Bon Jovi have been huge in Japan since the beginning. As a result, Japan gets all the cool stuff and they did again this time as well. Bon Jovi reissued their first three albums on SHM-CDs and in a 7″ Vinyl format…but on CD. You get Bon Jovi, 7800° Fahrenheit and Slippery When Wet. We will walk through what you get with each disc and how it differs from the two recent U.S. Reissues of Bon Jovi and Slippery When Wet.
So go check it out as it will be live tonight, June 9, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.
For the band’s 40th Anniversary of the album that made the band rock stars, they decided to release a Liquid Version of the album on vinyl. With a title like ‘Slippery When Wet’ and filling it up with a bluish liquid that resembles water, it is pretty cool!! The liquid will slosh around as you move the vinyl around so it never seems to be in the same place twice. The vinyl itself is really thick to accommodate the liquid and it actually does play, however, I’ve never dropped a needle on it and don’t know if I will. I did spin around on the turntable and the liquid doesn’t actually move much when playing.
My only concern with it is what happens if it leaks? I will be storing it in a plastic vinyl storage sleeve just in case so the liquid doesn’t damage anything else. However, I think the liquid will eventually evaporate, but hopefully years and years later and long after I’m gone. Bon Jovi’s first run of these albums were number and I believe there were 1,300. Mine is #0538. Those sold out extremely quickly and are now selling on discogs for $500 and up. I wonder how long that price will hold because Bon Jovi has reissued it again in a non-number version so people can now get one again for the original $99. I have no intention of selling. Don’t get me wrong, if I would’ve known I could sell it for $500, I would’ve sold it and then been able to buy it again for $99…hell yeah…no brainer. Too many for sale now to think I would even get that price.
ORIGINAL ALBUM REVIEW:
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!
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 vinyl. For Part 1 of 2, we are going to go through the vinyl in the collection that covers the 1980’s and the 1990’s capturing all the studio albums, compilations, solo albums and even some 12″ Singles and a Bootleg. Come join as we talk all things Bon Jovi from the debut up to Richie Sambora’s ‘Undiscovered Soul’. Now, this isn’t everything there is, 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.
Bon Jovi and the label were really pushing their single “Thank You For Loving Me” off their 2000 album ‘Crush’. The single was released on November 6, 2000 and only went to #57 on the Billboard Hot 100. So, to help promote the song even more, they created an E.P. with that song and other love songs. This is a rare bonus CD, that was available only on Valentine’s Day of 2001 with the purchase of the studio album Crush. It contained five Bon Jovi love ballads; “Thank You for Loving Me”, “Bed of Roses”, “Always”, “I’ll Be There for You” and “Never Say Goodbye”. I also read that it was sent to radio stations as well as promo to be played as it contains the radio edit of “Thank You For Loving Me”.
The CD comes in a cardboard gatefold sleeve with a bunch of hearts on the front. The gatefold opens with the chorus of the song on the right and a heart shapped cut-out that is holding the CD on the left. It is pure Valentine’s Day cheese. I’ll tell you, it isn’t that hard to come by and not real expensive so if you need to complete your collection with this, it won’t be to difficult. Hit up eBay or Discogs and you should find it easy enough. As I mentioned, the first song is a radio edit and so is “Always”. The rest are the original versions from the albums. Let’s go through them all.
The song title, “Thnk You For Loving Me” seems to be inspired by Brad Pitt’s character in the film ‘Meet Joe Black’ where he tells Claire Forlani’s character “thank you for loving me”…or it could be a giant coincidence. It was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and was inspired by Jon’s own personal experiences and observations on how love can change you and it was a giant thank you to those special people in his life. It is chock full of ballad cliches with a full on string section, soft & gentle piano and some nice sweet guitar licks from Sambora giving us the power in power ballad. And yes, it is a little over-the-top at times and cheesy, but Jon still delivers it as only he can with all the emotion needed to draw in the listener and pull at their heartstrings. Not their best ballad they’ve ever done, but honestly, its pretty damn good nonetheless.
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.
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.
In my quest to find good homes for 7″ Singles with picture sleeve covers, I came across another Bon Jovi single. This time around it is for the song “You Give Love a Bad Name” off their mega-selling album “Slipper When Wet”. It was the first single off the album and was the band’s first #1 single and wouldn’t be their last. The song was written by Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and is about a woman who has done her lover wrong. So wrong that she gives love a bad name.
An interesting note about the song is Desmond had written this song for Bonnie Tyler, but it was called “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)” which had completely different lyrics. The song did poorly so he brought it to his writing session with Jon and Richie and pitched it. They completely re-wrote the lyrics and turned it in to the big hit it is today.
The single I have is the standard U.S Release which was released on July 23, 1986. The B-Side is also off ‘Slippery When Wet’ and is the song “Raise Your Hands”. The picture sleeve I have is in great shape and the vinyl is clean and sounds great. For being 36 years old, I would say it is in pretty great shape.
On my Summer vacation back in June, I found over 20 singles with the picture sleeve. I’ve been through a bunch of them so far and now we are tackling the Bon Jovi singles that I found. There were 5 Singles found and we are going to kick it off with one of Bon Jovi’s most popular and famous songs, “Wanted Dead or Alive” off the band’s 1986 album ‘Slippery When Wet’. The song was the third single from this album and the third to crack the Billboard Hot 100 reaching #7. The band was on a roll and growing to become one of the world’s biggest rock bands thanks in large part to this song.
My copy is the basic U.S. Version and is an Indianapolis Pressing. Nothing fancy about it. The B-Side is the album version of “I’d Die For You”. The A-Side is also the basic version of “Wanted Dead or Alive”, no single edit or anything like that just the same long version as the album. The short version cuts off about a minute of the song.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 