group. Hmmm….did he technically change labels then. It all seems for nothing to me. Anyway, on August 21, 2015, Bon Jovi released ‘Burning Bridges’ and it did go to #13 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and after a whole year of release, it had only sold 67,000 copies in the U.S. Is this the worst performing album in their catalog? Quite possibly. All I will say is that people are missing out!! Let’s get to it.
We are starting out things a little different. We aren’t starting with the earliest Bon Jovi piece in the collection. We are going to start the Bon Jovi Collection Series with the piece that convinced me to start the series. I picked this up around Christmas of last year and when I had all the album on vinyl, I thought, let’s do it. I took some time filling some holes in the collection and arranging what I wanted to review and now here we are. Currently this collection is going to take some time as there are around 60 pieces to review so this will take over a year to complete so I hope you are along for the ride. We will save the history of the band and how it got started to later. For now, let’s look at this box set in all its glory.
The Box Set was released on February 10, 2017 and was released on both vinyl and CD. I chose the Vinyl collection as I love to have their albums on vinyl. The set carries all studio albums up to that point which means it stops at ‘This House is Not For Sale’. But that isn’t all, it has both Jon Bon Jovi solo albums as well as an “Extra” LP with a bunch of their international B-Sides which is a nice treat. But that is it. There no extra posters, stickers, booklets or anything. Each album though is remastered on 180g LP and the 16 albums are spread over 24 LPs. At the time this was released, 7 of the albums had never been released on vinyl and then you have the “Extra” LP which is the first time this had ever been released. So, for the vinyl collector this was the easiest way to get everything. Now, they did release the albums individually, well the Bon Jovi ones were, I don’t think I ever saw the Jon Bon albums ever in the stores…I mean ever.
You read that right. The next series here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music will be Bon Jovi. It is coming July 4th, 2023. What better way to spend America’s birthday then to start reviewing one of the most American Bands there is…BON JOVI!!!
This Collection Series will include everything I have in my collection and that includes Jon Bon Jovi Solo stuff as well as Richie Sambora as to me, they are Bon Jovi (even if it is Jon’s band). No Richie, No Bon Jovi…okay, no real good Bon Jovi without Richie. There, I said it and got that out of the way. We have around 60 reviews coming to you and of course, that is going to take over one year to get through as we normally do 1 post a week on a series.
For My Sunday Song #192, we are going to discuss the very last great Bon Jovi song to ever be written. The song is “We Don’t Run” and it is lead single from their 2015 album ‘Burning Bridges’. The album is a big F U to the band’s record label Mercury. This was a total contract fulfillment album as the band lumped together some unfinished songs and wrote this particular one for the album. It isn’t a terrible album, but far from their best.
The song is another in a long line of rock anthems that are meant to be uplifting and empowering which all started with song “It’s My Life” back in 2000. The song does make you feel inspired as it is telling you to stand up for you believe in and do what you need to do to make it happen. The song was written with John Shanks who also produced the album with Jon Bon and it also is where the album title comes. Interesting note, this is the first album not to feature Richie Sambora…and with the exception of this song, it shows.
Musically the song is heavy on the bass and the drum which drives the beat home and is the force behind the song thanks to Hugh McDonald on bass and Tico Torres on drums. The guitar solo on this song is amazing and is handled by John Shanks who earned his chops playing with Melissa Etheridge. Jon sings the lines in the same force as the drum beat, very powerful and perfect timing on the delivery. The combo of the drum beat and his vocals, you get worked up and ready to fight for what you want. On an album that was lacking a lot, this left you feeling good.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 