Bon Jovi – ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’ (2004) – (Disc 4 – Part 5 of 6) – Box Set Review (The Bon Jovi Collection Series)

We are in the year 2004 and Bon Jovi has now been around for 20 Years at this point. To celebrate their 20th Anniversary, they released a really cool box set of mostly unreleased tunes and a lot of little extras titled ‘100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong’. The Box Set is a collection of 50 songs spread over 4 CDs, 38 of which had never been released. The others were songs from soundtracks, remixes and/or B-Sides. This was a band dumping everything sitting by the wayside in to one set and I applaud them for that. Us diehard fans love this kind of stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, if you have the Japanese Edition, which i do, you get another CD of B-Sides and Japanese Bonus Tracks. That is another 10 songs. 

This is a lot of music to absorb and we won’t be absorbing it all here. Nope. I’m going to go through each and every CD, track by track over 6 posts. We are now on the fourth disc which had a total of 13 tracks, 10 of which were previously unreleased. So let’s get started and dive into the music as that is why we are really here any way.

We are now to the final disc of music for the original box set. We still have the Japanese Bonus Disc to do and the DVD. This set starts off with two versions of “Love Ain’t Nothing But a Four Letter Word”. A song about domestic violence which is a serious topic for the band. However, the music doesn’t make it feel all that serious. This is an upbeat version with a real R&B, Motown feel to it with the horns and the angelic ladies on the backing vocals. That sound is why they never used it on an album. The other version of this song is Jon’s original demo with I think just him on the song. Some different lyrics and a more rocker feel to it the final studio version.

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Talisman – ‘Life’ (1995) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

When it was time to start work on the new Talisman album, Marcel Jacobs flew to the States to meet up with Jeff Scott Soto and write songs. He was there for a few weeks in March 1995 and they cranked out a batch of songs. But recording this time around was going to be different. The band didn’t meet up in the studio to record the album. Instead each member recorded their parts in different studios around the world. Once the music was done, they sent the tapes to Jeff and he added all the vocals. Not the quickest way or easiest and doesn’t always deliver the best results.

The first time the band members were all together in the studio was only when it was time to mix the records and that time was short. There was a big issue with the Japanese label. They wanted the album done by a set date. The band was rushed to get it mixed and that was done by Mats Lindfors. Marcel was not happy with the mix, but the Japanese label didn’t care so they took the original mix. The album was going to be released.

On the good side of it, their European label, Polydor Records didn’t have a deadline. This allowed the band to remix the album, make some vocal edits (as Jeff wasn’t happy with a few parts) and then on August 23, 1995 the album was released in Europe. And yes, it was a different mix than the Japanese Edition. Of course that means I now need both copies so off I go to find the Japanese Edition. My copy of the album is a 2004 release which was a 2 CD set including the ‘Life’ album and the ‘5 out of 5’ live album we reviewed a couple weeks ago.

The album didn’t do as well as the prior Talisman albums and that was all due to label issues. You see there was an issue with distribution as the new distributor prioritized their own albums over Polydor’s releases. People with the labels were getting fired and the Japanese label ended up going bankrupt. Mix all those things together and trouble will ensue.

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