Author: LRussell

Eric Clapton highlighted a series of tributes to the late John Mayall by saying he learned everything he needed to know about guitar during his time in Mayall’s band.

Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Geezer Butler and Mick Fleetwood were among the other artists honoring the blues legend on social media. You can see their posts below.

Clapton spent a short period of his early in the Blues Breakers alongside future Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie, drummer Hughie Flint and leader Mayall, who died at age 90 on July 22.

But in an emotional video (below) Clapton recalled that the experience of being mentored by the innovator, who was 11 years older, affected his entire life.

READ MORE: How Eric Clapton Opened His Heart and Made a Masterpiece

“I want to say thank you, chiefly, for rescuing me from oblivion… when I was a young man around the age of 18 or 19, when I decided I was going to quit music,” he said, speaking directly to Mayall.

He explained: “He found me and took me into his home, and asked me to join his band; and I stayed with him; and I learned all that I really have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play. I did all my research in his home in his record collection – the Chicago blues that he was such an expert on.

“I played with his band for a couple of years, with Hughie and John, and it was a fantastic experience. He taught me that it was okay to just play the music you wanted to play without dressing it up or making anybody else like it… to listen to myself, to my inner motivations.”

Why Eric Clapton Needed to Make Amends to John Mayall

Clapton continued: “He was my mentor; and, as a surrogate father, he taught me all I really know, and gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear, without limit.

“And all I gave him in return was [to illustrate] how much fun it was to drink and womanize, when he was already a family man. I wished to make amends for that – and I did that while he was alive. I have since learned that that is not the best way to carry on.”

He added: “I shall miss him, but I hope to see him on the other side.” Speaking directly to Mayall again, he concluded: “Thank you, John. I love you; I’ll see you soon, but not yet. Not yet, as they say in the Gladiator movie.”

As a staple of competitive singing programs and every karaoke night ever held, Journey would seem to be a natural fit for a Bohemian Rhapsody-style stage musical or biopic.

They’ve reportedly drawn interest from the creator of TV’s CSI franchise, too. There’s just one problem.

“We’ve been down that road,” Jonathan Cain reveals to Billboard. “I worked with Anthony Zuiker. He’s a huge Journey fan and he had these songs in mind to create a play – and [Steve] Perry shot it down. He didn’t want to know about it.”

READ MORE: Ranking All 52 Journey Songs From the ’80s

Perry holds a decisive vote, despite having left Journey more than 25 years ago, because has retained all rights to his songs. Both Cain and Neal Schon sold their ownership interests to Hipgnosis in June 2019 and February 2020, respectively. “You can’t use his songs without his permission, obviously,” Cain confirms.

Journey is in the midst of a stadium tour with Def Leppard and Steve Miller. Cain has mentioned work on a new stand-alone single, but there are no concrete plans to record a follow-up to 2022’s Freedom.

“I continue to be creative; we all do,” Schon tells Billboard. “We recorded [Freedom and] we recorded way more than what ended up on the album, a lot of great stuff that wasn’t used – so there is some stuff like that. But the business now is really about live performances and about whatever you can do with merchandise.”

Perhaps a Cirque du Soleil-Style Project?

In the meantime, Cain said CSI‘s Zuiker remains interested. He “came back to me again,” Cain added. “He had this Journey-Cirque du Soleil idea, and we were supposed to get something else with Netflix [with] the same producers who did the ­Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary.”

They’ll still need to get the go-ahead from Journey’s long-departed frontman. “Right now,” Cain says, “I think that’s in the hands of Steve Perry to say yea or nay.”

Nick DeRiso is author of the Amazon best-selling rock band bio ‘Journey: Worlds Apart,’ available now at all major bookseller websites.

See Neal Schon Among Rock’s Forgotten Supergroups

A “hidden gem” from David Bowie’s filmography has been rereleased after its creator spent years tracking down the rights and a high-quality print so he could recut it.

The Linguini Incident bombed in 1992 after newbie director Richard Shepard, who was 25 at the time, saw his plans crushed by a tight schedule and lack of editorial control.

He’d pitched a small part to Bowie without any real hope of success, but the singer liked the script so much he asked for the leading role instead. As a result he starred alongside Rosanna Arquette in a romantic comedy where the pair stage a heist.

READ MORE: Every David Bowie Single Ranked

“I loved the script,” Arquette told the New York Times. “I just thought it was well-written and funny … and then, lo and behold, we had David Bowie, so that was really exciting.” She added: “He was just so great on the set. Loved working with him, and loved his energy, and his ability to just be able to connect in the moment — which is the dream for an actor.”

Shepard revealed that the funding for the low-budget production had been assembled “very weirdly,” and after a month of shooting he only had five weeks to assemble his cut – which was then altered without consultation. “I had a list of things I wanted to change,” he said. “There’s weird jump cuts, takes going on too long. It didn’t have any pace.” Three years ago he and a producer tracked down the rights, which had been sold on multiple times, and then located a high-quality print which could be used for a 4K re-cut.

“I was able to pace it up and get rid of all the weird jump cuts that didn’t seem to work,” Shepard said. “I was able to add zooms and reframe and give it an energy that helps tell this oddball story.” He admitted: “I know it’s not going to set any records when it comes out… But for me, it is now the version of the movie that I want people to see… It’s unique. It’s weird. It doesn’t feel like every other movie.”

David Bowie Director Wanted Mick Jagger in the Movie Too

Shepard went on to direct Pierce Brosnan in The Matador, Jude Law in Dom Hemingway and others. The Linguini Incident features music from future Oscar nominee Thomas Newman with cinematography by Robert Yeoman, now Wes Anderson’s right-hand man.

If the director had had his way in the ‘90s, there would have been a second rock star in his first movie – he’d envisaged Bowie and Mick Jagger as the double-act restaurant owners who get robbed. “We naively just sent it to them, to play those small parts, with no money offered, no anything,” Shepard said.

“We get this note back from Bowie saying, ‘I’m interested in your movie, but I don’t want to play that supporting role. I would like to play the lead.’”

Watch ‘The Linguini Incident’ Trailer

Classic rock didn’t end with the ’80s.

As you’ll see in the list of songs below, the ’90s offered plenty of reason for rock music fans to tune into something other than the same records they had been playing for years. From veteran artists like Bob Dylan and Neil Young to ’80s heavyweights R.E.M. and Guns N’ Roses to emerging acts forging a new sound from the underground, the ’90s were met with limitless possibilities.

The songs, voted on by the UCR staff, run from ’70s-inspired classic rock and still-thriving synth-pop to roots-covering heartland rock and the developing grunge genre. It made for a wildly diverse decade that continued to break down radio’s archaic rules and elevate once-independent artists into the mainstream.

No, classic rock didn’t die in the ’90s; it evolved to reflect its times, as the best music always does.

50. Pearl Jam, “Alive” (1991)

Pearl Jam‘s debut single was released three months before Nirvana‘s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” helped steer the decade’s course. While its commercial and critical impact wasn’t as immediate as their Seattle brethren’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten is every bit as significant in the growth of grunge and, in turn, once-underground music’s history-changing turning of the tides in the early part of the ’90s. “Alive” announced their arrival.

 

49. New Radicals, “You Get What You Give” (1998)

New Radicals’ brief stay in the spotlight belies leader Gregg Alexander’s time in the trenches. Before he released his group’s only album, 1998’s Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, Alexander put out two solo records. He later wrote Santana‘s Grammy-winning “The Game of Love” and was nominated for an Academy Award for “Lost Stars” from Begin Again. The super-catchy “You Get What You Give” is his jewel.

 

48. Pretenders, “I’ll Stand by You” (1994)

Pretenders were in the middle of a career renovation in 1994 following the release of their sixth album, the legacy-reclaiming Last of the Independents. Spurred by the forward-charging lead single “Night in My Veins,” follow-up “I’ll Stand by You” aligns more with Chrissie Hynde‘s recent turns toward reflective ballads. It became their first Top 40 hit in eight years and the last time they’d make it into the Top 20.

 

47. Extreme, “More Than Words” (1990)

Many hard rock bands’ gateway to the Top 40 in the ’80s came with a power ballad that softened their usually rougher styles. Boston rockers Extreme started the ’90s with the trick, putting aside their usual glam-metal sound in favor of the stripped-back acoustics of “More Than Words.” It went to No. 1 on the pop chart, their first charted single, before the band settled back into the album-oriented tracks more suited to their background.

 

46. David Bowie, “I’m Afraid of Americans” (1997)

David Bowie never strayed from the creatively restless path that defined his life. Even the ’90s, often earmarked as his most fallow period, sprouted musical gems for those willing to search. Case in point: 1997’s “I’m Afraid of Americans,” from the Earthling album but originally tracked for his 1995 Brian Eno collaboration that marked a reunion for the pair. Stuttering with techno hallmarks, the song pulses with electronic energy.

 

45. Bon Jovi, “Bed of Roses” (1992)

Bon Jovi ended the ’80s with two consecutive No. 1s, so breaking from a successful formula wasn’t a strategy for the new decade. While 1992’s Keep the Faith stalled at No. 5, it was more a case of timing than music – with fans gripped by grunge and blossoming alternative rock, the New Jersey band’s quaint pop-metal was being pushed from favor. “Bed of Roses,” however, remains a highlight of the era.

 

44. Weezer, “Buddy Holly” (1994)

The alternative rock revolution allowed unconventional artists to focus their eccentricities on their music. No band took greater advantage of these new frontiers than Weezer, who played up their general nerdiness onstage, in their videos and even in their songs. “Buddy Holly,” from their 1994 debut, celebrates suburban blandness in many shades, including its award-winning video that takes place on a Happy Days set.

 

43. Beck, “Loser” (1993)

Incorporating a Dr. John sample and a string of nonsequiturs, Beck‘s breakthrough song defined its era: a slacker anthem about self-defeat and self-loathing set atop a hip-hop-meets-alt-folk music bed. The melange became common practice as modern rock acts grew in stature, but as one of the first to take advantage of this widening field, Beck set a template for the next few years. Few imitators, though, come close to “Loser.”

 

42. Neil Young, “Harvest Moon” (1992)

Neil Young was on a career uptick after a near-calamitous ’80s. Following two albums of plugged-in rage, one made with frequent comrades-in-arms Crazy Horse, Young recorded a stripped-down country record hailed at the time as a sequel to 1972’s commercial high-water mark Harvest. Lovingly played, with backing vocals by Harvest singer Linda Ronstadt, “Harvest Moon” is the sound of a late-summer night rolling by.

 

41. Ozzy Osbourne, “No More Tears” (1991)

As with many of his contemporaries, the later part of the ’80s wasn’t the best of times for Ozzy Osbourne. Commercial slumps, coupled with often-crippling personal issues, left the singer with little hope as the decade turned into the ’90s. But with Motorhead‘s Lemmy Kilmister contributing songs, his sixth solo album No More Tears turned out to be one of the best of Osbourne’s long career. The seven-minute title track is a highlight.

 

40. Bob Dylan, “Love Sick” (1997)

Like fellow folk singer-songwriter turned rock icon Neil Young, Bob Dylan’s 1980s were some of the lowest points in his entire career. By the mid-’90s, however, coming off two stripped-down albums of folk and public-domain covers, the voice of his generation found new life with some of his best songs since the late ’70s. Time Out of Mind marked a staggering comeback for Dylan, led by the moody and despairing “Love Sick.”

 

39. AC/DC, “Thunderstruck” (1990)

AC/DC spent much of the ’90s struggling for position and relevance in a world that was increasingly requiring more from music than the three-chord boogie rock the Australian band had perfected over the preceding decades. One bright spot: this 1990 single from their 12th album, The Razors Edge, which features one of AC/DC’s greatest riffs (put to use in many movies over the years). “Thunderstruck” rarely left their set lists since then.

 

38. Radiohead, “Creep” (1992)

Nobody could have guessed from their breakthrough single that Radiohead would become the most important band of the 21st century by decade’s end. On its surface, “Creep” shares DNA with other self-hating songs from the era, such as Beck’s “Loser” and Stone Temple Pilots‘ same-named “Creep.” But lurking below the mopey facade is a band itching to break from type. Grunge soon behind them, they’d reinvent art-rock.

 

37. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun” (1994)

1994 was a big year for so-called grunge bands finding their footing, with Seattle mainstays Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden all resting near the Top 10. The latter’s fourth album, the No. 1 Superunknown, broke from style a bit, adding psychedelia and acoustic tones to its signature mix of Black Sabbath-inspired alt-rock. “Black Hole Sun” is the LP’s centerpiece, a swirling dose of tripping ’60s rock sporting new colors.

 

READ MORE: Pearl Jam Albums Ranked

 

36. The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979” (1995)

As the ’90s progressed, it became clear the Smashing Pumpkins were one of the most ambitious groups of the era. From the wild animal charge of debut Gish through the double-LP opus Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and the decade-ending synth-goth of Adore, Billy Corgan was guided by imagination. The sweet nostalgia of the Mellon Collie single “1979” features the Pumpkins at their most openhearted and best.

 

35. U2, “Mysterious Ways” (1991)

It wasn’t only the members of U2 who were ready for something new at the start of the ’90s; their longtime producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno were itching to move on, too. With Achtung Baby, they reworked their image and music, injecting everything from krautrock to world beat into their stadium rock. “Mysterious Ways” adds dance music to the quotient, upping the funk guitars with buoyant percussion and bouncing bass.

 

34. Oasis, “Champagne Supernova” (1995)

The closing song on Oasis‘ second album seems like an unlikely single: Running more than seven and a half minutes and with a slow-build structure that emphasizes its length, “Champagne Supernova” nevertheless became one of the band’s biggest songs, hitting No. 1 on the modern-rock chart. Like several Oasis songs, there’s no clear meaning – even writer Noel Gallager isn’t quite sure what it’s about.

 

33. Guns N’ Roses, “Don’t Cry” (1991)

Guns N’ Roses released two versions of “Don’t Cry” on their simultaneously issued Use Your Illusion albums. Axl Rose sings different verses in each; the Use Your Illusion I version gets the nod even though the music backing and choruses are virtually the same. The power ballad was one of the first new songs, and a Top 10 single, by the hot band following the surprise success of their 1987 debut Appetite for Destruction.

 

32. Duran Duran, “Ordinary World” (1993)

Stung by public indifference at the end of the decade they helped popularize, Duran Duran returned in 1993 with their seventh album, a self-titled LP that placed them back in the Top 10 after 10 years. The first single, “Ordinary World,” is a dream-like meditation written about the death of a good friend of singer Simon Le Bon’s. It became one of the band’s biggest songs, a favorite cherished by both longtime and new fans.

 

31. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Scar Tissue” (1999)

Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ songs can be divided into two camps: the funk-fried bro-downs that marked their earliest recordings and the serious tracks aimed at folks not hanging around the kegs. “Scar Tissue” falls into the latter category, and, like 1991’s “Under the Bridge,” deals with healing from past mistakes. The song is taken from the album Californication, which signaled the return of ace guitarist John Frusciante.

 

30. Aerosmith, “Livin’ on the Edge” (1993)

It’s easy to underestimate Aerosmith‘s comeback in the late ’80s. The band was all but lost to both their destructive behavior and fans’ indifference to new music. But cleaned up and sparked by revived inspiration, their late ’80s and early ’90s records bristle with reborn firepower. The initial single from their first No. 1 album, Get a Grip, reflects their commitment to their second chance and proves their return was no fluke.

 

29. Nirvana, “All Apologies” (1993)

After Kurt Cobain died in 1994, “All Apologies” became a requiem for the late Nirvana singer and guitarist in a posthumously released live version on MTV Unplugged in New York. But the mournful studio take that closes 1993’s In Utero carries the same emotional weight thanks to the trio’s dialed-back performance, aided by Kera Schaley’s melancholy cello. It’s a fitting end: serene, moving and, ultimately, resigned to fate.

 

28. Bonnie Raitt, “Something to Talk About” (1991)

After nearly two decades of making music and nine albums, Bonnie Raitt found herself the hot new artist of 1989. The Grammy-winning Nick of Time was her first No. 1; her highest-charting LP until then was the No. 25 Sweet Forgiveness from 1977. The attention gave her next album, 1991’s Luck of the Draw, a bigger spotlight for her singing and guitar playing. “Something to Talk About” is a blues-soaked standout.

 

27. Aerosmith, “Cryin'” (1993)

Aerosmith’s career resuscitation at the end of the ’80s gave them their largest and arguably most passionate audience at the dawn of the ’90s. With 1989’s Pump barely out of chart view, the band released Get a Grip, their 11th album and first No. 1, sparked by a long run of FM-radio-ready songs. “Cryin'” just missed the Top 10, thanks to its glistening on-the-edge-of-power-ballad hook and a heavy-rotated video.

 

26. The Beatles, “Free as a Bird” (1995)

Stitched together from a 1977 John Lennon demo as its basis, “Free as a Bird” was the first new Beatles music heard in 25 years, put together for the Anthology TV series by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The results are what you’d expect from a Frankenstein’s Monster project with Jeff Lynne behind the board. But damn if it isn’t bittersweet to hear the Fab Four together again on record. A Top 10 hit, too.

 

25. Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing” (1990)

Los Angeles’ Jane’s Addiction left the ’80s as a buzzed-about band, renowned for both their live shows and the hard rock-meets-psychedelic-funk muscle of their 1988 debut, Nothing’s Shocking. The follow-up, 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual, turned up the weird factor but also gave the band its biggest hit in “Been Caught Stealing,” a relatively straightforward alternative-rock track on an album of dark, deathly ruminations.

 

24. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge” (1991)

It took a low-key song about singer Anthony Kiedis’ substance abuse problems to break Red Hot Chili Peppers into the mainstream following several years as a mediocre funk band. Producer Rick Rubin helped shape 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the Peppers’ fifth album and the one to capture their energetic spirit on record finally. The midtempo “Under the Bridge” builds over four and a half minutes to a soul-cleansing finale.

 

23. Soundgarden, “Spoonman” (1994)

“Spoonman” is almost an outlier on the album it comes from, 1994’s Superunknown. Though the LP, and song, helped break Soundgarden into the mainstream – following rock-radio success with 1991’s Badmotorfinger, the track carries the same driven rhythm heard on their previous three records – it is best known for type-dismantling tracks like “Black Hole Sun” and “Fell on Black Days.” Then there’s that spoons solo.

 

22. Aerosmith, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (1998)

Aerosmith spent the ’90s repairing the damage of their late-’70s excess. Two No. 1 albums, sold-out concerts and a steady run of hit singles marked a decade of one laurel after another. But their biggest accolade arrived late in the ’90s: their first No. 1 single, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” Written by Diane Warren for the movie Armageddon, the ballad irked some fans, but there’s little denying the pull of this sublime song.

 

READ MORE: Top 30 Album-Closing Songs

 

21. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” (1993)

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were putting together their first greatest hits compilation and wanted to fill it out with a couple of new songs. So he pulled a song he was working on from his yet-to-be-released second solo album, Wildflowers. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” was better suited to the group and became an unexpected hit in 1993, serving as a bridge between band eras. A new record company was next.

 

20. Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” (1993)

Meat Loaf was all but MIA since the unexpected success of 1977’s debut LP Bat Out of Hell. But a reunion with songwriter Jim Steinman and a return to lyrical and musical themes explored on the first album made Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell a worthy successor. The truly epic “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” – 12 minutes in its LP version – remains a milestone moment for the singer. It never wavers.

 

19. Green Day, “Longview” (1994)

Songs celebrating a slacker lifestyle were common in 1994; Beck, Pavement and Sonic Youth added to the expanding list of earlier tracks by Radiohead, Dinosaur Jr. and others. Green Day‘s “Longview” takes a stand from its opening lines: “I sit around and watch the tube, but nothing’s on / I change the channels for an hour or two, twiddle my thumbs just for a bit.” This song about doing nothing launched the punk trio’s career.

 

18. Green Day, “Basket Case” (1994)

Green Day’s major-label debut, Dookie, was a huge hit at modern rock radio stations. Three of its songs reached No. 1; “Basket Case” was the biggest. Running the edges of a panic attack, the song blankets its issues in a near-cheery pop-punk design that borders ’70s power pop. Billie Joe Armstrong snarls and whines as the music balloons around him, almost suffocating him in its chopping, three-instrument attack.

 

17. Guns N’ Roses, “November Rain” (1991)

Guns N’ Roses’ self-indulgent, two-LP Use Your Illusion reached its apex in “November Rain,” the nine-minute, rain-washed power ballad at the center of the first volume. Heavily inspired by Elton John, and swinging from one instrumental crescendo to the next with a force befitting one of the best hard-rock bands of their generation, the song wears ambition on its sleeve. Even in the year of grunge’s onset, an undeniable song.

 

16. Stone Temple Pilots, “Interstate Love Song” (1994)

Riding grunge’s wave and armed with a melody that skirts the lines between pop, alternative and even country, “Interstate Love Song” elevated Stone Temple Pilots from their designation as fad-glomming B-listers. The song, and its parent album, Purple, made STP one of the biggest bands of the period, even though they never really shook some of that initial criticism. If nothing else, “Interstate Love Song” gave them credibility.

 

15. The Black Crowes, “She Talks to Angels” (1990)

The Black Crowes came out of nowhere at the start of the ’90s with a mix of Faces– and Stones-like swagger laced through a Southern gothic veil. Even with well-targeted rock ‘n’ roll songs like “Jealous Again” and an amped-up cover of Otis Redding‘s “Hard to Handle,” debut album Shake Your Money Maker‘s most durable song is an acoustic lament about drug addiction seen through the eyes of a helpless friend.

 

14. The Cure, “Friday I’m in Love” (1992)

Despite their reputation as goth doom merchants, the Cure has released many upbeat songs over the decades, starting with the 1982 come-on “Let’s Go to Bed” to this 1992 favorite riding the overwhelming success of 1989’s Disintegration. “Friday I’m in Love” is upfront about its joy; Robert Smith has said there’s no underlying deepness to the song, calling it a “let’s get happy kind of record.” A worldwide hit from 1992’s Wish.

 

13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Learning to Fly” (1991)

Tom Petty needed a career turnaround as the ’80s drew to a close. His most recent records had neither chart success nor critical support. Then Jeff Lynne arrived. The Electric Light Orchestra mastermind helmed Petty’s 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever and returned for 1991’s album with the Heartbreakers, Into the Great Wide Open. Both were huge hits. “Learning to Fly” is the strummy lead single from the latter.

 

12. Alanis Morissette, “You Oughta Know” (1995)

Alanis Morissette came out of nowhere in 1995 (well, Canada, where she released a pair of forgettable pop records in the early ’90s), knocking down alternative nation’s boys-club barriers with Jagged Little Pill. The album hit No. 1, thanks in no small part to “You Oughta Know,” a female-empowerment evisceration of a former partner (“I’m not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes“) that’s both levelheaded and off the rails.

 

11. Radiohead, “Fake Plastic Trees” (1995)

Nobody expected the band behind 1993’s another-slacker-lament “Creep” to have much longevity let alone a creative burst that would stay with them for another two-plus decades. The Bends is another type of Radiohead record: art-rock for the next generation, multilayered experimental pop that stokes a dormant fire. “Fake Plastic Trees” builds like few other songs of the era – an instant classic of scalding release.

 

10. Beastie Boys, “Sabotage” (1994)

Beastie Boys straddled the line between rock and rap from day one. Before they became the first rap artists to have a No. 1 album, they were a hardcore punk trio bashing away on their instruments in their New York bedrooms. By 1992’s Check Your Head they were combining live instruments with hip-hop samples; 1994’s Ill Communication dives even further into this crossbreed. “Sabotage” says it all.

 

9. U2, “One” (1991)

1991’s Achtung Baby was designed to break U2 from their signature sound and move them into the new decade as innovative trailblazers. For the most part, the album succeeds as a chapter-opening introduction to modern electronic and dance music. “One,” however, is closer to the U2 sound the band was trying to escape, with room-shaking vocals and an epic slow build over four and a half pulsating minutes.

 

READ MORE: The Black Crowes Albums Ranked

 

8. Nine Inch Nails, “Closer” (1994)

Though labeled industrial rock, Nine Inch Nails shared many traits with ’70s prog acts, including long, complex songs and a penchant for conceptual threads running through their albums. The Downward Spiral, the second LP by Trent Reznor‘s one-man-band project, is an hourlong meditation on one person’s descent toward suicide; “Closer” was its surprising hit single, with the “I wanna fuck you like an animal” chorus a center point.

 

7. Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Philadelphia” (1994)

Coming off a career misstep that found him dismissing the E Street Band and then making a pair of simultaneously released albums with hired studio hands, Bruce Springsteen rebounded with a song written for Jonathan Demme’s AIDS-related 1993 drama Philadelphia. Quiet, reserved and humbling in ways his recent works were not, “Streets of Philadelphia” earned Springsteen an Oscar and four Grammy Awards.

 

6. Foo Fighters, “Everlong” (1997)

Foo Fighters‘ 1995 self-titled debut was shaped by Dave Grohl‘s grief following the death of his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain. Holed up by himself, he crafted the LP as a way to cope; for the follow-up, he enlisted a real band and was writing anthems of unbridled uplift. “Everlong” remains the crown jewel of his band’s catalog, filled with hope and a celebration of life that the debut didn’t dare get too close to.

 

5. Pearl Jam, “Jeremy” (1991)

By the time Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut album Ten reached its peak in 1992, the band found itself at the center of a new music movement as well as some controversy from the song “Jeremy,” about a school kid who commits suicide in front of his classmates. The extra attention propelled Ten to the upper reaches of the chart and set Pearl Jam on a course for a decades-spanning and consistently evolving career.

 

4. Metallica, “Enter Sandman” (1991)

Metallica was ready to take things to another level at the start of the ’90s, having tested commercial grounds with 1988’s … And Justice for All. With help from producer Bob Rock, the quartet fashioned a hard-rock record that deliberately pulled away from its thrash metal origins. The result was the epic Metallica in 1991, a radio behemoth that launched with the initially brooding, ultimately triumphant “Enter Sandman.”

 

3. Oasis, “Wonderwall” (1995)

Taking title inspiration from an early George Harrison soundtrack album, melodic stimulus from his famous group and firsthand acquaintance with ’90s Britpop, “Wonderwall” is Oasis’ masterwork, a once-in-a-lifetime track that has defied time. The band was on its way to becoming one of the biggest in the U.K. when “Wonderwall” hit in 1995; by year’s end, they were known all over the world. This song is why.

 

2. R.E.M., “Losing My Religion” (1991)

R.E.M. began their second decade with the second album of a multimillion-dollar deal signed with Warner Bros. a few years earlier. This one made them one of the biggest bands in the world. A newfound sense of songcraft, and Michael Stipe‘s clearer enunciation, drove Out of Time to No. 1, their first LP to do so. “Losing My Religion” was a big part of its success, a finely honed pop-rock song at the dawn of a new beginning.

 

1. Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991)

The song that changed it all. “Smells Like Teen Spirit”‘s mythmaking over the decades has rendered the stories to hyperbolic stature since its release in September 1991. But the significance of Nirvana’s breakthrough song can’t be understated. Rock music was indeed in a precarious place at the end of the ’80s, acts consumed with materialism, status and fashion rather than art in their music. The Seattle trio didn’t singlehandedly dismantle the structure but it certainly played a big part in saving rock music in the ’90s. The lead cut from the landscape-shifting Nevermind still sounds like a call to arms, its ringing guitar echoing 1970s classic rock while brandishing punk credibility for a new age. The ’90s weren’t the same after this, and Nirvana’s masterpiece can be thanked for that.

The headlines were plenty, with Limp Bizkit, Korn and Red Hot Chili Peppers getting much of the attention from Woodstock ’99, but not every band was an A-lister. Do you remember these bands who played the ill-fated Woodstock ’99?

For every Dave Matthews Band, The Offspring, Kid Rock and Rage Against the Machine, there were plenty of acts such as Full Devil Jacket, Oleander and Reveille that were filling out the early stages of the day.

READ MORE: Was Limp Bizkit Really to Blame for Woodstock ’99?

Yes, Woodstock ’99 turned violent and chaotic by the time was all said and done, but prior to all the mayhem, the Woodstock stages provided a platform for some lesser-known acts to get their music out there. How well do you remember these Woodstock ’99 performers and what happened to their careers after? Let’s dredge up some memories for you with these Woodstock ’99 bands that may have fallen off your radar.

Ever wanted to watch Wonder Woman cover a Kiss song?

That’s exactly what happened in 1980 when Lynda Carter, still riding high off the success of her starring role in the Wonder Woman TV show, appeared in Lynda Carter Encore!, her second TV variety special.

During a particularly extravagant “Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy” sequence, Carter performs the Bad Company song of the same name, Tina Turner‘s version of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Proud Mary,” Bette Midler’s “Friends” and perhaps most bizarrely, Kiss’ disco-inspired 1979 smash “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” The song was one of the biggest hits of the band’s career, hitting No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Watch Lynda Carter Perform ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You’

How Gene Simmons Returned the Favor By Dressing Like Lynda Carter

Six years later, Kiss star Gene Simmons appeared in the 1986 movie Never Too Young to Die as drag show star Velvet Von Ragner. As you can see in the video below, he wore an outfit almost identical to the one Carter wore during her “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” performance. “I didn’t design it,” Simmons later explained. “But in retrospect, clearly it was inspired by Lynda’s Kiss thing.”

Watch Gene Simmons Perform in ‘Never Too Young to Die’

Back in the days before the commercial advent of the compact disc, when vinyl records were the format of choice for purchasing and listening to music, albums would go out of print all the time, without warning. Some would not sell and be relegated to cutout bins or just tossed; others would sell out of their pressing, and would simply disappear, until a new run was pressed. If there were no further pressings, those records would just be gone.

Today, the advent of streaming services helps keep albums available for listening at the click of a link, but those who prefer to listen to music in spinning black circle format can once again find themselves out of luck, as the problems of the past – the dearth of some titles on vinyl – once again haunts the ever-growing hordes of record aficionados. Those collectors who turn to used-record markets (represented on sites like Discogs) or secondary sellers on Amazon, are often confronted with exorbitant prices for their desired LPs.

Below, we have collected 15 albums that are criminally out of print on vinyl in the U.S., and need to be issued or re-issued, to sate the hunger of rock (and folk and Americana) fans. These are records that should be available for spinning on a turntable near you immediately – it’s a wonder we’ve lived without them this long.

Beach Boys, The Smile Sessions

The Smile Sessions is a cobbling together of studio takes and outtakes, in an attempt to compile a legendarily classic Beach Boys album that never was – the follow-up to Pet Sounds, the album that sent Brian Wilson over the edge into psychosis, the collection of songs Mike Love still doesn’t understand (“Columnated ruins domino” – say what?). Wilson made his own solo version of the album decades later (Brian Wilson Presents Smile, in 2004), and that’s out of print, too. Will someone please reissue these records? Pretty please?

Amazon Prices: $299.99 (The Smile Sessions); $279.99 (Brian Wilson Presents Smile)

Buckingham Nicks, Buckingham Nicks

There are so many “unofficial” bootlegs of this record, so readily available, it’s a wonder no one in the Lindsey Buckingham and/or Stevie Nicks camps have seen fit to put together a proper reissue, regardless of whether the principals are speaking. This is a historical artifact – it’s the album Keith Olsen played for Mick Fleetwood at Sound City studios, which led Buckingham and Nicks to joining Fleetwood Mac. That it is a fine example of early-’70s California folk rock is almost beside the point.

Amazon Prices: $130.00 (original); $199.99 (undetermined issue)

Cheap Trick, Cheap Trick (1997)

By 1997, Cheap Trick was free from recording contracts and looking to re-establish themselves with a younger audience who were fans of artists who cited them as an influence. The album they made to accomplish this is a terrific blast of Rockford rock, with hooks aplenty, particularly on tracks like “Say Goodbye,” “Carnival Game,” and the breakneck “Baby No More.” Of course, the indie label they chose to facilitate their comeback (Red Ant/Alliance) shuttered its doors within a month of the album’s release. It was never issued on vinyl, and it is time for some enterprising organization to rectify that, and while they’re at it, maybe press 2009’s The Latest, as well.

Amazon Price: N/A (a “Vinyl” link on the 1997 record’s page leads to one for their debut album, also titled Cheap Trick)

Coverdale Page, Coverdale Page

This convergence of Whitesnake front man David Coverdale and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page divided fans upon its release, but has proven over time to be a solid contribution to both artists’ discographies. Both men have expressed a desire to see it reissued, perhaps with bonus tracks that didn’t make the record, but it remains mere CD bargain bin fodder and expensive “unofficial” bootleg title until they actually do something about it. Coverdale Page deserves better.

Amazon Price: $891.02

Hindu Love Gods, Hindu Love Gods

R.E.M., fronted by Warren Zevon, performing blues songs and a Prince cover. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did, and rather well. We would love to drop the needle on a nice, 180g vinyl reissue, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Amazon Price: $92.00

Indigo Girls, Rites of Passage

Of the albums the Indigo Girls released during their commercial peak (1989 through roughly 1997), only their self-titled major label debut has seen a vinyl reissue. We single out 1992’s Rites of Passage, because it contains some of our favorite of their songs (“Galileo,” “Ghost,” and their cover of Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet” among them), and also it has never been released on vinyl. As a consolation, we would also accept spinning black circle versions of Nomads – Indians – Saints (1990), Swamp Ophelia (1994), and/or 1995’s live 1200 Curfews.

Amazon Price: N/A

Not everyone dug this posthumous compilation when it was released in 1986, but we always enjoyed it, particularly Side 1, which contains outtakes from the Rock ‘n’ Roll sessions in 1973.

Amazon Price: $299.00

Jack Logan, Bulk

This album was a big deal in 1994, as it compiled a cache of lo-fi, home-recorded material released by Logan, a Georgia-based swimming pool installer by day and bar band performer by night and on weekends. At the time, Bulk was hailed as a revelation of sorts, a sort of Basement Tapes made by an unheralded, underground genius only the locals and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck knew anything about (R.E.M. had once considered covering Logan’s “Female Jesus”). To do justice to Bulk on vinyl would mean making a box set of its songs (all 42 of them ��� nearly two and a half hours of music), but it would be worth the extra green to be able to play them on a turntable.

Amazon Price: N/A

Van Morrison, Enlightenment 

None of a brace of Van Morrison records released in the early-to-mid-’90s have made their way to vinyl, denying us a number of hidden treasures. We chose 1990’s Enlightenment because of the single “Real, Real Gone” and terrific album cuts like the uplifting “Memories” and “Avalon of the Heart,” and the ruminative title track. Really, though, we could have just as easily listed the spiritually questing double album Hymns to the Silence (1991), the super-soulful Too Long in Exile (1993), or the songwriter’s songwriter exercise of Days Like This (1995). All of Morrison’s most recent records – some wonderful, some awful – have made it to vinyl; it’s time for his ‘90s catalog to be revisited.

Amazon Price: $109.72

Motley Crue, Motley Crue

Vince Neil left the Crue, then came back, so the band’s John Corabi-fronted 1994 record is absent from their official vinyl offerings (as is 2000’s New Tattoo, on which Randy Castillo replaced Tommy Lee on drums). It’s a shame – Corabi is a monster vocalist, the band’s overall sound is full with menace and volume, and the songs jettison any trace of glam tropes or riffs, hitting hard time and again. Neil claims to have never heard the record, but he should take a listen, and maybe recognize that Motley Crue represents a moment in his band’s history that’s worth saving, if not celebrating, with a vinyl issue.

Amazon Price: N/A

Robert Plant, Mighty ReArranger

It is the opinion of this publication that Mighty ReArranger – Robert Plant’s 2004 record with The Strange Sensation – is the Led Zeppelin singer’s finest solo offering. “Shine It All Around” sounds at once defiant and hopeful (and a little fearsome, thanks to drummer Clive Deamer), while “All the King’s Horses” is all folky acoustic gorgeousness. Between those two poles churns a collection of diverse, labels-be-damned cuts that please as well as challenge. This deserves a vinyl reissue, if for no other reason than the record’s warmth and dynamics would sound best in an analog format.

Amazon Price: N/A (though on Discogs, what few copies are available are going for $272.00 and up)

Prince, The Black Album

According to legend, Prince yanked this angry eight-song funkfest from release in 1987 shortly after God appeared to him in a vision and instructed him to. Feeling he had allowed “the dark side to create something evil” with the album, Prince quickly put together Lovesexy and released it in 1988, as something of a tonic. Some reports suggest Warner Bros. had pressed 500,000 copies of The Black Album, only to have Prince order them all (except, apparently for one) destroyed. It’s time for an official vinyl reissue.

Amazon Price: $386.36 (for the 1994 “limited edition” version)

Bob Seger, Back in ’72

Bob Seger hates this record. Really hates it. Hates it so much, it’s never been issued on compact disc, never been posted on any streaming site, and never been pressed to vinyl since its original run in 1973. But it has the original studio version of “Turn the Page”; quality covers of the Allman Brothers Band, Free, and Van Morrison; and one of his greatest ballads (“So I Wrote You a Song”). So, all due respect, Bob – this deserves a reissue.

Amazon Price: $199.98

Superdrag, In the Valley of Dying Stars

Go back into those memory banks you never switch on anymore, and you’ll remember Superdrag’s 1996 hit “Sucked Out,” and their debut LP, Regrettably Yours. Cool tune, decent album, right? They sounded great on the radio with other alterna-grunge one-hit wonders. Four years later, the band released In the Valley of Dying Stars, an out-of-nowhere classic on par with the best work of artists like Teenage Fanclub, Matthew Sweet, Fountains of Wayne, and other acts with aching melodies and loud guitars. It deserves loving treatment and an expansion of the cult of listeners who love it.

Amazon Price: $74.98

Velvet Crush, Teenage Symphonies to God

Brian Wilson once described the music he and the Beach Boys were making on Smile as his “teenage symphony to God.” A couple decades and change later, Rhode Island power pop trio Velvet Crush took that description and applied it to their Mitch Easter-produced sophomore effort, released in 1994. From originals like “Hold Me Up,” “Time Wraps Around You,” and “Weird Summer,” to covers of original Byrd Gene Clark (“Why Not Your Baby”) and Matthew Sweet (“Something’s Gotta Give”), these Teenage Symphonies are among the most unfairly overlooked gems in ‘90s rock. Original vinyl copies go for ridiculous money; it’s long overdue for some enterprising indie label to license and reissue this wonderful album.

Amazon Price: $599.00

A trailer has been released for the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothee Chalamet.

The movie follows Dylan’s path from his home state of Minnesota to New York City, where he begins to earn attention for his songwriting talent, all the way up to his 1965 performance at the Newport Folk Festival. In addition to Chalamet, it stars Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

You can view the trailer below.

‘A Complete Unknown’ Has the Real Bob Dylan’s Support

“The first time I sat down with him, Bob said, ‘What’s this movie about, Jim?'” director James Mangold recently told Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘It’s about a guy who’s choking to death in Minnesota, and leaves behind all his friends and family and reinvents himself in a brand new place, makes new friends, builds a new family, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to choke to death again — and runs away.”

“I like that,” came Dylan’s response.

READ MORE: Bob Dylan ‘Bootleg Series’ Albums Ranked

Though an exact release date has yet to be announced, the film is expected to hit theaters in December.

“I think one of the things Timmy is so brilliant at playing in the movie and something I think Bob related to me, is a true feeling — which is that it’s also about, how does one deal with that burden? How you yourself, if you have this power, aren’t even sure exactly where it’s coming from — you’re trying to protect it and cherish it, but you’re also not sure if it will lift you or destroy you.”

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

Residents of Blackpool, England wait all year for summertime to roll around.

Since the 18th century, the coastal town has been attracting people to its expansive beaches, and over the course of decades has become one of the most beloved vacation spots for Brits with carnival rides, restaurants and all sorts of warm weather activities to enjoy. (John Lennon lived there for a short time in his childhood.)

And if the beach and the amusement park rides weren’t entertaining enough, there were also musical acts that would come to town. On July 24, 1964, the Rolling Stones were booked to play at the Empress Ballroom, an exquisite venue just a few blocks from the shore.

It turned out that the only thing more popular than Blackpool in the summer was Blackpool in the summer hosting one of the most prominent up and coming rock ‘n’ roll bands in the U.K.

From a Gig to a Riot

Not all that long before arriving in Blackpool, the Rolling Stones had landed their very first No. 1 hit in the U.K. with “It’s All Over Now.” Excitement was therefore high, but not without some raised eyebrows over the band’s “bad boy” reputation — just a month prior, the Stones had toured America for the first time and earned themselves the infamous headline “Would You Let Your Daughter Marry a Rolling Stone?”

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘It’s All Over Now’ in 1964

Still, fans flocked to the Empress Ballroom to see them and they wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“The crowd was aggressive from the start,” Peter Fielding, guitarist for that evening’s support act, the Executives, recalled to Mojo in 2022. “We had got through most of one set but they began chanting ‘We want the Stones’ and threw coins at the stage, until we had to cut things short.”

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Rolling Stones Album

But instead of things calming down when the Stones took the stage, the situation only escalated.

“They punched their way to the front, straight to the stage and started spitting at us,” Keith Richards remembered, who ended up retaliating and kicking an attendee in the face. Bottles were thrown, chandeliers destroyed, seats torn apart — 12 minutes into their set, police finally managed to break up the violence. It was all over just as quickly as it began.

The Consequences

Approximately 50 people suffered minor injuries, with two being taken to the hospital, not to mention several thousands pounds worth of damage to the venue’s interior, including a smashed Steinway grand piano.

But certainly the most dramatic consequence to come out of the incident was the 44-year ban from Blackpool placed on the Rolling Stones. It’s unclear why 44 was the chosen number, but one thing was pretty much for certain: there had been too many people crammed into a venue designed to hold a fraction of them.

The Lifting of the Ban

True to their word, the Blackpool city council lifted the band 44 years later in 2008.

“If they forgive us, we will forgive them,” council leader Peter Callow told Reuters. “The ban has been officially lifted and I would love to see them play again at Blackpool. Nothing would give me more satisfaction.”

At the time of this writing, the Stones have never been back to Blackpool.

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

Mick Fleetwood will release a new album this fall, a collaboration with ukulele virtuoso and composer Jake Shimabukuro called Blues Experience, out Oct. 18.

“I’ve always wanted to do a blues album,” Shimabukuro said in a statement, “and when Mick and I started talking about working together, I thought who better to work with than Mick Fleetwood?”

Shimabukuro first rose to international fame in 2006 when a video of him playing George Harrison‘s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on ukelele went viral online. He toured with Jimmy Buffett for three years, and has also collaborated with Willie Nelson, Warren Haynes and more.

Blues Experience features new interpretations of classic numbers like “Rollin’ and Tumblin,'” which you can listen to below, plus Neil Young‘s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Procol Harum‘s “Whiter Shade of Pale” and two different versions of Fleetwood Mac‘s “Songbird.”

A complete track listing is also available below.

READ MORE: The 10 Heaviest Fleetwood Mac Songs

“Mick’s energy when he plays is so infectious,” Shimabukuro said. “He’s such an intense musician. He pushes everyone around him, and it’s inspiring to see his facial expressions and watch his movement and the way he hits the drums.”

“Jake and I had a full let-it-all-go moment on this one!!” Fleetwood said of “Rollin’ and Tumblin.'” “Jake let his hair down. A blues standard being given a wake-up call!”

Mick Fleetwood and Jake Shimabukuro, ‘Blues Experience,’ Track Listing
1. “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers”
2. “Rollin’ N Tumblin'”
3. “Need Your Love So Bad”
4. “Kula Blues”
5. “Whiter Shade of Pale”
6. “I Wanna Get Funky”
7. “Still Got the Blues”
8. “Rockin” in the Free World”
9. “Songbird”
10. “Songbird (Mick spoken word)”

John Mayall, legendary blues guitarist and founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, died on Monday at the age of 90, Vanity Fair reports.

Born in Macclesfield, England in 1933, Mayall taught himself to play the piano, guitars and harmonica as a kid. After graduating from the Manchester College of Art, he maintained a side hustle playing with local musicians. In 1963, he founded the Bluesbreakers with drummer Peter Ward, bassist John McVie (who would later join Fleetwood Mac) and guitarist Bernie Watson. Together they helped bring the sound of American Delta blues — artists like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Elmore James — to English venues and audiences. In 1965, Eric Clapton, who’d quit the Yardbirds, joined the lineup.

“The blues fitted in with the early ’60s, the social way of life at the time,” Mayall explained to The Guardian in 2014. “Things were changing anyway – in fashion, art, political views. … It happened here, rather than in America, because at the time, the scene in America was racially segregated – over there, never the twain would meet. In Europe, however – not just England – the Black blues began to be heard by an audience that was not listening to them in America. We discovered Elmore James, Freddie King, JB Lenoir, and they spoke to our feelings, our life stories and that was it. Hooked.”

READ MORE: When John Mayall Retooled for ‘Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton’

The band’s lineup would shift over the years — Peter Green later of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones and Jack Bruce of Cream were all members at one time, along with many others — but Mayall remained.

“I had certain ideas and I needed to go out and find the right people to realize them,” he said in 2014. “I was a bandleader in that traditional role, as well as a frontman. I used my ears to pick out what I thought would work, and I suppose that in the long term the careers of the people involved show that I managed to pick out some pretty special people.”

The Bluesbreakers remained a recording group until 1970, then stalled for 12 years. It was revived in 1982, when a “Return of the Bluesbreakers” was announced. The band dissolved for good in 2008, but Mayall continued to record and perform.

Watch John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers Perform in 1970

Collectively with the Bluesbreakers and on his own, Mayall released 35 studio albums and 34 live ones. His most recent studio release arrived in 2022, titled The Sun Is Shining Down. In 2024, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category.

 

“I don’t really have any favorites,” Mayall, looking back on his career, said in a 2022 interview with Blues Blast Magazine. “I’ve just enjoyed playing with different people because of what they bring to the palette. I’ve have been very lucky that people enjoyed the music I’ve played, so all of my memories have a special place.”

It’s a music-industry open secret that virtually every live album to hit shelves has been overdubbed before release.

The question, then, is not whether a live LP contains overdubs — but how many.

Decades after the halcyon days of live albums, overdubbing remains a controversial topic. To some fans, it’s no less than an act of betrayal. But other fans — and artists — have come to accept it as an inevitable and necessary practice.

Take Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, for example. Despite being one of the most revered metal vocalists of all time, even Halford was not above overdubbing, and he notoriously rerecorded all of his vocals on Priest’s beloved 1979 album Unleashed in the East. “We hadn’t tried to cheat our fans: we just wouldn’t release an inferior Priest product,” Halford wrote in his 2020 memoir Confess. “Because that would have been cheating them far more.”

Paul Stanley had a similar philosophy when Kiss released their breakthrough 1975 Alive! album. The band’s off-the-wall stage show didn’t exactly lend itself to technical perfection, so Alive! underwent an extensive overdubbing process. “Yes, we enhanced it – not to hide anything, not to fool anyone,” Stanley admitted in his 2014 autobiography Face the Music: A Life Exposed. “But who wanted to hear a mistake repeated endlessly? Who wanted to hear an out-of-tune guitar? For what? Authenticity?”

While some artists took the overdubbing process to extremes, others did everything in their power to maintain the integrity of their live show. That meant leaving the unaltered performances on record whenever possible, opting to overdub only when the microphones failed to capture something properly.

Unsurprisingly, artists are not always keen to disclose just how much overdubbing went into their live recordings. The following list of 10 Classic Live Albums That Were Overdubbed is far from exhaustive, but in each case, band members or studio personnel have gone on record to confirm that corrections were made in the studio after the house lights went up at the venue.

Our ranking of Bon Jovi‘s 15 studio albums (and one box set of outtakes) demonstrates how quickly and efficiently the band achieved their goal of rock stardom, and how well they adapted to changing trends to hold onto the spot over the following three decades.

Since their rise to fame in the mid-’80s, Bon Jovi have evoked a wide range of strong reactions, with many fans and critics accusing them of relying too heavily on image – in particular, frontman Jon Bon Jovi‘s good looks – and blasting their admittedly calculated, lab-tested approach to creating commercially successful music.

However, to paraphrase the title of their 2004 box set, 100,000,000 fans can’t be totally wrong … right? Sure, a big part of the reason Bon Jovi survived the early-’90s grunge eruption that sank so many of their contemporaries was their willingness to adapt to popular trends (they were among the first rock stars in the latter part of the 20th century to “go country,” for example), but musical maturation, inquisitiveness and flat-out talent played important roles as well.

Read More: All 359 Bon Jovi Songs Ranked

Bon Jovi’s strongest and bravest albums contain more experimentation, songcraft and creativeness than their detractors might want to admit. That’s why the albums fighting for the top spot on this list don’t come strictly from the group’s early commercial heyday. That’s also why – despite the departure of founding guitarist Richie Sambora – it would be foolish to think the full story of Bon Jovi has already been written.

You Think You Know Bon Jovi?

Neil Young will perform at this year’s Farm Aid festival on Sept. 21 in Saratoga Springs, New York.

He’ll be joined by fellow Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, plus Mavis Staples, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson with the Travelin’ McCourys, Charley Crockett, Joy Oladokun, Southern Avenue, Cassandra Lewis and Jesse Welles.

“We’re energized to be back in New York,” Nelson, who organized the first Farm Aid back in 1985, said in a statement (via Rolling Stone). “The farmers here have always found ways to innovate and contribute to their communities, even as they deal with uncertainties, extreme weather and policies that favor corporations over people. Farmers need us to stand with them as they work to grow our future.”

Neil Young’s Recent Cancellations

With the exception of 2021 and 2022, Young has performed at every Farm Aid since its inception. But his appearance at this year’s is even more notable as it will mark his first concert since the cancellation of his summer tour with Crazy Horse. The tour began in April, but the dates scheduled for July through September were ultimately canceled on account of illness.

READ MORE: How Neil Young Roared Back With ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’

“We will try to play some of the dates we miss as time passes when we are ready to rock again!” the band wrote in a statement posted to Young’s website. “We know many of you made travel plans and we apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your understanding and patience. Health is #1. We want to stay and do more shows and more albums for you… and for us.”

Tickets for this year’s Farm Aid will be available starting July 26.

Bob Dylan once sang, “In Jersey anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

But he did get caught by the New Jersey police on July 23, 2009. Dylan was then on tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, performing in minor-league baseball parks across America. On that day, they’d played a show in Lakewood, New Jersey, roughly an hour and a half’s drive outside New York City.

That evening, police in Long Branch, New Jersey, about a half hour from the concert venue, got a call from a homeowner about a strange-looking man who’d wandered into their yard which had a “for sale” sign on it.

READ MORE: 33 Famous Rock Star Mug Shots

“We got a call for a suspicious person,” 24-year-old Long Branch police officer Kristie Buble later told ABC News. “It was pouring rain outside, and I was right around the corner so I responded. By that time he was walking down the street. I asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood and he said he was looking at a house for sale.”

But when Buble asked for his identity, the man’s reply was dubious to her.

“I asked him what his name was and he said, ‘Bob Dylan,'” Buble said. “Now, I’ve seen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago and he didn’t look like Bob Dylan to me at all. He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.

“So I said, ‘OK Bob, what are you doing in Long Branch?’ He said he was touring the country with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. So now I’m really a little fishy about his story. I did not know what to believe or where he was coming from, or even who he was.”

Buble explained that Dylan didn’t appear dangerous or delusional, “just suspicious. You know, it was pouring rain and everything.” It didn’t help that Dylan wasn’t carrying any ID and when asked where he was staying, the most specific answer he could give was that his tour buses were parked “at some big hotel on the ocean.” Buble wagered he meant Ocean Place Conference Resort, located right on the Jersey coast.

“‘OK Bob, why don’t you get in the car and we’ll drive to the hotel and go verify this?'” she then told him. “I put him in the back of the car. To be honest with you, I didn’t really believe this was Bob Dylan. It never crossed my mind that this could really be him.”

In this moment, some rock stars may have pulled the “Don’t you know who I am?” card, but not Dylan. He complied with Buble’s instructions entirely.

“He was really nice, though, and he said he understood why I had to verify his identity and why I couldn’t let him go,” Buble said. “I pulled into the parking lot, and sure enough there were these enormous tour buses, and I thought, ‘Whoa.'”

In the end, Buble was shown Dylan’s passport by his manager.

“‘OK,'” she recalled saying. “Um, have a nice day.”

Was Bob Dylan Looking for Bruce Springsteen’s House?

Following this incident, some fans speculated that Dylan had been looking for the former home of Bruce Springsteen, located just a few blocks from where he was picked up by the police. It was at that house that the Boss wrote much of the material for 1975’s Born to Run.

This theory was based on the fact that Dylan had recently visited the childhood homes of John Lennon in Liverpool, England and of Neil Young in Winnipeg, Canada.

In May of 2009, Dylan also went unnoticed in Liverpool, casually joining a 14-person public tour of the Lennon home for a modest £16.

“He could have booked a private tour but he was happy to go on the bus with everyone else,” a spokesperson for the National Trust, which owns the house, told the BBC then.

Several months prior to that, he chatted up the owners of Young’s former house in Winnipeg, who had come home one day to find a man waiting in their yard. The couple was used to people stopping by to look at the house, but even they didn’t quite recognize Dylan at first.

“I’m looking around, and I realize, this guy having a tuque on has really great cowboy boots on,” resident John Kiernan told Rolling Stone. “He was wearing really nice leather pants. And I realize I’m staring face-to-face with Bob Dylan.”

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

Whenever I hear Bon Jovi, I often think about a Mark Twain quote: “I have never tried, in even one single little instance, to help cultivate the cultivated classes. I was not equipped for it, either by native gifts or training. And I never had any ambition in that direction, but always hunted for bigger game – the masses.”

Jon Bon Jovi has never denied that every time he released a new album, he viewed it as walking up to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning during the seventh game of the World Series. He didn’t want to bunt, sacrifice or even just get a single: He was swinging for a grand slam. From the Asbury Park bar scene in the late ’70s through the new century, Jon has aimed for the fences — and it’s paid off.

Despite this level of success, few acts have been as disdained and dismissed as this New Jersey pop-metal outfit. Is it Bon Jovi’s good looks, their ability to hop genres, their blatant commercialism or their music? Regardless of what anyone thinks, they have been prolific and at different points in their career, they’ve flirted with genres as disparate as hard rock, light metal, pop-metal, classic rock, pop, adult contemporary, country and adult alternative pop/rock. With an approach that broad and wide, it’s easy to understand how Bon Jovi grossed more than a billion dollars just from ticket sales between 2003-13.

Still, they’re not often discussed in critical circles and, when they are, the focus is solely on the mega hits that dominated radio starting in 1984; a spotlight isn’t typically given for the deep cuts, which surpass many of the singles. I’ve always felt the deck was stacked against Bon Jovi because they weren’t as good as those that came before when in reality they created a world of their own. That’s how one should view the list below, under the umbrella of their world. We’re less concerned if Bon Jovi wrote a song as good as Bob Dylan, but whether it’s as good as their own best work.

To complete this list, we’ve surveyed every original studio recording Jon Bon Jovi has released – including his solo work, notably 1990’s Blaze of Glory and 1997’s Destination Anywhere. While his two solo albums veer off course from the core Bon Jovi sound, Jon eventually decided to record without Richie Sambora, resulting in pseudo-solo albums that don’t touch his best and strongest work.

To provide the most comprehensive overview, we traced back to Jon Bon Jovi’s first demos with the Rest. We have also included the original Power Station recordings that birthed “Runaway.” While some may take issue since Jon Bon Jovi was between 18 and 20 when he wrote and recorded the majority of these songs, they received an official release in the late ’90s (by a distant cousin who owns the master tapes) and they’re surprisingly strong.

Solo David Bryan and Richie Sambora cuts from 2004’s 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong box set, and their respective solo albums, don’t appear since Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t involved. On the other hand, Tico Torres’ song from 100,000,000 does, since “Only in My Dreams” was written by Jon Bon Jovi. Our focus is on original material, so the Power Station demos count, but holiday songs – including Jon Bon Jovi’s recording of “R2-D2 We Wish You Merry Christmas” – didn’t make the cut.

Ranking every Bon Jovi song from worst to best is not for the faint of heart. Even if you are a die-hard fan, it forces you to make hard choices. Here are ours.

359. “Save the World,” Crush (2000)
It’s peculiar that we start our journey with a song written during Bon Jovi’s most fertile decade, and recorded for their commercial comeback album. After 1997’s Destination Anywhere, Jon Bon Jovi continued to write and record songs for an undetermined project. In the summer of 1998, there was a 10th-anniversary party for his fan club, Backstage with Jon Bon Jovi. At the party, fans listened to these demos and ranked them. One of those demos was “Save the World,” a song that Jon had submitted to Michael Bay and John Kalodner for inclusion in the 1998 film Armageddon. Kalodner settled on “Mister Big Time” for the soundtrack, while this ballad was shelved temporarily. Crush was supposed to be co-produced by the Slippery When Wet and New Jersey team of producer Bruce Fairburn and then-engineer/mixer Bob Rock, who also produced Keep the Faith. It would be the first co-production the two men took on, but sadly in May of 1999, as Jon Bon Jovi was walking in the door from the U-571 film shoot, he received a call that Fairbairn had died unexpectedly at the age of 49. This left the band without a plan and they began auditioning for producers. One of them, Luke Ebbin, took home the demo Jon had made. Recalling the moment to Bryan Reesman, he said “I chose one of the songs that I knew would be my strong suit, which is orchestral arrangements.” Ebbin re-worked the song on his Pro Tools rig and won the gig of the producer. It stuns me that this much work and energy went into a song that is overwrought musically, featuring the most cringe-worthy lyrics in Bon Jovi’s discography. Ben Affleck’s fake tears at the end of Armageddon are more believable than this throwaway that never should have made it to demo form, let alone to an album.

358. “Work for the Working Man,” The Circle (2009)
Revisiting the bass groove from “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Bon Jovi delivered a mouth-gaping faux pas in a song meant to show their blue-collar roots which ultimately came off like a creepy sales pitch. Jon Bon Jovi provided a copy of the lyrics to Barack Obama’s advisor David Axelrod, who had them hanging on his wall in the White House. If the chanting “work” chorus didn’t make your eyes roll, then the prices for their tour in support of their album would. At the time, The Circle dates were the most expensive in the history of concerts, and they were peddling a song about men and women who have lost their jobs in the worst recession in more than 65 years. How did someone not stop Jon Bon Jovi from writing this song, recording it, putting it on the album and touring behind it? In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, you forfeit your right to pretend to care about your audience when tickets for a pair of seats up close cost $3,500. A more appropriate title would have been “Let Them Eat Cake.”

357. “We Got It Going On,” Lost Highway (2007)
There’s been a longstanding rumor that the reason that Jon Bon Jovi negotiated to have Mercury Nashville market Bon Jovi’s foray into country music was that the band promised a star-studded effort that would be easy to sell to the one genre of music which still buys compacts discs en masse. This cut featured Big and Rich, and LeAnn Rimes appears on another song, but what about the other 10? Rumor has it that many Nashville artists felt Bon Jovi was stepping on their home turf in a flagrant effort to sell records, and declined to be a part of this project. If the Big and Rich collaboration is any indication, this was a blessing in disguise. Diving into lowest-common-denominator waters, Bon Jovi humiliated themselves with some of the most mindless lyrics ever committed to tape: “Is there anybody out there looking for a party / Shake your money maker, baby, smoke it if you got it.” Yes, they wrote “We Got It Going On,” and they recorded it and to this day, the song’s greatest sin and legacy is it has remained a staple of their live show.

356. “Joey,” Bounce (2002)
In 1991, Jon Bon Jovi covered Elton John‘s “Levon” for the tribute record Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin cracked the Top 30 on the Billboard rock chart, and 11 years later, Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora mostly plagiarized it on an album cut that would have been completely forgotten except for its concert appearances. A rote video made to play on screens behind them told the story of the song scene for scene, leaving no ambiguity.

355. “Everybody’s Broken,” Lost Highway (2007)
Speaking to NPR in 2010, Jon Bon Jovi said “I didn’t jump on the fads and the fashions, both in the boy-band crazes or the grunge phase or the rap phase. We just stayed true to who we were. And like I said, growing up, you change the parameters of the songwriting, but it doesn’t mean that it’s any less true.” Notice how he mentions grunge and rap, but not modern country music?

354. “I Love This Town,” Lost Highway (2007)
It’s another Lost Highway cockroach that won’t die. This song often closes shows, allowing fans to leave the show early and beat the traffic. The jingle was crafted to be all things to all people.

353. “Knockout,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
352. “Born Again Tomorrow,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
“Born Again Tomorrow” and “Knockout” are paint-by-numbers songs, with the latter including bottom-of-the-barrel eye-rolling lyrics of “I’ll be giving you the finger, sticking out my chin.”

351. “Put the Boy Back in Cowboy,” Lost Highway (2007)
Slippery When Wet was originally titled Wanted Dead or Alive, and photographer Mark Weiss took extensive photographs of Bon Jovi in cowboy gear for the album cover and inserts. Then former manager Doc McGhee laughingly reminded them that they were from New Jersey. I wish McGhee was still around when “Put the Boy Back in Cowboy” was written and added as an international bonus track.

350. “Scars on This Guitar,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
The country-influenced “Scars on My Guitar” was co-written by Brett James, who is best known for Carrie Underwood’s hit “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” This follow-up trips over itself with obvious lyrics where the narrator professes his love for a guitar that’s always there for him: “She’s the one I hold where I hold when there’s no one to hold onto.” The band covered the same territory on better songs.

349. “Bells of Freedom,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Better songs were left off Have a Nice Day in favor of this overwrought moment which finds the band swimming in a sea of cheese.

348. “Come on Up to Our House,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
Rock n’ roll should not sound like a commercial jingle for IHOP pancakes, butter or your first cup of coffee in the morning.

347. “Live Before You Die,” The Circle (2009)
A father advises his son with earnest lyrics, sagging vocals and a swell of orchestral instrumentation that tries everything to manipulate emotions without stimulating them.

346. “Walls,” This House Is Not for Sale (2018)
Bon Jovi recorded two new songs in honor of their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, to be included on a digital reissue of This House is Not For Sale. Bon Jovi’s politics and heart are in the right place, but the lyrics are too basic; they’re also paired with a rare lifeless performance by the band.

345. “Born Again,” Hillbilly Jedi (Big and Rich, 2012)
This Big and Rich song is included since it features Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. Jon encouraged Big and Rich to use this title, saying “I’d buy that shirt.” They secured permission from George Lucas to use the word “Jedi” just weeks before he sold Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise to Disney. In truth, this story is far more interesting than “Born Again.”

344. “Till We Ain’t Strangers Anymore,” Lost Highway (2007)
LeAnn Rimes takes pity on the Jersey boys, offering a lovely vocal on an otherwise inconspicuous song.

343. “All About Lovin’ You,” Bounce (2002)
The two worst songs on Crush were the syrupy ballads; Bon Jovi then proceeded to fill half of their follow-up studio album Bounce with much of the same. The demo and final studio versions both pale in comparison to the import-only acoustic version, which still suffers from one too many uses of the word “baby.”

342. “I’m With You,” What About Now (2013)
What About Now never should have existed. A rushed collection of songs, the album was meant to promote a final big pay-day tour before Jon Bon Jovi made a bid for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. One song after another proved to be inconsequential, with the mid-tempo proclamation of love being completely unremarkable. He was also passed over for the team.

341. “Seat Next to You,” Lost Highway (2007)
Lost Highway found Bon Jovi making an all-out effort to remain at the top of the pop heap. They succeeded but also relinquished any rock credibility they still had in the process.

340. “Real Love,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
“Real Love” (not to be confused with the Ed TV soundtrack contribution “Real Life”) is a restrained piano-driven ballad that covers familiar ground for the band.

 

339. “This Is Our House,” Greatest Hits (2010)
An incomplete thought included in international and digital editions, “This Is Our House” was designed as a sports anthem for the NFL. It’s the New England Patriots touchdown song for home games, replacing U2‘s “Elevation.” Give me the Tomb Raider song every day of the week. The song has an eerie similarity to “Rock and Roll Part 2” by Gary Glitter, which Bon Jovi used as intro music on the second half of the Keep The Faith tour.

338. “Thank You for Loving Me,” Crush (2000)
Lifted from the Brad Pitt film Meet Joe Black, where the lead character utters this ill-fated song title, on record, “Thank You for Loving Me” is delivered in a swelling arrangement that can’t disguise its hollowness. Elsewhere on this list, Bon Jovi used films to inspire his writing, but “Thank You” smells of desperation in the hopes of a hit that ultimately never was. Following negative American reaction to this song, Bon Jovi compiled One Wild Night Live 1985–2001, their first live album, to tide fans over until the band’s next proper studio effort.

337. “Blind Love,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Rob Garratt of The National summed it up best: “Piano ballad ‘Blind Love’ sounds like it was written on a napkin, with the help of a copy of Harmony for ­Dummies.” The irony of this comment is that Bon Jovi’s No. 1 hit “Blaze of Glory” was written on a napkin in a diner on the set of Young Guns II. (Emilio Estevez has it framed on the wall at his home.) I guess the moral of the story is not that all napkins are created equal.

336. “Amen,” What About Now (2013)
In a Spotify commentary, Jon Bon Jovi said “Amen” was “a little bit of an homage to Leonard Cohen. … I was in a poet’s frame of mind when I wrote it. ‘Amen’ is my kind of love story.” I admire acts pushing their boundaries but the similarities with “Hallelujah” are too evident and in-your-face to take this one seriously.

335. “Color Me In,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
This Walmart-only bonus track is not worth the trip or lines required for purchase.

334. “Bounce,” Bounce (2002)
The song is dedicated to Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, and includes the lyrics: “Bounce, bounce, nothing’s gonna keep me down / Bounce, bounce, standup shout it out.” The band was drunk on optimism while living in the shadow of “It’s My Life.”

333. “Fast Cars,” The Circle (2009)
It’s always frustrated me when artists like Peter Gabriel and Pete Townshend went years and decades between releasing original material. I listen to a song like “Fast Cars” and realize what I mistook for idleness was rather an acknowledgment of knowing when to stop because the gas tank for inspiration is empty.

332. “Army of One,” What About Now (2013)
“Never give up, never give up, never / Never give up, never let up, never.” I think a more suitable title would have been “Never.”

331. “Labor of Love,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
The languid guitar of “Labor of Love” resonates with shades of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” but does not fulfill its promising start.

330. “Wildflower,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Have A Nice Day was written and recorded in record time in the fall of 2004, then handed into the label for a 2005 release. Over a Christmas break, Jon Bon Jovi went back to the studio and began tweaking songs, then re-grouped and recorded a handful of new songs with producer Rick Parashar (best known for working with Temple of the Dog and Pearl Jam). The new batch of songs was surprisingly refreshing, and improved on many of the songs they replaced – except for this one, a throwaway only performed twice.

329. “Summertime,” Lost Highway (2007)
The song has a good beat, a catchy chorus and undemanding lyrics, but it’s hard to listen to and not think of the much better Kenny Chesney song of the same title from The Road and the Radio, which was released as a single around the same time “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” was topping the country chart. The question is whether it is flattery or flat-out imitation. My vote is for the latter.

328. “What About Now,” What About Now (2013)
It’s a paint-by-numbers rocker that pales in comparison to their first two decades, and also the name of a song Daughtry released as a single in 2008.

327. “Thick as Thieves,” What About Now (2013)
Interesting tidbit of trivia about this album: The original March 2013 release date was unveiled in December 2012. In early January, Justin Timberlake announced his first studio album in seven years would be released on the same day. Knowing they couldn’t compete with Timberlake, Bon Jovi moved What About Now up only to find out a week later that this new date coincided with David Bowie‘s first album in a decade – his sublime The Next Day. Bon Jovi outsold Bowie to achieve their fifth No. 1 album in America, but it is Bowie’s album that will most likely endure. “Thick as Thieves” isn’t anything more than the eighth song on the album.

326. “No Apologies,” Greatest Hits (2010)
Likely expecting some insight into Bon Jovi’s inspiration and creative process, the Guardian asked Jon if this compilation represented “a creative pause, an opportunity for reflection [or] a celebration of the past 25 years?” Jon Bon Jovi responded: “A commitment – nothing more than a commitment.” Make no mistake, the over-the-top “No Apologies” sounds just like that: nothing more than a commitment.

325. “Gimme Some Lovin’ Charlene,” The Power Station Years: The Unreleased Recordings (1981-82)
In 1993, Jon Bon Jovi spent two nights discussing stories with Bob Costas on his NBC program Later, in one of the more revealing interviews he’s ever done. Costas asked about Jon’s work at the Power Station and he told a story that involved paparazzi trying to steal a picture of Mick Jagger in 1981 where they were touching up what would become Tattoo You. Jagger grabbed Jon and his bandmates, who were paying for a taxi, and told the photographers that these were the guys in his new band, the Frogs. I would have liked to have seen Jagger’s mythical side project inject some swagger into this unremarkable number.

324. “Take Back the Night,” Burning Bridges (2015)
A bonus song for certain retailers and the Japanese market, “Take Back the Night” is another track that would have forever remained in the vaults if not for the contractual commitment.

323. “Into the Echo,” What About Now (2013)
A bonus track from the album that broke the band apart, “Into the Echo” makes you wonder if it was worth it. “Into the echo, we shout our dreams / Into the echo, we throw our hearts / Into the echo, we send our love” … I’ll leave the rest for you to fill in.

322. “Bobby’s Girl,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Jon had a friend from high school named Bobby who joined the Navy and left behind a girlfriend named Dorothea. Young John Bongiovi pursued her during his senior year of high school and, rumor has it, “Bobby’s Girl” was the first song Jon wrote when he was a member of the Rest. (That group also included Jack Ponti, who would co-write “Shot Through the Heart” on Bon Jovi’s debut.) The song was eventually recorded at the Power Station, a legendary Manhattan recording studio owned by a distant family relative, Tony Bongiovi. Bobby would return to Jon’s songwriting years later on “Blood on Blood.”

321. “Don’t You Believe Him?” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Another John Bongiovi demo from 1981 about a love triangle, “Don’t You Believe Him?” was written around the same time that Jon formed a short-lived all-original group called Johnny and the Lechers.

320. “Don’t Do That To Me Anymore,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Here Jon is working through his craft in a better-than-average song with a run-of-the-mill chorus.

319. “All Hail the King,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
There’s a bit of irony in crafting a guitar-heavy track on the first Sambora-less studio album with the lyric “poor man has his money, rich man has his gold / All hail the king whose fortune is his soul.” It’s long been acknowledged by many that the heart and soul of the band was Richie Sambora.

318. “Do What You Can,” 2020 (2020)
Jon Bon Jovi had his heart in the right place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He wanted to be inclusive during a trying time and solicited fans to submit lyrics to a song he wanted to write about the perseverance of the human condition. The overall sentiment is admirable, but the final product is an off-the-cuff song designed to be a well-intentioned novelty single. However, never underestimate Bon Jovi — not only is he going to make sure you remember it, but he’s also going to add it to the new album, make it the lead single, mix a country version of the song for crossover appeal and even invite Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland (who helped make “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” the first No. 1 song by a rock band to top the country singles chart) to sing and promote the track. The music video is one of their best, paying tribute to those who have lost their lives, and livelihoods, and those essential workers who have kept the wheels moving in New York City (and around the world), but these poignant images deserve a better soundtrack.

317. “In America,” New Jersey outtake (1988)
A pre-production demo with a firecracker guitar riff that ranks low since it’s a crude 4-track demo where the vocals are indecipherable. Sadly omitted from the 2014 reissue of New Jersey

316. “Heartbreak Eyes,” Power Station-era outtake (1981-82)
“Heartbreak Eyes” is one of the few widely available bootleg demos from this period that somehow never saw the light of day on any of the official 1997-2000 Power Station releases. It’s probably been kept in the vault because the vocals may have been a bit out of Jon’s range at the time.

315. “What Do You Got?” Greatest Hits (2010)
One of four new songs on this compilation, “What Do You Got?” floundered as a first single because of lopsided production by Howard Benson, best known for his work with All American Rejects and Daughtry. This song would rank higher if they had kept the original version, which was infused with soulful gospel tinges. Instead, Bon Jovi took a song that didn’t sound like anything else in their catalog and transformed it into something that sounded like everything else on the radio.

314. “Touch of Grey,” This House Is Not For Sale (2016)
A bonus song for Target and the Japanese market that’s sincere, featuring a strong – though hardly novel – mid-tempo performance from the band. This one should have made the final album.

313. “Burn With Me,” What About Now outtake (2013)
Given to Juliet Simms, formerly of the band Automatic Loveletter and one-time runner-up on the U.S. version of The Voice, “Burn With Me” is better than most of what wound up on What About Now. Even so, the song’s inclusion would not have been enough to tip the scales.

312. “Walk Like a Man,” Lost Highway (2007)
It’s a father-son relationship song, with the lyrics “He said sit down son, we’ve gotta talk / I said, “it’s my life, I’m gonna do what I want / I’m not gonna crawl, I’m gonna walk / Walk right out that door.” This Target bonus track goes downhill from there while name-checking their biggest post-2000 hit.

311. “No One Does It Like You,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
John Bongiovi’s experience at the Power Station can’t be overemphasized as he was allowed to refine his craft with each song and each recording. “No One Does It Like You” isn’t a great song, but it shows his promising growth.

310. “We Made It Look Easy,” Forever (2024)
An earnest pop song that is indistinguishable and feels like satire. “We Made it Look Easy” vaguely looks back at past glories but the song does not break any new ground and feels like a paint-by-numbers exercise.

309. “Right Side of Wrong” Bounce (2002)
Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Gavin Edwards called “Right Side of Wrong” “howl-worthy” and “unintentionally hilarious,” and that was before the launch of a tour where Jon Bon Jovi’s onstage theatrics took a forgettable song and made it unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. During the guitar solo, Jon would offer an over-the-top reaction to the mini-movie occurring on the screens above the stage. No live performer has ever made me more uncomfortable. It can’t be unseen.

308. “You Had Me From Hello,” Bounce (2002)
The failure of “Thank You For Loving Me” didn’t keep Jon Bon Jovi from lifting movie dialogue for another lifeless song. This time, he builds off a heartfelt line from a pivotal moment in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire, turning into an eye-rolling ballad.

307. “Open All Night,” Bounce (2002)
The band teased this title for nearly a decade before it appeared as the closing cut on Bounce. A different song was demoed for These Days; “Open All Night” was also a tentative title (along with Stripped) for that 1996 release. Along the way, Jon Bon Jovi claimed it to be one of his favorite songs, but “Open All Night” ultimately emerged as one of Bon Jovi’s dullest, ending the troubled Bounce with a whimper.

306. “When We Were Us,” This House Is Not for Sale (2018)
This is the musical equivalent of movies like Last Vegas and The Bucket List. You don’t expect them to be good, but you watch anyway because you love Morgan Freeman. Fans listened to “When We Were Us,” with its ludicrously horrible video, because of a deep love for the band and not out of desire.

305. “Unbroken,” 2020 (2020)
The first song released from 2020 came in late 2019 with “Unbroken,” which was used in the documentary film To Be of Service about soldiers who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and how their service dogs help heal them. A special edition of the song featuring Prince Harry of the British Royal Family and the Invictus Games Choir was released in March 2020 and benefitted the Invictus Games Foundation, which supports military personnel who have been injured in the course of their duties. It is one of the longest songs the band has recorded in the John Shanks era and the message is a courageous decree for a subject that is not discussed enough. However, the song plods along without anything distinctive to make it stand out. The intentions and story (once again) are remarkable, but they are percolated through an entirely unremarkable song.

304. “Kiss the Bride,” Forever (2024)
On the band’s 2000 album Crush Jon Bon Jovi wrote “I Got the Girl” for his first born, Stephanie. A quarter of a century later he has written her another song in anticipation of her wedding, “Kiss the Bride.” In an emotional interview with Planet Rock, Jon Bon Jovi simply stated how this was a song where “it fell out of my fingers.”

303. “Limitless,” 2020 (2020)
“Limitless” opens 2020 with a buoyant arena-rock chorus, but it is too paint-by-numbers to be notable. Co-written with producer John Shanks and longtime collaborator Billy Falcon, it is only one of two co-writes on the proper 10-track album.

302. “Fingerprints,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Striking acoustic guitar work accentuates this underrated song.

301. “Life is Beautiful,” Burning Bridges (2015)
A pedestrian lyric with an otherwise stunning arrangement, “Life Is Beautiful” would have fit nicely on Lost Highway.

300. “You Can’t Lose at Love,” B-side to “It’s My Life” (2000)
Foreshadowing their foray into country music, this somber song was recorded in 1998 and released in 2000 as a B-side in Europe.

299. “Room at the End of the World” What About Now (2013)
Here is a frivolous ballad that shares the title with a brilliant barnstorming song by Matt Nathanson released in 2011.

298. “The Fighter,” What About Now (2013)
In the 2024 documentary, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, the strained working relationship between Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi comes to the forefront when Bon Jovi has producer John Shanks play the acoustic guitar on “The Fighter”. Speaking to Guitar Player Magazine in 2024, Richie Sambora explained the song had “a simple acoustic part, and I thought I could make it better…it’s going to take, like, 15-minutes” but according to Sambora, neither Shanks nor Jon Bon Jovi wanted his input. While it is hard to be part of any family for more than thirty years, it is sad that the straw that broke Sambora’s back was over a song that without question could have benefitted from his input and guitar work.

297. “These Arms Are Open All Night” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
The band’s box set of 50 outtakes and rare songs is full of gems deserving of wider acclaim; this 1998 leftover isn’t one of them.

296. “Maybe Tomorrow” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
“Maybe Tomorrow” was written during the John Bongiovi and the Wild Ones era in 1981, and later recorded at the Power Station. Jon was a gofer and a janitor and wore any hat asked of him by a distant family relative, Tony Bongiovi. This enabled him to work at his craft writing and recording with top-tier musicians, laying down professionally recorded versions of his demos during off-hours.

295. “Goodnight New York,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
Jon Bon Jovi pens a love letter to New York, which for a guy who named his fourth album New Jersey feels like a betrayal.

294. “Burning Bridges,” Burning Bridges (2015)
On the one hand, this rugged and organic campfire sing-a-long isn’t overproduced or slick and makes for a fascinating study of what Bon Jovi are capable of when they go with their instincts. On the other hand, it’s one of the most vitriolic songs any act has written about a label that helped make them a star and a multi-millionaire. The greatest irony in this tale is that Bon Jovi re-signed with Universal a year later.

293. “Brokenpromiseland,” The Circle (2009)
A grim picture of the American landscape is hindered by clunky lyrics but a surprisingly strong arrangement and dynamic harmonies.
292. “Living Proof,” Forever (2024)
In the lead up to the release of Forever, Jon Bon Jovi called it “the rock song you have been waiting for” and while the talk box makes a welcome return but once you get past the nostalgia jolt, there is not much beneath the surface. A close friend, after the death of their grandmother, attempted to recreate a holiday meal and despite following the deceased grandmother’s recipe with precision, they soon realized there were spices and touches their she never wrote down making the experience unrewarding. Just because you try to replicate the past, you can no longer return home once the people who inhabited those spaces are gone. Without Richie Sambora behind that wah-wah sound, the song is futile exercise in nostalgia that falls on its face.

291. “We Weren’t Born to Follow,” The Circle (2009)
This is Bon Jovi’s weakest choice for a lead single ever, as they play it safe trying to be all things to all people. “We Weren’t Born to Follow” is pleasant enough but it’s suffocated by overproduction. Earlier material simply said it better.

290. “Who Would You Die For,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Burning Bridges was designed to finish the band’s longstanding contract with Universal. The label had originally planned a trio of releases in 2014 to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary: The first was a deluxe edition of New Jersey which featured the infamous Sons of Beaches demos, the second was a vinyl set that was postponed and eventually released in 2017, and the last item was a live album. For a brief period, the legendary Hammersmith Odeon concert from January 10, 1990, was being strongly considered for release, but it ultimately got nixed at the last minute. All of this was occurring at the same time as Jon Bon Jovi’s unsuccessful bid for the Buffalo Bills. Most fans would have traded every song released between 2007-17 for the Hammersmith show – and “Who Would You Die For” is no different.

289. “Do It To Ya,” Crush Outtake (2000)
An unreleased demo that leaked, “Do It To Ya,” is believed to be from the Crush recording sessions when the album’s tentative title was Sex Sells.

288. “This Woman Is Dangerous,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Here the apprentice is getting up to speed with one of his best Power Station vocals.

287. “For You” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
A proclamation of commitment, this title was lifted from another singer-songwriter from New Jersey.

286. “Every Beat of My Heart,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A treacly mid-tempo 1992 number, it’s one of the few missteps from the box set.

285. “The People’s House,” Forever (2024)
A well-intentioned social commentary that is too broad lyrically and doesn’t have the punch of “Keep the Faith” or “Hey God.” Speaking to Planet Rock Jon Bon Jovi said the song “doesn’t take sides, it’s inclusive” which is a down step from the specificity of 2020, an album that did not shy away from topics such as George Floyd’s murder and gun control. Phil X delivers a blistering, but entirely too short, guitar solo but in the end, “The People’s House” is a poor simile of what came before.

284. “My First Guitar,” Forever (2024)
The story behind “My First Guitar” is wonderful. The person who bought Jon Bon Jovi’s first guitar back in the late seventies still owned it and was willing to sell it back in 2021. When Jon Bon Jovi was reunited with his guitar, it had the same five strings and he commented to Planet Rock, “I swear the spots I see on it…I believe it to be the sweat from me as a kid on it.” Written as an ode to his teenage years, he even pays tribute to legendary band Kiss on the lyric “One power chord, an’ I’m right back in it/Playin’ old KISS records in my folks’ backyard/ Seventeen years old, I’m a rock ‘n’ roll star.”

283. “Beautiful World,” What About Now (2013)
Dear Jon, Matchbox Twenty want their song back.

282. “All Talk, No Action,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
There should be a television movie about Jon Bon Jovi’s love life during this era, created with dialogue exclusively from the Power Station tapes.

281. “This Is Love, This Is Life,” Greatest Hits (2010)
One of four new songs in this collection, “This Is Love, This Is Life” comes off like a lower-tier copy of “Livin’ on a Prayer” with lyrics like “We ain’t got much but what we got is all that matters” – not to mention the return of Sambora’s infamous talk box; it’s his guitar solo that stands out.

280. “Reunion,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
The band encouraged fans to post #JBJReunionContest on social media in 2017 for a chance to have Bon Jovi speak and perform at their commencement ceremony. New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University won the contest, and the event was held in MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., a stadium Bon Jovi opened in 2010.

279. “Old Habits Die Hard,” What About Now (2013)
278. “Not Running Anymore,” What About Now (2013)
These are a pair of solo acoustic songs inspired by the Fisher Stevens film Stand Up Guys, starring Al Pacino and Christopher Walken. “Not Running Anymore” was later nominated for best original song at the 70th Golden Globe Awards.

277. “The Devil’s in the Temple,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
“This is my viewpoint on what’s happened to this business of music and the love I had and the dreams I had as a kid,” Jon Bon Jovi said in a YouTube commentary. Looking at the dreams of music as a church, he takes issue with the current state of the business. Again, this is rich coming from a guy with $1,000 concert tickets.

276. “Open Your Heart,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Jon Bon Jovi is selling the power of his love to a heartbroken woman. Saying he can bring them both back to life, he pleads “Let me in” in a song that bops and grooves with a strident saxophone.

275. “Good Ain’t Good Enough,” outtake (1998)
This sulky and meditative mid-tempo demo was played only once for the fan club.

274. “Social Disease,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
The live version from 1990 which segued from a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Seven Days” is definitive. Otherwise, this complete throwaway keeps Slippery When Wet from being an unspoiled album.

273. “Let It Rain,” 2020 (2020)
This cheery composition is welcomed on an album dominated by moodier and midtempo songs, but it feels like a retread of former and better glories. Not to be confused with the 1998 Jon Bon Jovi solo song of the same name he wrote for the Pavarotti & Friends for the Children of Liberia performance and album.

272. “Thief of Hearts,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Patrick Leonard, best known for his work with Madonna and Leonard Cohen, helps out on this jaunty acoustic number from 2003. Originally recorded for This Left Feels Right, a misguided project where Bon Jovi re-worked their classics into unlistenable new renditions, “Thief of Hearts” eventually found a home on their box set a year later.

271. “Kidnap an Angel,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Co-written by Billy Falcon, whose 1991 album Pretty Blue World was produced by Jon for his Jambco label, and demoed during 1998 recording sessions.

270. “We Don’t Run,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Staying in their post-2000 comfort zone, Bon Jovi delivers a bombastic arms-to-the-air anthem.

269. “Pretty Girls,” The Rest, 1980
268. “Telephone Line,” The Rest, 1980
Jon Bon Jovi’s most popular high school band was Atlantic City Expressway, which morphed from the Raze. A.C.E. had future Bon Jovi keyboardist David Rashbaum (before he changed his last name to Bryan) as well. Eventually, Jon sought a new outfit that played originals and he approached fellow Jersey Shore rocker Jack Ponti. “One thing led to another,” Ponti recalled, “and he wedged his way into the band.” Later in 1980, they recorded a two-song demo, both written by Ponti and produced by Southside Johnny and E Street Band bassist Garry Tallent. “Pretty Girls” is a high-octane rocker and “Telephone Line” is notable for its jaunty bass groove. Neither would have sounded out of place from the late ’70s post-punk/early new wave movement that pledged their allegiance to the Knack.

267. “We All Fall Down,” Burning Bridges (2015)
I often wonder how Bon Jovi has managed to go decades without releasing a song called “Hope.”

266. “Stringin’ A Line” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
A sulky organ and finger snaps are featured on this workmanlike mid-tempo number.

265. “I Wrote You a Song,” Forever (2024)
A contemplative acoustic number where Jon Bon Jovi found inspiration at a late hour, “I get up in the middle of the night…and I wake up in the morning with every I and T of this entire first verse written.”  He walks down the stairs of his home to see his wife and co-writer Billy Falcon, telling him “we should work on this today, just got to come up with a good chorus.” Billy Falcon looks up the stairs at Jon Bon Jovi and says, “I Wrote You a Song.”

264. “Life’s Too Short For Days Like This,” live performances (1998)
A crunching and full-fledged rocker, “Life’s Too Short For Days Like This” was performed in concert on European tour dates in 1998.

263. “I Could Make a Living Out of Lovin’ You,” Crush (2000)
This trivial rocker with a Godzilla guitar riff courtesy of Richie Sambora was released as a bonus cut on the international editions of Crush.

262. “Roller Coaster,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
A lively rocker, it’s powered by inspiring performances by keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres and bassist Hugh McDonald.

261. “I Got the Girl,” Crush (2000)
This is a sweetly saccharine pop ditty about a girl who has stolen the narrator’s heart. In the final verse, she turns out to be his daughter – inspired by Jon Bon Jovi’s then-five-year-old Stephanie.

260. “We Rule the Night,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A gem from 1985 where Jon Bon Jovi channels Rob Halford of Judas Priest in one of his highest-pitched vocal performances, the unfinished song is notable for its use of a drum machine as well.

259. “She’s a Mystery,” Crush (2000)
Written on a songwriting retreat in a castle in the south of France, this moody and meditative track is an anomaly in Bon Jovi’s catalog. “She’s a Mystery” has never been performed live.

258. “God Bless This Mess,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
The album’s title track is a well-known Ryan Adams song, while this song shares the name of a 2008 Sheryl Crow song. It’s hard to determine if they consciously lifted these titles, or if they were merely not scratching past the surface of their writing.

257. “Call a Different Lady,” The Rest, 1980
256. “Other Side Of the Night,” The Rest, 1980
The second set of demos for the Rest was produced by Billy Squier. “Call a Different Lady” houses a haughty chorus accentuated by handclaps and a mean strut courtesy of Jack Ponti’s lead guitar, while “Other Side Of the Night” – with superb rhythm section interplay during the chorus, and some nice six-string fireworks from Ponti – is the best song from the Rest.

255. “The Ballad of Alice Cooper,” live performance (1990)
Bon Jovi’s partnership with Desmond Child proved to be so fruitful that Jon and Richie Sambora began contributing songs to other artists including Cher, Kane Roberts and Alice Cooper. “Hell Is Living Without You” made Cooper’s comeback album Trash in the summer of 1989; Jon Bon Jovi also provided some salacious background vocals on the title cut. A new song called “The Ballad of Alice Cooper” didn’t make Trash, however, and it remains a curiosity. Bon Jovi performed the first verse while discussing the song on Rockline, and they still ask Cooper about recording it one day.

254. “Living With the Ghost,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
This song alludes to the absence of Sambora and, in a devilish twist of irony, it would sound better if his guitar were present.

253. “Luv Can,” 2020 (2020)
The minimalist composition and Bon Jovi’s sturdy lead vocal on this curiously titled love song elevates it above most of their contemporary offerings. Initially slated as the fourth song on 2020 it was regrettably jettisoned to bonus track status when the album was delayed and Bon Jovi wrote “American Reckoning” and “Do What You Can.”

252. “New Year’s Day,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
On “New Year’s Day,” one of this album’s better songs, Bon Jovi croons: “I’m singing hallelujah / Amen, the angels say / Let’s hope tomorrow finds us / It’s New Year’s Day.” While U2 doesn’t have a patent on the title, one wonders if Bon Jovi deliberately fell into a trap. After all, they were confirming mainstream criticism of the band as derivative. (Jon Bon Jovi also had a bit role in Garry Marshall’s rom-com “New Year’s Eve.”) The band has continually returned to the same barren well for inspiration – and it becomes more glaring, with every album casting a shadow over their underrated first two decades.

251. “With These Two Hands,” What About Now (2013)
The punctuating Richie Sambora guitar riff that opens this song is a perfect slice of pop that should not have been relegated to bonus-track status.

250. “That Was Then, This Is Now, ” Forever (2024)
A Japanese bonus track from Forever is another co-write with Philip Lawrence and is a uniform upbeat number that should have made the final track list.

249. “Hush,” B-side to “It’s My Life” (2000)
Recorded as part of 1998 solo sessions and considered for Crush, “Hush” features a delightful organ and Bobby Bandiera, best known for his long stint with Southside Johnny, delivers some perfectly understated guitar work.

248. “I Want To Be Loved,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Dense guitars and the return of the talk box embellish an even heavier lyric concerning someone lacking parental love.

247. “Ain’t No Cure For Love,” B-side to “Say It Isn’t So” (2000)
The big bluesy riff is simultaneously ridiculously and goofy, but also hard evidence that this band, when not overproduced, is an utter joy to listen to.

246. “I Want You,” Keep the Faith (1992)
“I Want You” is a paint-by-numbers song that ironically sounded like every other power ballad released. What differentiated Bon Jovi’s ballads is they were always dissimilar and better than their contemporaries.

245. “Breathe,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
“Breathe” is a nice, breezy little number from 2002, with a harmony that would have fit nicely on Bounce.

244. “Postcards from the Wasteland,” Bounce (2002)
A great title whose unadorned arrangement is illuminating.

243. “The Last Night,” Lost Highway (2007)
242. “One Step Closer,” Lost Highway (2007)
“The Last Night” and “One Step Closer” are virtuous songs that would stand out on a box set or as B-sides, but due to the sequencing on Lost Highway, they are lost without proper context.

241. “These Open Arms,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
“These Open Arms” is a Japan-only bonus track that was never intended for the album, but one that is surprisingly hypnotic as Jon Bon Jovi delivers the lyric in a lower register that’s surprisingly effective. The song was later given to former American Idol contestant Clay Aiken for his 2006 album A Thousand Different Ways.

240. “Welcome to Wherever You Are,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
This is an incredibly well-intentioned arms-across-the-world anthem that ultimately didn’t draw a larger audience. It may potentially have been a bit too obvious for seasoned listeners. It also served as the title for a West Wing episode in 2006 where Jon Bon Jovi joins Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) on the campaign trail. The song’s failure to connect didn’t dissuade the band from revisiting this theme continually over the next decade.

239. “That’s What the Water Made Me,” What About Now (2013)
A vibrant arrangement overcomes deficient lyrics for a song that opened a large portion of the 2013 tour. Not to be confused with the Florence + the Machine song “What the Water Gave Me” from their 2011 debut.

238. “Someday Just Might Be Tonight,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This is a pleasant mid-tempo number with some prodigious organ and slide guitar from 1996 solo sessions.

237. “King of the Mountain,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
Bass and drums kick this off with a humdrum riff but listen to a brief Jon Bon Jovi wail at 2:10 and the following 33-second guitar solo by Richie Sambora. What the band lacked in experience, they more than made up for in resolve.

236. “Two Story Town,” Crush (2000)
This is a testament to survival in a small town taken over by corruption, and quite possibly inspired by Asbury Park in the ’90s.

235. “Head Over Heels,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Here is a sharp, bustling performance that Jon thought enough of to perform at a special set of concerts at the Starland Ballroom in February of 2009.

234. “Cold Hard Heart,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
One of two bonus cuts for Japan, this 1996 demo is from London, where Jon began to write and record songs during the downtime on his first film as a leading man – appropriately titled The Leading Man. Often forgotten for its downbeat nature, it’s a treasure of ambiguity and solemnity.

233. “Shut Up and Kiss Me,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This is a catchy little number co-written by longtime collaborator Desmond Child that showcases a mean rhythm and blues groove, demoed in 1997.

232. “Don’t Keep Me Wondering,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
There’s some fine accordion and guitar work around the minute mark of this lovelorn rocker.

231. “Undivided,” Bounce (2002)
A heavy-handed album opener inspired by 9/11, “Undivided” worked well in concert but always felt a bit ham-fisted on the album. Bounce suffered from wanting to be all things to all people, with songs created from the widest possible brush strokes.

230. “Crazy Love,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This song showcases Jon Bon Jovi in full-on pop mode. Co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, it was most likely recorded between 1996 and 1998.

229. “Shine” 2020 (2020)
Included in the original version of the album planned for release in May 2020, “Shine” is a well-executed love song. Its best surprise is John Shanks’ sparse guitar work – he utilizes both acoustic and electric guitars into a wall of sound that never overwhelms and yet, makes it memorable.

228. “Story of Love” 2020 (2020)
Jon Bon Jovi gets sentimental on this pleasing ballad dressed up in a waltz arrangement. “I wrote ‘Story of Love’ with my family in mind and I think all of them like it,” he explained of the track. “I hope it’s a song your family and others can use.” The personal nature of the song along with the heartfelt vocal and an arrangement highlighted by a lovely string section embroiders “Story of Love” and infuses it with just the right amount of charm.

227. “Woman in Love,” Keep the Faith (1992)
“Woman in Love” houses a curious arrangement for a song that came late in the recording process. Richie Sambora and producer Bob Rock talked Jon into rewriting the song at the last minute, according to a Kerrang! interview in late 1993. It’s a decision he’d come to regret a year later. Despite the misfire, the song shows Bon Jovi reaching and flexing their musical muscle in innovative ways.

226. “Outlaws of Love,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Jon Bon Jovi has confessed: “I don’t remember writing this song, I don’t remember it at all.” Recorded somewhere in 1985-86, “Outlaws of Love” houses a rather inspiring, if commonplace, performance from the band.

225. “Maybe Someday,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Richie Sambora’s background vocals are the highlight of this 1999 demo.

224. “Whole Lot of Leavin’,” Lost Highway (2007)
One of the last songs written for the album is a strident number. One has to wonder if Jon Bon Jovi purposely wrote this without Sambora so he would have an avenue to market Sambora’s recent divorce to Heather Locklear as a part of the album promotion, giving Lost Highway a layer of depth it was missing. Things were further complicated when Sambora entered a rehab facility right before the promotional cycle for the album was set to kick off. “Whole Lot of Leavin'” is pleasant enough, but you can’t help but feel that this song may have potentially led to a shake-up in 2013 that the band has never recovered from.

223. “Neurotica,” Crush (2000)
Bon Jovi interlocks, making you feel as if you are on a rock n’ roll rollercoaster with unexpected twists and turns as they attack their instruments as if their lives depended upon it. For a band often criticized for being glossy, it’s disappointing that their heavier and musically challenging cuts wind up on import singles and bonus tracks for international markets.

222. “Out of Bounds,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A guitar-heavy outtake from the Slippery When Wet era, “Out of Bounds” was written in 1986 for an Anthony Michael Hall movie of the same name but went unused. Discussing this song on the DVD that accompanies the box set, Jon confesses that he almost named the album Guns and Roses to play off the Mark Weiss cowboy photo shoot – and how the title would pair perfectly with many of the songs on what eventually became Slippery When Wet.

221. “Complicated,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
One of the reasons Have a Nice Day is often viewed as the best post-Crush album is that it was the last sweltering guitar record by the band, evidenced by this showy rocker.

220. “Beautiful Drug,” 2020 (2020)
The song recalls the band’s first collaboration with John Shanks on Have a Nice Day in 2005 with squealing guitars and a booming chorus and was initially planned to be the album opener. In a Sirius XM town hall discussion, Jon Bon Jovi provided insight into the evolution of “Beautiful Drug”: “It was just a simple rock song to be bluntly honest, not a lot of depth to it but it was something you would play in the arena.” But when the album was delayed, Jon Bon Jovi revamped the lyrics in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I rewrote the lyrics and I thought it would be much more fitting if they were more topical,” he said. “In this moment in time, while we are looking for a vaccine, my substitution was love.”

219. “This House Is Not for Sale,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
The overriding metaphor of this album is an impenetrable house that still stands, overlooking the past with an emphasis on the future. Band members may come and go from that house, slightly altering the chemistry of the family, but the house is Jon Bon Jovi’s way of telling the world he is here to stay – with or without former inhabitants of the four walls. The only thing he seems to have forgotten is that a house does not make a home.

218. “Learn to Love,” The Circle (2009)
Heavily influenced by Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” this album closer was uplifting musically and simultaneously a bit too heavy-handed lyrically.

217. “We Can Dance,” B-side to “Everyday” (2002)
The songs for Bounce can be divided into responses to 9/11 and an appreciation for the modest aspects of life and love. The B-sides and bonus cuts tended to be less heavy-handed, such as this mid-tempo number with shimmering acoustic guitars.

216. “A Teardrop to the Sea,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Press was limited for the Burning Bridges album and session information was scant, leaving fans to determine how, where and why songs were recorded. The album opener defies the standard norms of how a Bon Jovi song should sound. “A Teardrop to the Sea” is a standout in the modern era of the band, as it is an evocative mood piece that doesn’t sound like anything Bon Jovi has ever recorded.

215. “Game of the Heart,” Slippery When Wet outtake (1986)
214. “Deep Cuts the Night,” Slippery When Wet outtake (1986)
A pair of unreleased demos from the Slippery When Wet that is steeped in the hard rock of their earlier 7800° Fahrenheit era. As before, lust, love and surrendering to the night are prevailing themes.

213. “Pictures of You,” What About Now (2013)
One of the few Richie Sambora co-writes on What About Now, it showcases the band at the peak of their performing powers with hall-of-fame-level performances elevating the song.

212. “All I Wanna Do is You,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This bluesy R&B number, recorded in 1997, is driven by the piano and organ, as Bon Jovi tips a hat to musical hero Southside Johnny.

211. “The Soul Truth,” live performance (1991)
Performed one time in December 1991, this earnest piano song was stoic and serious and pointed to the direction the band would be taking on a forthcoming album that would eventually be titled Keep the Faith. It has never been played again, and no recording of it is known to exist.

210. “Fear,” Keep the Faith (1992)
A howling and succinct rocker tucked away on the second side of Keep the Faith, “Fear” finds Bon Jovi tackling societal injustices highlighted by the Rodney King verdicts in the spring of 1992. It also has a gem of a line in “surviving is living to die in fear.”

209. “What’s Left of Me,” What About Now (2003)
Highlighting a series of individuals who are broken, beaten but not quite yet defeated, the song channels some of the band’s stronger work and includes this standout line: “They called us ‘Dirty Harry,’ we’re a punk rock band / Why they sold old CBGB’s, I don’t understand / All that’s left now are the t-shirts and they come from Japan.”

208. “I’m Your Man,” Burning Bridges (2015)
The lively rocker would not have been out of place on Destination Anywhere, with a title courtesy of Leonard Cohen.

207. “No Regrets,” Bounce (2002)
This time, the Japanese bonus track is worthy of inclusion on the misguided and confused Bounce. As “thunder cracks, the sky is crying,” the narrator has a conversation with God about living life as he wanted. “No Regrets” is completed with a mystic, guitar-heavy arrangement.

206. “Lonely,” Lost Highway (2007)
A somber and solemn acoustic number that stands as one of the best cuts from Lost Highway. There’s an undercurrent of vulnerability that would have been welcomed on an album that veered toward over-production. Sadly, the session was relegated to a retailer exclusive. Jon Bon Jovi has occasionally pulled this one out for solo performances.

205. “Last Chance Train,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Here is a 1998 recording with Joe Perry of Aerosmith on guitar, highlighted by a killer chorus ready-made for radio.

204. “The One That Got Away,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Originally written for the 1999 Kevin Costner film Message In a Bottle, “The One That Got Away” is a reserved and soulful love ballad that would have fit well in the context of the film.

203. “Welcome to the Good Times,” B-Side to “Say It Isn’t So” (2000)
Richie Sambora teases his guitar as drummer Tico Torres hits a chime like a countdown clock for a trashy garage-rock epic. Slide, crashing cymbals and a guitar solo are sent from south of heaven.

202. “Blame It on the Love of Rock & Roll,” Keep the Faith (1992)
Taking a page from the Rolling Stones, Keep the Faith was where Bon Jovi shed their hard rock/hair band image and became a full-on rock band steeped in the classic-rock era. While this song is never going to change the world, “Blame It on the Love of Rock & Roll” is Bon Jovi’s “It’s Only Rock N’ Roll.”

201. “Only Lonely,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
I can understand why Jon Bon Jovi tries to distance himself from his past, especially when you watch this train wreck of a music video with a fictional story that defies any logic. (There are nine shots of the video director’s relative and only two of Richie Sambora.) Nevertheless, this David Bryan co-write has a stirring dramatic effect, particularly in the middle breakdown and Sambora’s looping six-string solo.

200. “Superman Tonight,” The Circle (2009)
With a heavy-handed love song made worse by an insufferable music video, and the fact that Jon Bon Jovi’s first tattoo was the Superman logo on his upper arm, “Superman Tonight,” has nevertheless remained a fan favorite, even if it never ignited the singles chart.

199. “Gimme Some,” Crush Outtake (2000)
Big boisterous horns, an impassioned vocal and a shredding guitar solo can all be found on this unreleased Crush-era song. Despite hailing Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes as an influence, Bon Jovi rarely embraced their R&B tendencies – which is a shame, because they’re often fantastic.

198. “Billy,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This Keep the Faith demo of a song about a relationship fueled by drama and lust showcases how creative and potent Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were when they worked as a united front.

197. “Love Me Back to Life,” Bounce (20023)
One of the few love songs from Bounce that work, “Love Me Back to Life,” features an explosive chorus paired with Creed-like guitar crunches and a swirling string section that manipulates your emotions for all the right reasons. Sadly, this song has never been performed live.

196. “Love Lies,” Bon Jovi (1984)
There’s more to Bon Jovi’s early material than anyone ever gives it credit for. “Love Lies” is a dark-noir mystery that ends in murder from a “heart on a bullet.” Originally recorded during the Power Station years, this version is more chilling as Jon Bon Jovi’s distressing falsetto fades out on Side 1 of the band’s debut album.

195. “Let It Rain,” Pavarotti & Friends for the Children of Liberia (1998)
From films to band albums to solo projects, Jon Bon Jovi was never more creative than in the ’90s. In the summer of 1998, he wrote “Let It Rain” with Michele Centonza specifically for the Children of Liberia concert in Pavarotti’s hometown of Modena, Italy. The song is remarkably beautiful and the performance, directed by Spike Lee, is deeply affecting.

194. “House of Fire,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
One of a handful of songs on this list that doesn’t feature a Jon Bon Jovi co-write, “House of Fire” was the second single released in America for Alice Cooper’s comeback album Trash which Bon Jovi and Sambora contributed to. Since these sessions were held early in 1988, it’s believed that Desmond Child had the band demo the song for submission to Cooper. A surprise inclusion of the 2014 deluxe edition of New Jersey, “House of Fire” is included here since it was recorded before Cooper’s definitive version.

193. “Love is War,” B-side for “Living in Sin” (1989)
Guitar riffs ricochet like firing bullets, keyboards give the essence of rising smoke and the band plays out of their skin on a song that would potentially be laughable by one of their contemporaries. The harmonies, persuasive chorus and an off-the-charts guitar solo by Sambora elevate this memorable B-side.

192. “Stay,” B-side to “Say It Isn’t So” (2000)
“Stay” is a pleading and passionate ballad demoed as part of 1998 Jon Bon Jovi solo sessions, with a top-tier vocal that should have supplanted “Save the World” or “Thank You For Loving Me” on Crush.

191. “Without Love” Slippery When Wet (1986)
The only song from Slippery When Wet to never be performed live is a serviceable pop ballad co-written by Desmond Child. “Without Love” is simple, sweet and a sentimental delight.

190. “I Will Drive You Home,” This House Is Not for Sale (2016)
Self-possessed emotions are buried in a mysterious production with layered backing vocals. The result is possibly the most exploratory song Bon Jovi has ever recorded with producer John Shanks.

189. “More Than We Bargained For,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
A love that wasn’t fully realized until it was too late is explored in a song with a madly effective chorus.

188. “Because We Can,” What About Now (2013)
Steve Leftridge of PopMatters summed this one up the best: “‘Because We Can’ is the band’s biggest, glossiest, easiest fist-pumper in 25 years. The lyrics are still full of high-school-assembly self-empowerment prattle, which doesn’t matter when the chorus is this insanely catchy.”

187. “She Don’t Know Me,” Bon Jovi (1984)
Mercury Records wanted a sure-fire second single for Bon Jovi’s debut album and required the band to include this song, which dates back to the Power Station era. “She Don’t Know Me” is the only song in their official album discography that doesn’t have a Jon Bon Jovi co-write. Mark Avsec, best known for work with Wild Cherry and Donnie Iris, provides this workmanlike number that reached No. 48 on the pop charts. Despite not being an original composition, Bon Jovi would roar through “She Don’t Know Me” in performances through 1986.

186. “Everyday,” Bounce (2002)
Bon Jovi made the curious decision to write with Swedish pop songwriter Andreas Carlsson on Bounce. Partnering with Max Martin, Carlsson co-wrote colossal hits for Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. The lyrics to “Everyday” are solid, but the issues lie within the arrangement which hits all the same beats as “It’s My Life,” beginning a lengthy trend where the band tried to re-create that song’s success using the same template. The best versions of “Everyday” were acoustic, at a handful of concerts in the summer of 2003.

185. “(I Don’t Wanna Fall) to the Fire,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
Electronic drums are overlaid with Torres’ bass drum beats, then paired with the most reserved yet effective guitars to construct a one-of-a-kind song that works as a prayer to an unknown power. Most impressive is the second verse: “When you’re a part of society / You know, the heart of your innocence dies.”

184. “The Price of Love,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
A manic and unrelenting drum roll opens this spiritual sequel to “Love Lies.” A mid-song breakdown beginning at 2:24 leads to Sambora’s bleeding solo through 3:17, reflecting the heated passion of the affair. Writing about the shadowy and complex corners of the world, Jon Bon Jovi shows how far he’d come from his Power Station days.

183. “Heart of America,” live performance (1985)
Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora specifically for the first Farm Aid performance on Sept. 22, 1985, at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill., this buoyant anthem with its “sha la la la la” sing-a-long may be a little raw around the edges, but it ranks high for its genuineness.

182. “Dirty Little Secret,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
On “Dirty Little Secret,” a magnetic guitar groove drives a full-tilt rocker that features some of the most sensually arousing lyrics the band ever wrote. I’ll never understand why Jon Bon Jovi doesn’t perform “Dirty Little Secret” in concert. He hits the stage, smiles and shakes his booty, but the most heated songs often end up on the cutting-room floor. He does realize that the men’s rooms at his concerts are empty, right?

181. “Rosie,” New Jersey outtake (1988)
“Rosie” started as a demo about a guy who discovers his first love has become an exotic dancer. Originally demoed for the New Jersey album and co-written with Desmond Child, Jon Bon Jovi passed it over. Richie Sambora later returned to “Rosie,” recording it with Tico Torres and David Bryan for his 1991 debut solo album Stranger in This Town. Sambora’s version is more up-tempo and dynamic, making it definitive. The New Jersey demo was conspicuously left off the 2014 deluxe edition.

180. “Prostitute,” B-side to “This Ain’t a Love Song” (1995)
Often viewed as the weakest song to emerge from the These Days writing sessions, “Prostitute” is notable for its grungy arrangement and the chanting “hey hey hey” chorus. Still, I’d give a limb to hear the band sound like this one more time.

179. “Secret Dreams,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
Bon Jovi has never been comfortable with the rushed nature of this album, and the sterile production from Lance Quinn. Because of this, 7800° Fahrenheit is an anomaly in their catalog. Still, Jon Bon Jovi has never sounded as despairing as he does on “Secret Dreams,” offering a series of evoking images of a barren summer night with unspoken desires spilling over into these bare confessionals. There’s a veiled, uninhibited passion in these under-appreciated songs, where the night gets the best of us and our thoughts.

178. “Gotta Have a Reason,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
An unreleased song written with orchestrator Michael Kamen, “Gotta Have a Reason” was originally meant for the 1993 film The Three Musketeers. “We were on the road and Danny Kortchmar … did a track of it without the band, ‘cause we were in the Far East somewhere,” Jon Bon Jovi said in 2004. “I didn’t like the way it turned out, so we scrapped it. We pulled it from the movie.”

177. “Lucky,” B-side to “Everyday” (2002)
The band mines their Beatles influences on a charming tale of good fortune and gratification that was tragically left off of Bounce. As with the majority of these import-only B-sides, “Lucky” wasn’t immediately made available on Spotify or Apple Music.

176. “Naked,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
This flirtatious rocker from Jon Bon Jovi’s solo album urges the listener to “just get back to basics.” “Naked” was co-written by Mark Hudson, a frequent collaborator with Aerosmith and Ringo Starr, and features Aldo Nova on guitar.

175. “Another Reason to Believe,” B-side to “Everyday” (2002)
The B-side demos from Bounce give incredible insight into Bon Jovi’s writing process, and how the album could have gone in a different direction. Another inspired 9/11-themed cut, “Another Reason to Believe” is more gripping, cataclysmic and gut-wrenching than “Undivided.” Listen to the third verse, where Jon Bon Jovi’s vocals are unhinged.

174. “River Runs Dry,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Written during Jon Bon Jovi’s solo period of 1996-98, “River Runs Dry” encapsulates wrecking balls that decimate dreams. This Desmond Child co-write is squarely at the intersection of the acoustic vibes of Led Zeppelin and the straightforward storytelling of Garth Brooks.

173. “Standing,” B-Side to “Everyday” (2002)
One-dimensional lyrics are paired with a forceful, upbeat and rather exuberant performance from the band. The demos pulsate with a throbbing heartbeat missing from the slick production of the Bounce album.

172. “Legendary,” Forever (2024)
“Legendary” the first single from Forever is a breezy pop-rocker with a giant “whoa-oh-oh” chorus and while it doesn’t come close to capturing their biggest and best glories, the lyric “Got my brown-eyed girl, and she believes in me” offers a nod to more than Van Morrison but his wife, Dorthea which is just enough to make you smile.

171. “Why Aren’t You Dead?” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This amusing straight-ahead rocker was recorded for Keep the Faith but “after we wrote and demoed it … you’ll realize it wasn’t where we were going,” Jon Bon Jovi recalled in 2004. “It was more about where we had been, and for that reason alone it didn’t make the record. We had grown out of this stage of writing that kind of fun clichés and moved on.”

170. “One Wild Night,” Crush (2000)
Richie Sambora called this “a fun, classic Bon Jovi track” in an interview around 2000. While it’s mostly been retired since 2001, the inclusion of “One Wild Night” on Crush signaled that the band could still embrace their rock ‘n’ roll roots with a hand-clapping, show-opening foot stomper.

169. “In and Out of Love,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
Decades later, “In and Out of Love” can feel slight, but it prompted the most lighthearted and enjoyable video from their first two albums. Listen to the machine-gun drum opening, courtesy of Tico Torres, and you’ll be won over. It’s also important to note the fireworks Bon Jovi brought to the stage while playing this song every night between 1985-87.

168. “Little Bit of Soul,” Keep the Faith (1992)
Shedding their pop-metal skin for a more organic classic rock sound, the band returns with a bar-room romp very much in keeping with “Love For Sale,” the album closer on New Jersey. One of the few live performances of “Little Bit of Soul” was on the MTV special An Evening with Bon Jovi, and they played it with gusto.

167. “Little City,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
A morose acoustic number, and the penultimate song on Destination Anywhere, “Little City” has an undercurrent of tension where a cab driver feels lost and alone, yet believes salvation can be found not far off. The song was born out of yet another movie Jon appeared in, with the same title. Little City, co-starring Josh Charles, Penelope Ann Miller and Annabella Sciorra, was filmed in late 1996 and distributed by Miramax.

166. “Don’t Leave Me Tonight” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
An affair is in full bloom when the narrator makes an insistent plea for his lover to stay with him for fear of a domestic squabble once she returns to her husband. (“Tommy’s home and waiting up for you / And if you leave, he’ll make you black and blue.”). The agonizing vocals are paired with a “Tumbling Dice”-style riff and piano boogie jam. Jon thought enough of “Don’t Leave Me Tonight” to perform it during a special hometown show held in February 2009 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, N.J.

165. “Flesh and Bone,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A bluesy-rocker co-wrote by David Bryan, who found his writing groove with Jon and Richie in 1995, though none of his songs made the final These Days track listing. Even when something doesn’t necessarily work and wouldn’t fit on a studio album, like “Flesh and Blood,” you hear a band at the peak of their powers pushing the material as far as they can.

164. “Last Man Standing,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Inspired by the passing of Johnny Cash in 2003, “Last Man Standing” was initially recorded for This Left Feels Right as an acoustic number, before being pulled and later released on the box set. The song was then re-recorded as a muscular, guitar-heavy anthem, and used as the opener for almost every stop on their 2006-07 tour.

163. “Mister Big Time,” Armageddon: The Album (1998)
The heaviest solo song Jon ever released was found on the soundtrack for this 1998 Michael Bay film. It’s also an enormous improvement over “Save the World,” the other song he wrote for Armageddon. “Mister Big Time” was a collaboration with longtime friend Aldo Nova, who assisted on the band’s debut and later on the Young Guns II soundtrack. As usual, Jon Bon Jovi is often at his best with big, loud and rowdy guitars.

162. “Hollywood Dreams,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
The narrator loses his love while chasing his dreams and when he returns to her, it’s to someone who doesn’t recognize him. The song is notable for the saxophone solo, something that would never appear on any official Bon Jovi albums.

161. “Talking In Your Sleep,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
Unrequited love has a murky underbelly on a track punctuated by protracted piano chords and a synthesizer that conjures desperation.

160. “Bullet,” The Circle (2009)
Richie Sambora was writing songs with Jon Bon Jovi on Oct. 24, 2008, when they learned Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew had been murdered in her hometown of Chicago. They decided to tackle the larger topic of gun violence. “Instead of sitting down and writing a song with his name in it or hers, with a specific day and date, you make your case because this same situation is going to happen again in five years somewhere else,” Jon told the Chicago Sun-Times. “You speak to the larger issues. You ask whether the song will stand up 20 years from now and if the message going to be clear.” “Bullet” is a tidal wave of force led by the rhythm section of drummer Tico Torres and bassist Hugh McDonald, and features Sambora’s heaviest guitar work since Have a Nice Day.

159. “Happy Now,” The Circle (2009)
Inspired by the election of Barack Obama, Bon Jovi discusses the hangover from the Bush era and the need and desire to dream big again. The band occasionally used the song as an opener on their 2010 tour, to great effect.

158. “Lower the Flag” 2020 (2020)
Inspired by the 2019 Dayton, Ohio, shooting that injured nine people and left 17 others dead, “Lower the Flag” is a somber prayer. Highlighted by stark instrumentation and a strumming acoustic guitar, its sparseness gives this solemn topic an emotional heft missing from recent albums. Jon Bon Jovi’s writing is more meticulous and intuitive than it has been in decades, which he spoke to UCR about: “That song came to me on a weekend when I went to bed knowing about [Aug. 3, 2019, shooting at a Walmart in] El Paso and was moved by it. When I woke up in the morning, there was a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, and I thought, ‘No, no, no, it was in El Paso, I went to bed thinking of El Paso.’ I came to find out there was another one just in the time while I was sleeping. And if you remember the summer of ‘19, they were coming often. Orlando, El Paso, Vegas — they all seem to be back-to-back-to-back. And the story is between sports and the weather on the news, and it kind of moved me in such a way that we were becoming numb to it. People have empathy, but they could turn off the channel and get on with their lives and not have to address it.”

157. “Drive,” B-side to “Midnight in Chelsea” (1997)
Focusing on the desire for the open road, “Drive” is genius in its delivery. They use a languid and unassuming arrangement to complete a memorable song that’s lost to time.

156. “Lonely in the Night,” Slippery When Wet outtake (1986)
The song begins with a thrusting Sambora guitar riff then moves into a killer chorus, with gloom around every corner. It’s the familiar territory from their first two albums but amplified this time to perfection. If an anniversary collection for Slippery When Wet is ever compiled, the band should strongly consider recording this gem properly.

155. “Too Much of a Good Thing,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A superb Crush outtake with some heady guitar work by Richie, “Too Much of a Good Thing” was co-written by Richie Supa, who collaborated on Aerosmith’s “Crazy” and on most of Sambora’s second solo disc, Undiscovered Soul.

154. “Sympathy,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Written and recorded during the Keep The Faith sessions in Vancouver, as the band watched a video of the Rolling Stones from their Steel Wheels tour. They knocked this one out as an homage to the Stones.

153. “Thorn in My Side,” The Circle (2009)
No other song from Bon Jovi’s post-2000 discography sounds like this vulnerable rocker. A simple chord progression is accentuated by fist-pumping rhythm from courtesy of drummer Tico Torres.

152. “Billy Get Your Guns,” Blaze of Glory: Inspired by the film ‘Young Guns II’ (1990)
The only other song from Young Guns II to appear in the movie, aside from “Blaze of Glory,” this barn-boogie rocker kicks off the album.

151. “I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas,” B-side to “Keep the Faith” (1992)
A perfect holiday original recorded during the Keep the Faith sessions. It’s rare for Christmas songs to be viewed in a positive light, but Bon Jovi’s is a moment of holiday splendor.

150. “It’s Just Me,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
This tranquil, delicate and introspective song – a proclamation of love produced by Dave Stewart – is one of many standouts on Jon Bon Jovi’s 1997 solo album. He gets bonus points for name-checking the German-American poet Charles Bukowski.

149. “Living in Paradise,” Forever (2024)
Co-writing a song with pop superstar Ed Sheeran may seem like a jump-the-shark moment for the band, but Bon Jovi has never had issues hopping on bandwagons whether it was working with Max Martin or making a pop-country album, but “Living in Paradise” is a situation where the sensibilities matchup and it is a genuinely great pop song, written for his wife Dorthea.

148. “Letter to a Friend,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This mid-tempo rocker is reminiscent of “In These Arms,” and was mentioned by Jon Bon Jovi in an interview during the 1994 video shoot for “Good Guys Don’t Always Wear White” as a potential song for their next album. His vocal, especially at the 1:30 mark, bleeds with zeal.

147. “Borderline,” B-side to “You Give Love a Bad Name” (1986)
Originally appearing on 12-inch vinyl and later a Japanese compact-disc EP of the same name, “Borderline” was the only David Bryan co-write from this era to be properly recorded. Dealing with a relationship on the edge of dissolution, the song probably nodded to their past more than the present, but there’s genuine drama in the vocals and the keyboard flourishes – and then an exhilarating race to the finish line. Sambora was never the flashiest of guitar players or the fastest, but he was amongst the best to emerge from the ’80s. The argument is bolstered by what he does here.

146. “Too Much Too Soon,” Slippery When Wet outtake (1986)
Written the same day as “Wanted Dead or Alive” and spoken about in many interviews, “Too Much Too Soon” has never appeared as anything other than a leaked demo. It has a rollicking guitar riff with biting lyrics pointed at many of the hard-rock bands they had opened for in 1983-85. This would have been a nice substitution for “Social Disease” on Slippery When Wet.

145. “Nobody’s Hero,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This 1994 recording is one of the best representations of harmony vocals by Sambora and Bon Jovi on record. They form the heart of this melodic song, which is led by David Bryan’s piano.

144. “I Just Want to Be Your Man,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This sublime, mostly acoustic song from 1994 is moody and mysterious and has a perfect execution, as Bon Jovi slowly builds until the chorus and drums kick in.

143. “Love Ain’t Nothing But a Four Letter Word,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This song about spousal abuse was inspired by the time Jon Bon Jovi spent on the road touring with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in 1991. The original 1992 demo was reworked by David Bryan and Richie Sambora with horns and backing female vocals. It’s a shame Bon Jovi has never felt the desire to tap into their roots and do a rhythm and blues album.

142. “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” Keep the Faith (1992)
It’s overplayed in concert, but on record, it’s a hand-clapping joy. “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” is also one of the most jubilant music videos they ever made while on tour in Europe in the spring of 1993. The black-and-white clip is a tribute to the Beatles’ classic film A Hard Day’s Night.

141. “Novocaine,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Led by Hugh McDonald’s surging bass line, “Novocaine” was rumored to be about keyboardist David Bryan. It serves as an inoculation to anguish brought on by a divorce.

140. “Come Back,” Bon Jovi (1984)
Whatever the band lacked in lyric writing, they made up for in fervent jamming, as “Come Back” begs for a loved one to return.

139. “Burning for Love,” Bon Jovi (1984)
This Sambora co-write embraced big harmonies, fast rhythm, and furious guitar work – recalling a much different time. What I miss most about the current state of Bon Jovi is the sense of drama. There were better bands and better songwriters, but few coalesced in a way that took your breath away. Bon Jovi was a gift to every band they opened for during this time.

138. “Growin’ Up the Hard Way,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
This track explores the stories of those who survive life, despite being dealt a bad hand. But why was a performance that boils with this much power end up unreleased? The working album title for New Jersey was Sons of Beaches, and it was envisioned as a double album before being scaled back to a 12-track recording at the request of their label. In the early ’90s, a 16-song demo surfaced in trading circles that contained 10 unreleased songs. The majority of these demos wouldn’t see official release, however, until 2014.

137. “I Talk to Jesus,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
A buzzing demo included as a bonus track on the Japanese pressings of the album, “I Talk to Jesus” focuses on a zealous soul who’s lost in life, looking for answers and anyone to listen to him. This was an unexpected detour for Jon Bon Jovi, as he continued to improve his songwriting craft. He also hadn’t lost his humor, name-checking Sambora’s new wife Heather Locklear.

136. “Who Said It Would Last Forever” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
The second best of the unreleased Power Station cuts evokes a sense of urgency sold by a gripping arrangement that’s driven by the opening piano and a piercing guitar. Jon Bon Jovi matches that intensity, especially at that moment when he wails “And I would give you everything that you were missing.”

135. “I Don’t Want to Live Forever,” B-side to “It’s My Life” (2000)
This surging life-affirming rocker begins with the death of Frank Sinatra and leads the listener through a series of people who just want to live while they’re alive. Demoed for Crush but was ultimately relegated to the sidelines when “It’s My Life,” a song with similar themes and another Sinatra reference, was written.

134. “What You Want,” The Power Station Years (1981-82)
The best Power Station recording is delivered with steely clear conviction, sharp vocals and an arms-to-the-air chorus.

133. “Ride Cowboy Ride,” New Jersey (1988)
It started as a song Jon and Richie couldn’t complete, so “Ride Cowboy Ride” was recorded in mono with the static sounds of a record player to serve as a segue between “Wild is the Wind” and “Stick To Your Guns.” Incomplete or not, it’s a delight to sing and hear in concert; “Ride Cowboy Ride,” also contributed to the emotional arc on Side 2.

132. “Temptation,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This superb and shadowy track was originally released in 2000 as a demo on the European CD single for “It’s My Life.” The demo seizes a rawness seldom heard on Bon Jovi albums. The box set version was a completed recording that, while good, lacks the ghostly nature of the demo.

131. “Taking it Back,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
The closest Bon Jovi ever came to capturing the spirit of AC/DC on an album, this full-speed 1992 rocker with exciting guitar work from Richie Sambora was as fierce as anything they’ve ever committed to tape. “We knew that we had to take control of our own destiny,” Jon said in 2004, “and songs like ‘Taking It Back’ were sung from the point of view of that chip’s back on my shoulder and I’m ready to launch into phase two of the band’s career.”

130. “Hollow Man,” Forever (2024)
Much has been made of Jon Bon Jovi’s vocal issues in recent years and Forever marks the first album he’s made since his surgery in 2022. “Hollow Man” finds him at his most relaxed, as he embraces his elder voice taking a page from Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits. Despite being the first song written for the album, it’s the album closer. In a YouTube video about the song, Jon Bon Jovi explains, “I learned a trick about songwriting, if you don’t have something to say, write down that you don’t have something to say.” This worked previously for “Bed of Roses” and “My Guitar Lies Bleeding in My Arms.” “Hollow Man” works because it feels like one last song as the bartender signals for last call.

129. “Satellite,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This track soars with mature lyrics and a strikingly refined guitar solo by Richie. Listed as a 1999 recording on the band’s official site, but the chorus howl by Jon Bon Jovi points towards the Keep the Faith era.

128. “Love Hurts,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
Recorded a few years after “Prayer,” the band begins to tackle the darker web of long-term relationships where time occasionally deflates hope – and yet the love buried deep down still aches. The “ah-ah-ah-a” chants, paired with Sambora’s glitzy dexterity, add a true sense of theater to the opening. That carries the song all the way through, before the “ah-ah-ah-a” reprise four minutes later.

127. “Garageland,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Written in 1999 for Crush, “Garageland” probably should have made the album. “We were reinventing ourselves,” Jon Bon Jovi said in 2004, “and we would talk about where we came from and where we are going to.” Even while amid those deep thoughts, this was a signal to the fans that they were still inspired to try to tear the walls down in that old garage – and in every concert hall around the world.

126. “Have a Nice Day,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
The title track of Bon Jovi’s ninth studio album could be criticized for sounding like a Schoolhouse Rock! outtake, but the simple-minded arrangement is bolstered by a band performance that’s off the hinges. Sambora fuels the engine with big stormy guitar chords, while McDonald works in tandem with the unappreciated Torres, whose drums splinter and spit. Leading the charge is Jon Bon Jovi, who gives a truly remarkable vocal performance. The 2004 take had a slow bridge after the guitar solo that was sadly left off the final version.

125. “Lost Highway,” Lost Highway (2007)
The lead track from the band’s 10th studio album is anthemic, liberating and full of open-road romanticism. Its derivativeness is so charming that my only defense is that “Lost Highway” is everything a Bon Jovi song should be.

124. “Unbreakable,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
Driven by guitar-pumping riffs, the get-in-the-ring “Unbreakable” ranks among Bon Jovi’s best post-2000 recordings, yet it was relegated to bonus-track status on international editions of Have a Nice Day.

123. “Rich Man Living in a Poor Man’s House,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Played briefly during Jon’s short solo tour of Europe in 1998, this song about the richness of love over material needs was co-written by Dave Stewart.

122. “Judgement Day,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
This gritty after-life drama is fueled by a band swinging for the fences amidst a “na-na-na-na” chorus, which was also used on Born To Be My Baby. Confronting life’s choices in a place where “you walk through the fire [with] nowhere to run to and no one to blame,” Bon Jovi is inspired to one of their heaviest jams.

121. “The More Things Change,” Greatest Hits (2010)
The song, with a winking and bustling acoustic guitar, feels like a throwback to the more earnest ’90s version of the band. Hands down, the best of the new tracks from this compilation.

120. “Alive,” B-side to “All About Lovin’ You” (2003)
Of all the 9/11-inspired, fist-pumping songs they wrote for Bounce, this one moves me and shakes me to my core with its deafening chorus. Bon Jovi can conjure genuine chills on this raw demo.

119. “Brothers in Arms” 2020 (2020)
2020‘s penultimate track recalls the Keep the Faith era of the band and shares DNA with some of the demos that appear on the band’s 2004 box set of outtakes, 100,000,000 Fans Can’t Be Wrong. Beneath the eternally durable and underrated rhythm section of Tico Torres and bassist Hugh McDonald, Bon Jovi tackles the hypocrisy of those who don’t want their friends, neighbors and athletes to rock the boat politically head-on: “But don’t you step out of line, don’t re-write or define / What it means to see a man take a knee.” For a man who came close to owning an NFL franchise in 2014, this is a bold-faced statement in support of Colin Kaepernick. Musically, Bon Jovi does not break any new ground here, but it is deeply satisfying and a reminder they have always been a fierce bar band at their core.

118. “Ordinary People,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Originally released in Europe as a B-side to 2000’s “Say It Isn’t So,” “Ordinary People” was recorded in 1994. David Bryan co-wrote the song with Bon Jovi and Sambora, but it was left off These Days. Jon explained why in 2004: “‘Flesh and Bone’ and ‘Ordinary People’ were better exercises than they were contenders for the record. So, you still see the underlying threads of optimism in ‘Ordinary People,’ for instance, but it sounded too much like what was on the radio.”

117. “Justice in the Barrel,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
The chants from actor Lou Diamond Phillips most likely overreach their purpose, but it’s hard to resist Jeff Beck‘s gale-force solo.

116. “Full Moon High,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
Originally titled “River of Love” on cassette demos that circulated during the ’90s, the band quite possibly re-named “Full Moon High” for official release in 2014 since Richie Sambora had a song with the same name on his debut solo album. Gushing innocence and sensual passions give way to a brilliant performance that continually builds, stressing the resolution of the lyrics.

 

115. “Walls of Jericho,” Forever (2024)
In a social media post before the album’s release, Jon Bon Jovi referred to the “Walls of Jericho” as a “big old anthemic song.” With its arm-waving chorus and big shuffling backbeat, “Jericho” is the album’s most infectious song. Despite his reedy voice, Jon Bon Jovi sells this one vocally and is accentuated by Tico Torres’ burly drums. Co-written with Philip Lawrence, who has eight Grammy awards to his name from his work with Bruno Mars, the song also has eerie similarities to Bruce Springsteen’s “Ghosts” from his 2020 album Letter To You so much so that Bruce should have received a co-write.

114. “Real Life,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A mid-tempo number accentuated by a moving lead vocal, “Real Life” was co-written by Jon and Desmond Child and then demoed in 1998. In early 1999, the group re-recorded and released it as the first band recording in some four years. “Real Life” was also one of the last songs featuring work by producer Bruce Fairburn, who died a mere three months later. Chosen to be in the Ron Howard movie EDtv, this track also appeared with a U.K. mix; the box set version is remixed.

113. “Wedding Day,” B-side to “This Ain’t a Love Song” (1995)
This spare demo billows with regret, as its melancholy opening gives way to a third verse when Jon Bon Jovi lets go of his inhibitions with a severely distressing vocal performance. Most notable are the lines: “And I don’t know if I can take it / Should we ever meet again / ‘Cause I know that we’ll be strangers / Introduced as friends.”

112. “When She Comes,” B-side to “This Ain’t a Love Song” (1995)
The best double-entendre this band ever wrote, “When She Comes” is disguised as a perfect and pure pop song.

111. “Does Anybody Really Fall in Love Anymore?” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
Bon Jovi and Sambora wrote this with Desmond Child and Diane Warren, then demoed it for New Jersey. “Does Anybody Really Fall in Love Anymore?” was then given to Cher for her 1989 Hearts of Stone, on which future Bon Jovi member Hugh McDonald played bass. It wasn’t released as a single from Cher’s album, but rather by former Alice Cooper guitarist Kane Roberts. His first-rate version, from 1991’s Saints and Sinners, ended up just inside the Top 40.

110. “Seeds,” Forever (2024)
One of the reasons “Seeds” works is it brings big drama to the to the forefront. A lot of Bon Jovi’s the post-2000 music lacks the force of their first fifteen years, but the arrangement, which includes a scorching finale and a nod to the Beatles “A Day in the Life”, heightened the song & makes the listener feel like the band still has a few rounds left in them. One of the few songs from the Shanks era where you can feel the band pour their guts out on the performance.

109. “You Can Sleep While I Dream,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
An unbelievably beguiling chorus full of ebullient vocals and unrestrained positivity, “You Can Sleep While I Dream” was recorded in 1999 for Crush, but held over for the box set.

 

108. “Blood in the Water” 2020 (2020)
Fans who didn’t pay attention to Bon Jovi in the ’90s missed out on some of their best and most overtly political material (“Hey God,” “Keep the Faith”), so the socially conscious songs on 2020 feel refreshing and long overdue to many. It is startling to some because these themes have been in hibernation for the better part of the past two decades. “Blood in the Water” paints a picture of a polarized America consumed by rage, hate, fake news and the weaponization of words. The song has shades and hues of 1992’s nearly 10-minute epic “Dry County,” and while it does not reach those heights, this is a terse and terrifying picture of our future slipping through our hands. “Blood in the Water” is a sprawling epic about a country scorched to its core.

107. “Say It Isn’t So,” Crush (2000)
This upbeat Beatles-style track is about dreaming big and showcases a rare keyboard solo by David Bryan. The Wayne Isham-directed video is an homage to Blazing Saddles, with an all-star cast including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilio Estevez, Claudia Schiffer and Matt LeBlanc.

106. “Now and Forever,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
The Sons of Beaches demos show a band who absolutely could have released a double album if their label would have let them. This track offers a glimmer of the strength of the material, which is heightened by a discreet commencement and an amplified conclusion.

105. “99 in the Shade,” New Jersey (1988)
This song explores endless summer nights where the passions of youth are at their most heightened. Gathering with friends, including Tommy and Gina, makes for a lifetime of memories.

104. “Dyin’ Ain’t Much of a Livin,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
Jon Bon Jovi convened an all-star line-up for the Blaze of Glory recording sessions – including Elton John, who provided harmonies and piano on the album closer. “He came into the control room to hear the basic track,” Jon told Roy Trakin in 1990. “We were both sitting at the board and he started singing the harmony – and, of course, the truth of the matter was that more than anything I wanted him to sing on it, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. But when he started to sing, I asked him if he’d do the harmonies. And we cut the vocals right there, in front of everyone who had played on the track because we all wanted to see him do it. And it was fucking great. We had to filter out all the clicking from the cameras though!”

103. “Save a Prayer,” Keep the Faith (1992)
It’s a gritty experiment included as a bonus track everywhere around the world except America. The opening tips its hat to “Give Peace a Chance,” before Bon Jovi segues into a breathtaking, primal exposition of this troubled world. Sambora’s guitars eventually signal the morning light, as “Save a Prayer” emerges from the darkness. “We were experimenting, yet I feel that song says something lyrically,” Jon told Kerrang! in 1992. “Actually, by the time we recorded it, we’d gotten tired of making the record, to be honest. The interesting thing about it is that the intro was done on the day we mixed, or very near to it was. I just had this idea come to me. Richie, Bob Rock and I must have got every pot and pan in the place to record it!”

102. “Love’s the Only Rule,” The Circle (2009)
The studio version of The Circle pales in comparison to their live take, which showed Bon Jovi manifesting their strength into an evocative and powerful statement. Eventually, “Love’s the Only Rule” stretched to 10 minutes. The blatant optimism that suffocates most of their post-2000 songs works here, specifically because Sambora, Torres, McDonald and Bryan sound like a band of brothers leaving no one behind. The “wooooah” chants during the live version (officially available only as an Asian import) offer a brief reprieve before the band comes back to drive the message home in a glorious finale.

101. “Midnight in Chelsea,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
Created during the filming of The Leading Man in London, this Dave Stewart co-write found Jon Bon Jovi making the boldest music of his life. During his downtime on the set, Jon escaped to his trailer to compose new songs. “For the first time in my life, it was somewhere I was alone,” he said back then. “My whole adult life, I’ve been married with a wife, kids and a band. Before then, I lived with my folks, so I’ve never been alone. So, those hours were precious. I’d sit in the trailer and write songs.”

100. “Hook Me Up,” Bounce (2002)
Sambora’s urgent Gibson Flying V features prominently on this steely powerhouse where Bon Jovi follows the story of a young child from Palestine trying to connect with anyone via ham radio. In this way, “Hook Me Up” harkens back to the satellite dishes from the Bounce album cover.

99. “The Hardest Part Is the Night,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
Sambora’s slashing guitar seizes on loneliness and despair, tackling the heartless code of the streets where despondency is plentiful – and where nightmares are palpable threats.

98. “Miracle,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
The Water Sisters accentuate so much here with striking background vocals that hover just beneath the lead. They also add a warmth to the chorus that makes this track singular in the catalog. An unexpected second single from the soundtrack album, “Miracle” proved to be a hit – reaching No. 12 on the singles chart. Phil Parlapiano’s accordion is also wondrous, while Jeff Beck’s solo offers us another slice of guitar heaven.

97. “Staring at Your Window With a Suitcase in My Hand,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
Seeking out Black Grape producer Stephen Lironi, Jon Bon Jovi had a key collaborator who would help steer the work toward experimental rock, with dashes of pop and electronic programming. This weeping, one-of-a-kind composition features Lance Quinn – producer of their first two albums – on guitar and David Bryan on keyboard.

96. “Runaway,” Bon Jovi (1984)
Recorded at the Power Station with the All-Star Review consisting of E Street Band piano player Roy Bittan; drummer Frankie LaRocka and guitarist Tim Pierce (a pair of musicians from John Waite’s band), and future Bon Jovi bassist Hugh McDonald, “Runaway” was co-written with George Karak. “We worked on ‘Runaway’ a little bit over at Jon’s house in Sayreville,” Karak told Bryan Reesman for the book Bon Jovi: The Story. “I had a lot of the song written, but he changed a couple of lines in the second verse.” Included on the New York Rocks 1983 compilation by Long Island radio station WAPP, “Runaway” took off in multiple markets – eventually peaking at No. 39 in the spring of 1984. By then, the band had struck a deal with Mercury Records. Today, “Runaway” is one of the few Bon Jovi songs that sounds dated and truly of its time, but the band transformed it into a spectacular show-stopper in concert over the next decade.

95. “Get Ready,” Bon Jovi (1984)
Guitars roar like engines in a firestorm on the closing song of their self-titled debut album. Critics of Bon Jovi look past the exuberance they brought to every song. There is a good reason why this full-fledged rocker closed many shows on the Slippery When Wet tour.

94. “Never Say Die,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
A scorching rocker featuring drummer Kenny Aronoff and bassist Randy Jackson (a sessions man best known for American Idol), in a resilient and devilish performance. Jeff Beck offers another smoking solo, while Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby makes an appearance on acoustic guitar.

93. “Homebound Train,” New Jersey (1988)
Shoe-horning all of their classic rock influences (Jeff Beck, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Southside Johnny) into one song is a tall order, but Bon Jovi pulls it off – creating their ultimate jam anthem. “Homebound Train” is made complete with harmonica, slide guitar, thundering drums and a delicious organ solo, all before the sound of an engine train returns as a bookend.

92. “If I Was Your Mother,” Keep the Faith (1992)
Bob Rock engineered Slippery When Wet and New Jersey and, in the time leading up to Keep the Faith, struck gold producing Dr. Feelgood for Motley Crue and Metallica’s self-titled “Black Album.” Taking a cue from the latter project’s “Sad But True,” Bon Jovi offers a metal hymn to blood love that became the heftiest, most molten and merciless track in their discography.

91. “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
The most popular and enduring moment from Have a Nice Day also contributed to the album’s many delays. Bon Jovi and their label knew they had a potential crossover hit and were looking for a country superstar to duet with Jon. During the initial recordings in 2004, Bon Jovi talked Keith Urban into coming to the studio to lay down a vocal but, in the end, their vocal styles were too similar. The search continued for several months before management brought in Jennifer Nettles. She had a voice that perfectly complemented the breezy beauty of “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.”

90. “Nothing,” Have a Nice Day outtake (2005)
The biggest casualty of the new recording sessions in early 2005 was “Nothing.” There is a deceptive and dark power to the song, which opens with an acoustic guitar and piano but builds into a chorus full of hunger and majestic melody, with impassioned vocals from Jon. “Nothing” was eventually given to American Idol runner-up Bo Bice, who recorded it for his debut album The Real Thing.

89. “The End,” B-side to “This Ain’t a Love Song” (1995)
A loose and warm demo from the These Days sessions that works as a tribute to those we’ve loved, those we’ve lost and those we will take with us into the next world.

88. “The Fire Inside,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Originally recorded for Keep the Faith, “The Fire Inside” appeared in the box set as an original acoustic demo at its most instinctive. After not recording together for four years, Bon Jovi was stoking the fire to reignite their internal harmony for the next chapter.

87. “Misunderstood,” Bounce (2002)
The band spent much of the ’00s chasing music trends better suited for a pure pop band, but this mid-tempo number perfectly encapsulates these pop sensibilities at their best.

86. “Backdoor to Heaven,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
Sambora’s guitar is a siren seeking salvation on a ballad so piercingly full of ache it makes you wish they had found room for it on New Jersey.

85. “Roulette,” Bon Jovi (1984)
The spiraling guitar opener motions to the dark brooding underbelly of a sinful society addicted to crimes of passion. This is Sambora’s first truly great Bon Jovi moment.

84. “Any Other Day,” Lost Highway (2007)
This testament to love ascends to new heights in concert but is rarely performed. A straightforward and steady rhythm drives “Any Other Day,” until the extended solos at the end. Richie Sambora’s sprawling solo finds him spectacularly flexing his fingers, reminding us that his embellishments have the power to elevate material any time he’s in the studio or on the stage.

83. “Breakout,” Bon Jovi (1984)
In 1983, Dave “The Snake” Sabo was playing guitar temporarily with the last incarnation of John Bongiovi and the Wild Ones – which, by this time, included David Bryan Rashbaum, Tico Torres and Alec John Such. “Runaway” had given them the traction they needed with the big labels. Then a young guitarist from Perth Amboy, N.J., showed up at one of their gigs. Richie Sambora went backstage afterward, making his case to be a part of the band. They began work on “Breakout,” a track co-written with Rashbaum, at the next rehearsal – even though Bongiovi was late. Within two months, Mercury Records signed them. “Breakout” opened its early shows, and served as a pivotal early-set showcase through 1987.

82. “I Get a Rush,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Inspired by John Fogerty’s “Rockin’ All Over the World,” which was later performed with Steven Van Zandt on their 1995 tour. “I Get a Rush,” from three years later, is an utter delicacy of joy, with a humble arm-waving chorus.

81. “Starting All Over Again,” Keep the Faith (1992)
This track cracks with a yearning desire for commitment as the band rededicates themselves to each other, their music and to their fans. “Starting All Over Again” was criminally left off Keep the Faith because Jon didn’t think he could hit the high notes in concert.

80. “Janie, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
The shuffling, acoustic guitar-driven song owes much to Britpop. Inspired by a row he had with his wife in Amsterdam on Bon Jovi’s European 1996 stadium tour, Jon escaped to the washroom where he wrote the song for Dorothea. Despite its tip-of-the-hat to Oasis, it features the most earnest vocal of his career.

79. “The Radio Saved My Life Tonight,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Written by Jon Bon Jovi on piano, “The Radio Saved My Life Tonight” is a towering cut from a band unleashing one of their more ferocious performances. Left over from Keep the Faith, its fierce force sweeps you off your feet, elevating hearts and minds.

78. “Story of My Life,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
“Story of My Life” is a piano-driven song that surges through the storm of a relationship, serving as a reminder that Bon Jovi is still capable of melodic-rock perfection.

77. “Shot Through the Heart,” Bon Jovi (1984)
Jack Ponti, a member of the Rest and a longtime friend and associate of Jon’s, co-wrote this song in 1982. “Shot Through the Heart” was recorded at the Power Station, then re-recorded for their debut album, and along the way, it became a standout track filled with uncontrollable rage as the band added several suspenseful sections before the concentrated climax. The definitive versions of the song were performed on the 1985 tour when they added the intro of Cher’s “Bang, Bang” as a perfect segue into David Bryan’s pensive piano chords. The entire band would perform on Cher’s re-recording of the track on her 1987 self-titled Geffen album. Bon Jovi, Sambora and Desmond Child co-produced the cut, along with “We All Sleep Alone.” The title would go on to great fame when the band began to collaborate with Child in 1986.

76. “I Am,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
I’ve never had an issue with the band repeating themselves, as long as they mine their strongest material. “I Am” owes a debt of gratitude to “If That’s What It Takes” and, before that, “I’ll Be There For You.” Still, the chorus is so resounding and authentic that this declaration of love stands out as one of their last great love songs.

75. “The Distance,” Bounce (2002)
A passionate, meticulously executed pledge of commitment that captures everything Bon Jovi tried to overemphasize on Bounce. “What I found interesting about this song is the juxtaposition of the heavy guitar parts involved with the orchestra, which adds an urgency and helps the lyric come through,” Richie Sambora told Cosmopolis in 2002.

74. “Queen Of New Orleans,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
This track finds Bon Jovi dismantling the stadium-rock archetype for a leaner sound. The monotone vocals stand in contrast to the female buck-up singers and the buzz-saw guitars. The longstanding rumor was that American radio programmers loved the song – until they found out who was singing.

73. “My Guitar Lies Bleeding in My Arms,” These Days (1995)
Created during a bout of writer’s block. Instead of putting the pen down, Jon and Sambora began scribbling words, collaborating on one of Bon Jovi’s most ingenious compositions. “I had these visions of the scene in Tommy where he walks in and there are posters of him all over the wall,” Jon told Steffan Chrirazi of Kerrang! before These Days arrived. “I had visions of me walking into a nightmare like that, posters of me staring at me going ‘Well well, go on then, write a record!’”

72. “Good Guys Don’t Always Wear White,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
A straight-ahead, guitar-heavy rocker that seamlessly bridges the gap between Keep the Faith and These Days. “Good Guys Don’t Always Wear White” was originally released in 1994 on the soundtrack to the motion picture The Cowboy Way, starring Keifer Sutherland and Woody Harrelson and produced by Andy Johns.

71. “Last Cigarette,” Have a Nice Day (2005)
“Last Cigarette” fits squarely between the Beach Boys and All-American Rejects. This mashup is nothing short of magnificent, blending approaches that appealed to both the baby boomers and a millennial. “Last Cigarette” was also a foreshadowing of Jon’s collaboration with the Beach Boys 2012 reunion album That’s Why God Made the Radio: He co-wrote “Summer’s Gone” with Brian Wilson and Joe Thomas.

70. “Destination Anywhere,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
A slide guitar drives this anthem, which was ready-made for the open road. Jon said that was precisely his goal: “Anywhere you stopped, that’s where you’d lay down at night and sleep, and that’s where you met people and saw things off the beaten path,” he said back then. “There was no arena, there was no airport and none of the trappings of life in a rock band. I wanted to capture that in the song.”

69. “Sad Song Night,” B-side to “Midnight in Chelsea” (1997)
A distinctive, resolute guitar is textured over a vigorous rhythm section, as the narrator reflects on “a long ago girl running through my mind.” Her memory is kept alive on these sad nights by a Willie DeVille song they used to dance to.

68. “Open All Night (#2),” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
The band had this title around forever. It was rumored to be the initial name of their sixth album, which instead went on to be called These Days. A song of the same title is on Bounce, but the real gem is the 1994 version found on the box set. Written from the perspective of a man whose love has left him, “Open All Night (#2)” nevertheless features music with a sanguine tone. As he waits for her to return, the memory is again kept alive through music: “I’ll keep the jukebox playing our favorite song.”

67. “I’d Die For You,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
A passionate and beseeching love song thrown into zealous overdrive, with David Bryan’s keyboard receiving a forceful workout. The demo version has completely different verses before Desmond Child came in for a rewrite.

66. “Mystery Train,” Crush (2000)
A picturesque and delightful acoustic charmer co-written with Billy Falcon that found Jon Bon Jovi channeling old favorites. “My lyrical heroes, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen, could be proud of the pictures I have created in this song,” Jon said in 2000.

65. “Bitter Wine,” These Days (1995)
Originally demoed in a boisterous rock arrangement similar to Joe Cocker’s intro on “With a Little Help From My Friends,” but later stripped back to a bare and beautiful acoustic arrangement reminiscent of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses.”

64. “Learning How To Fall,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
“Learning How to Fall” takes a cue from Alanis Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket” with layered rhythms, loops and a melodic harmonica, but it is Bon Jovi’s vocal punctuation on the chorus that hoists the song.

63. “When We Were Beautiful,” The Circle (2009)
While Bon Jovi occasionally over-reached in their desire to connect on The Circle, “When We Were Beautiful” masterfully sums up the state of the world in 2009 – while also enthralling your psyche and tugging at your heartstrings. The band sounds like a tsunami of emotion on a song that’s stronger than anything else on this album. Unfortunately, parallel themes have explored the point of tedium elsewhere.

62. “Lie to Me,” These Days (1995)
This sullen ballad is gorgeous, as they paint a landscape of fear and trepidation; Sambora’s duet-like serenade acts as a call and response to Jon Bon Jovi’s understated vocals. In 1995, Jon Bon Jovi said “Lie to Me” was “probably Tommy and Gina’s story 10 years on. Though their dreams are gone, if they don’t have each other, there’s nothing left worth holding on for.”

61. “Only in My Dreams” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Jon Bon Jovi wrote this anomaly for Tico Torres to sing in 1994, creating one of their greatest treasures – and one that’s not well known. “His natural voice is Tom Waits and Louie Armstrong,” Jon said in 2004. “He’s a stylist.” The arrangement is similar to Waits’ “Innocent When You Dream” in the best way imaginable, with Torres punctuating the despondency of the narrator who pleas with the Lord to bring back his angel: “Lord, I’d sacrifice my eyes, there’s nothing else I’d rather see / You can have my heart, it’s of little use to me / And if you want my soul, I’d throw it in for free.” “Only In My Dreams” is a miracle of a song.

60. “American Reckoning” 2020 (2020)
The last song written for 2020 was inspired by the death of George Floyd in May of 2020. Jon Bon Jovi is not afraid to get his hands dirty on his most politically distressing song since the These Days era. Bon Jovi goes beyond the anguish of this avoidable death and tackles his privilege as well. On albums like The Circle and What About Now the socially conscious songs felt a little too broad and rudimentary, but on “American Reckoning” he isn’t shying away from controversy. “I was moved to write ‘American Reckoning’ as a witness to history,” Bon Jovi told Rolling Stone at the time. “I believe the greatest gift of an artist is the ability to use their voice to speak to issues that move us.” The solemn arrangement reflects the deep affection he has for the agony of many, but more notably he recognizes that his privilege and experiences are not the same: “I’ll never know what it’s like / To walk a mile in his shoes / And I’ll never have to have the talk / So it don’t happen to you.” His frail voice echoes the fragile mental nature of the country and it tips its hat to the folk protest music of the 1960s where Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan delivered piercing protest songs to the masses with their voices and an acoustic guitar, which is precisely how Bon Jovi weaves this pensive tale of loss. With a guitar and harmonica (used for the first time on an album since These Days) he transmits his views in a most disciplined manner on a song where there is a valuable lesson to be learned, not just for himself but all his audience as well. “American Reckoning” may not remind people about the liberation of their youth, but the song is a map to a better, more empathetic and inclusive future.

59. “All I Want is Everything,” These Days (1995)
Heavily inspired by Prince’s “Sign o’ the Times,” this stinging third-person narrative finds the verses drowning in nuanced trepidation while the chorus hoists their hopes to the stars. “This is an observation of the Generation X theory that you can’t have anything. I’m saying you can!” Jon told Steffan Chirazi of Kerrang! before the release of These Days in 1995. “I loved the character in the song saying ‘I’ve had enough of having nothing.’ I love the underdog attitude. I want people to just think, ‘Fuck telling me what I cannot have!’ And if I could leave one message without sounding too deep, then that is it.”

58. “Tokyo Road,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
They open with a music box playing the Japanese folk song “Sakura Sakura (Cherry Blossom),” which uses spring as a theme before Richie Sambora introduces the world to Bon Jovi’s greatest whammy bar jam. The band overreaches on every note of this song, but it’s magnificent to hear them swinging for the fences. Drenched in a melodic pop-metal atmosphere that shifts into overdrive, “Tokyo Road” is powered by a transcendent bridge that features Sambora’s best use of finger tapping.

57. “Hearts Breaking Even,” These Days (1995)
Bon Jovi’s rhythm-and-blues influence resurfaces again on another upbeat, soulful cut. While Sambora and Bon Jovi were mostly inseparable during the writing of this record, this is a rare Jon Bon Jovi/Desmond Child collaboration without the King of Swing. Jon later confirmed that “Hearts Breaking Even” was “written about Richie and his incredible love life, [but] he wasn’t there that day. He was off to a blind date with a girl that later became his wife.” It’s perfectly ebullient sounding, but “Hearts Breaking Even” is ultimately about how breaking hearts is a perfect crime.

56. “Blood Money,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
Dedicated to Bob Dylan, this acoustic number was inspired by Dylan’s soundtrack to Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, in which he starred. The bare acoustic guitar, harmonica and accordion make for a gem of a song that doesn’t feel the least bit forced. Instead, “Blood Money” becomes a more internal composition, as a young rock star who had reached the highest peaks rock ‘n’ roll could offer begins to question his faith and place in the world – following much the same path as Billy the Kid saga in Young Guns II. Bon Jovi performed extra verses when he went on the Rockline radio show to promote Blaze of Glory, creating the definitive version of this song.

55. “Silent Night,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
The band’s first great ballad didn’t fully reveal itself until the Slippery When Wet tour. There, Bon Jovi’s alter ego, Captain Kidd, flew over the crowd to a small platform at the back of the arena before David Bryan’s keyboards helped “Silent Night” shift into a moment of protracted, over-the-top catharsis. These concerts, documented on a mesmerizing FM broadcast from the Cincinnati Gardens in March 1987, find the band stretching this song to the furthest reaches possible as if it was a full-on confessional. Swirling ad-libs are matched only by the band’s triumphant performance for every second of what became a 10-minute expulsion of words.

54. “Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning,” Burning Bridges (2015)
Capturing their youthful vigor, this rousing anthem finds Bon Jovi tapping into youthful glories like “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night.” Of course, plagiarizing yourself has never been an issue, especially when a song is as unquestionably great as this one. Lacking originality or not, “Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning” is an illustration of Bon Jovi at their best – and it provided a high point on a contract-filler compilation. John Aizlewood of the Evening Standard once noted on the Rock Legends television program that “there’s always been a spark of greatness in everything that they’ve done.” “Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning” is another example. Still, it might have been even better: Written originally for The Circle, this is the only song on Burning Bridges co-written by the now-departed Sambora. His vocals and guitars were removed from the released version so Bon Jovi wouldn’t have to pay him royalties. If his work has been retained, this song would rank even higher.

53. “We All Sleep Alone,” live performance (1990)
Bon Jovi originally played on this No. 11 Billboard hit for Cher from 1988; “We All Sleep Alone” also marked the first major co-production credits for both Bon Jovi and Sambora, in partnership with Desmond Child. They only played it one time, however, during a special charity show held on Jan. 10, 1990, at the Hammersmith Odeon for a special charity show, as seen in the Bon Jovi documentary Access All Areas. The arrangement is spacious and pining, but it’s the closing chorus that brings everything home as Sambora’s guitar cries and the band sings “Ooh-Ooh-Ooh-A” in unison. Sambora later resurrected “We All Sleep Alone” in late 1991 for his first-ever solo tour.

52. “Love for Sale,” New Jersey (1988)
Even at a young age, I always knew there was always something that distinguished Bon Jovi from their hard-rock peers. No one was attempting an acoustic blues jam to close out their albums, let alone the year’s most-anticipated studio project. One listen to the Sons of Beaches demos and you can point to at least a half dozen more radio-friendly songs that easily could have taken its place. But that wouldn’t have given New Jersey its edge, and the album would not hold up as well as it does today.

51. “Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars,” Crush (2000)
Bon Jovi sounds like giddy kids on this guitar-heavy rocker. Sambora made the trek to Rome, Italy, where Jon was filming U-571, to co-write “Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars.” “Let’s think of this guy and let’s make him more Ziggy Stardust,” Jon said in 2000, “and make this fictional story of two screw-ups.” An absolute delight, this fan favorite captures the youthful splendor of their earlier work while also – thanks to an obvious lift of the melody from Oasis’ 1997 B-side “Stay Young” – managing to sound current.

50. “You Really Got Me Now,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
Little Richard joined Bon Jovi onstage in Los Angeles in 1989 and Jon returned the favor by inviting the early rock legend to the Blaze of Glory sessions. The result was a rootsy rocker which has the feeling of a mono recording from the ’50s; “You Really Got Me Now,” is simply brimming with admiration, affection and gusto. Jon even hands off the second verse to Little Richard to sing. “Me, Waddy [Watchtel], and Kootch [Danny Kortchmar] played guitar while Kenny [Aronoff] played just a single snare drum and banged his boot on the floor,” Jon told Roy Trakin in 1990. “Benmont Tench wanted to play on it so bad, but there was no space left in the circle we were sitting in, so he had to play along with the track in another room. When Little Richard wanted to take a verse, I wrote the lyrics out in big letters so he could read and sing at the same time. And I called out the solos as each one came up.”

49. “Always Run to You,” 7800° Fahrenheit (1985)
I like to think this song takes place in a fictitious underworld where the narrator is caught in the crosshairs. “Always Run to You” feels like an ’80s made-for-TV movie, with the theatrical cues provided by Bon Jovi. They begin with a rapturous extended drum intro, adding cowbell no less, then the sound of a mounting synthesizer slips its way in before a tactile guitar riff leads it to the first verse. More than 40 seconds have passed before Jon sings “The clock strikes 10” and we’re off to the races. He talks obliquely about rumbles on the dark side of town and a woman who has something he needs. Is it a sensual pleasure? A chemical one? We don’t know, but at 1:22 the melodramatic synthesizer returns as Jon proclaims “I stand accused,” and tells this woman he can always run. Every bit as mysterious, the second verse features the lyric: “We’ve done more white lines than you’ll know, any one we could steal.” For years, many assumed they were lines of cocaine, making you think the narrator is either dealing drugs or using them. Sadly, Jon confirmed in an early-’90s fan-club interview that they were instead the broken white lines found on a road, taking “Always Run to You” a few notches down on a cool meter. Regardless, I’m going to keep thinking there’s a sinister underworld plot, instead of just a young man’s flesh fantasy. Either way, it won’t stop me from reveling in the tour de force performance Bon Jovi put together for this one, though “Always Run to You” was only performed a handful of times in Japan and Europe in 1985 before it was retired.

48. “Waves,” Forever (2024)
Jason Isbell steps in to provide harmonies, guitars & and co-write on the best song Bon Jovi has crafted in more than fifteen years. “Waves” would not be out of place on any of the singer-songwriter’s recent Americana releases, & it gives fans a glimpse of what Lost Highway could have been in an alternate universe. Isbell’s guitar haunts the listener and adds a much-needed atmosphere taking the listener into the heart of the song. Jon Bon Jovi’s career soars when he brings in great collaborators & Jason Isbell has proven to be the best of his modern collaborators and proves to be the ultimate surrogate for Richie Sambora.

47. “Santa Fe,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
In the film adaptation of About a Boy, Hugh Grant’s eternally jobless and single character Will incorrectly credits Bon Jovi with the phrase “no man is an island.” It’s amusing because Jon used this famous phrase in one track – “Santa Fe” – on an album inspired by an American cowboy. The theme returns throughout About a Boy and it’s a good laugh, but the song is a serious tale of a man coming to grips with his mortality knowing that he will have to pay for his sins. There’s so much to admire in “Santa Fe,” from the orchestral arrangement that defines its melody, to the verses about a man questioning his life, its purpose and the hell that awaits him. Jon Bon Jovi’s soaring vocals are what seep into your bones, however. Nothing about the Young Guns II project should have worked; in fact, it should have been a preposterous exercise in vanity, but it’s not. Jon Bon Jovi brought his A-game to these sessions. Tapping into his Catholic upbringing, Jon channels anger and guilt into what may be his finest vocal performance, sounding like a man on fire seeking absolution.

46. “Diamond Ring,” These Days (1995)
Although written in 1988 for New Jersey, “Diamond Ring,” was quickly earmarked for the band’s next chapter – but not before Bon Jovi performed it on Rockline the night before the album’s release that September. This song then reappeared during the Red Bank charity shows in December 1990 and during their January 1991 tour of Japan. “Diamond Ring” was later targeted as one of three “new” songs for their forthcoming record. It didn’t make the cut on Keep the Faith either, even though Bon Jovi performed it again on Rockline in December 1992. After yet another performance on Rockline, this time in October 1994, “Diamond Ring” finally appeared on their 1995 release These Days. The final version is led by acoustic guitars, a sullen backdrop of tantalizing rhythm, and smoldering vocals by Sambora and Bon Jovi.

45. “Fields of Fire,” These Days: Special UK Edition (1996)
Demoed for Keep the Faith, it was eventually released on a bonus disc in 1996 to help promote a summer tour of the U.K. Featuring a rallying cry that captures themes of renewal and maturity, “Fields of Fire” finds the band channeling their us-against-the-world mentality to rekindle the flames of youth. The song was ultimately only performed a few times by Jon Bon Jovi alone on acoustic; it was also part of their rehearsals for An Evening with Bon Jovi in 1992 and included Richie Sambora in the second verse.

44.”It’s My Life,” Crush (2000)
Borrowing from the Animals and reintroducing Tommy & Gina and the talk box, “It’s My Life” re-made the multi-million dollar Bon Jovi into a billion-dollar band. I don’t think Bon Jovi ever would have gone away, but it reignited a love for the band and brought the masses back. The song was co-written with Max Martin, who had recently achieved massive success writing songs for Britney Spears, notably “…Baby One More Time.” “Max came into the studio and kicked me and Richie in the pants,” Jon told Classic Rock magazine in 2001. “He hadn’t worked with a rock band before, so he went off to Sweden and put these loops and stuff in and sent them over, and the background arrangement was really fucking great, and we went in and used the loops and that arrangement of the backing vocals. Give the kid all the credit in the world.”

43. “Something for the Pain,” These Days (1995)
By the time it arrived as the second single from These Days, “Something for the Pain” bore little resemblance to an original performance during the band’s charity run of Christmas concerts in December 1994. “We re-wrote it 10 times!” Bon Jovi later told Kerrang! “John Kalodner is an old-style record producer-type A&R guy, and Columbia let him advise artists outside the label. John said ‘Let’s put an accordion on this song, and a 12-string Rickenbacker!’ This song was meant to sound like T-Rex, and it turns into something so incredibly unique that we can’t even decide where it came from.”

42. “Raise Your Hands,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
“‘Raise Your Hands’ is my way of saying ‘Good morning, class,’” Jon told Metal Edge’s Gerri Miller in 1986. This arms-to-the-air anthem cracks open Side 2 of Slippery When Wet in grand fashion; it remains one of the most absorbing rockers in their catalog.

41. “Miss Fourth of July,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
Written and recorded for the Keep the Faith album during Jon’s self-imposed “grey period,” this is the saddest song in their catalog. “Miss Fourth of July” pairs wistful and melancholic lyrics with a solemn instrumentation tinted by David Bryan’s accordion. “I was really concerned with the innocence that I had when I picked up a guitar as a teenager was gone,” Jon said in the box-set liner notes, “and gone forever.” Upon listening to the box set for the first time, Sambora told Jon: “You know, this is my favorite that we never did.”

40. “Never Say Goodbye,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
The initial track list for this album only had nine songs, but “Never Say Goodbye” was added at the last minute after some serious lobbying from Richie. “I was pretty much emphatic about that being on the record,” he later said, “because I thought that it was a very sentimental song to our fans and something that should end up this whole record.” The demo features Richie Sambora on vocals, though an explanation as to why was never given. Mercury Records wanted this as the third single from Slippery When Wet, and it may very well have given the band their third No. 1 song in a row. To their credit, however, Bon Jovi shelved it in favor of “Wanted Dead or Alive.” Still, “Never Say Goodbye,” was sent to radio stations before “Wanted,” so it received considerable airplay; it even cracked the Top 20 airplay chart. A video was also completed exclusively for the VHS video collection. The definitive version of “Never Say Goodbye” is an acoustic live rendition, put on the B-side to “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” in 1993. The sight of those two men at the tip of the stage, harmonizing and reminiscing as the crowd carries the song is a perfect reflection of why this band inspires.

39. “Lonely at the Top,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This song could potentially turn a non-Bon Jovi fan into a believer. Originally released in 1995 as a B-side, “Lonely at the Top” was written for Kurt Cobain‘s daughter Frances. Its evocative vocal is a great tribute to the doomed rocker. “That really beat me up plenty, because I felt for him,” Jon told Q magazine in 1995. “But I felt more for his daughter, having a daughter the same age.” Bon Jovi may not have known Cobain’s child, but he wrote her a powerful hymn highlighted by this tear-jerking lyric: “I’m sorry you didn’t get to know your dad / I bet he’s sorry he didn’t get to know you too.” Perhaps because it was such a deviation for the band, “Lonely at the Top” was only available as part of the “This Ain’t a Love Song” single before its box-set release.

38. “Let It Rock,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
A bodacious, bold and blistering way to open their blockbuster, David Bryan’s instrumental organ intro (entitled “Pink Flamingos”) sets the tone for the never-ending weekend.

37. “Bed of Roses,” Keep the Faith (1988)
The melancholic track was written by Jon Bon Jovi during what he called the “gray summer” of 1991 when the future of the band was in flux, he came up with the first few lines but then discarded almost all of it. That was on the advice of Blaze of Glory producer and collaborator Danny Kortchmar, who nevertheless urged him to keep working on the “sitting here wasted and wounded” song. By the time it premiered at the band’s annual Christmas show in Red Bank, N.J., “Bed of Roses” had become their most grandiose ballad. “I think that’s a great song and a wonderful ballad,” Richie Sambora told Metal Hammer in 1994.” Jon bared his soul. Of course, it was to his wife, and how much he cared about her.”

36. “Blaze of Glory,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
Jon Bon Jovi’s fifth No. 1 song in five years features a mighty guitar solo by Jeff Beck. He’d been called down to the set of Young Guns II by Emilio Estevez, whom he met through Ally Sheedy after the producers considered and then rejected “Wanted Dead or Alive” for the end credits because it didn’t make sense lyrically. Bon Jovi ended up having a minor cameo in the film; inspired by time on the set, he wrote three additional songs. In an attempt to market the songs, his label floated the possibility of including other tunes by up-and-coming Mercury artists, but Bon Jovi was ready to attempt a full album. He only had six weeks to pull it all together, but he did – and this gigantic cowboy anthem earned Bon Jovi a Golden Globe. “Blaze of Glory” also received a nomination at the Oscars, where Jon was joined for an onstage performance by his band of brothers.

35. “Ugly,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
A bare love song disguised as a tongue-in-cheek mid-tempo cut, “Ugly” is arguably the most ingenious song of Jon Bon Jovi’s career. The nuance in his smoky vocal, which is steered by a murky guitar, only heightens the irony of the title. “Ugly” could have been rewritten to be a saccharine power ballad, but the restraint helps this song bloom. That’s a tribute in part to co-producer Eric Bazilian, who Jon brought in after the Hooter’s co-founder had massive chart success with Joan Osbourne’s version of his song “One of Us.”

34. “(It’s Hard) Letting You Go,” These Days (1995)
Composed for Jon Bon Jovi’s film debut in Moonlight and Valentino, where the narrator yearns for a lost love who is never coming back, “(It’s Hard) Letting You Go” is catastrophically devastating – harkening back to Peter Gabriel at his best. “I wrote it as a gift to one of the producers who was so kind to me,” Jon later said. “I gave her the cassette and she loved it. So, I recorded it.” Moments of desperation, where loneliness is channeled through Sambora’s guitar, come to the forefront. Bon Jovi has always had a penchant for tackling themes their audience can relate to, but there is a somber maturity on this track.

33. “(You Want To) Make a Memory,” Lost Highway (2007)
This is a departure for Bon Jovi, yet so refreshingly earnest. The lyrics to “(You Want To) Make a Memory,” this album’s most mystifying and challenging track, hit home. It almost feels like the band was letting us into their inner sanctum as if Bon Jovi and Sambora wrote this languid, gorgeous and sedate song for each other. They sound like an entirely different band – and that’s what excites me about “(You Want To) Make a Memory.” It can be interpreted in many different ways. They headed down the road less traveled here, and it is a shame the rest of Lost Highway is nowhere near as ambitious.

32. “Cadillac Man,” live performance (1990) / Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story
This wonderful acoustic track was written in late 1989 for the Robin Williams movie of the same name. “Cadillac Man” then debuted at the legendary Hammersmith Odeon show in January 1990, reappeared again on their mini-Japan tour and local charity shows over the next year, and then disappeared. For reasons never explained, “Cadillac Man” did not make it into the movie, and it was believed they never recorded it. They didn’t start recording Keep the Faith until early 1992, and they moved on at that point. In 2024, director Gotham Chopra showed footage of Jon Bon Jovi in 2022, still recovering from his vocal surgery, playing a unearthed cassette of “Cadillac Man” in his basement and he utilizes the song for what is the best sequence in the documentary. The studio version reveals a sublime song about a man who knows his limitations in life but uses his street smarts to make something of himself. Even when the deck is stacked against him, he finds a way to look in the mirror and smile – knowing the next life adventure is right around the corner.

31. “Wild in the Streets,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
Written for Jon Bon Jovi’s younger brother Tony, this jubilant number was originally the B-side of “Livin’ on a Prayer,” but the band thought enough of it to film a video that was found exclusively on the Slippery When Wet: The Videos. (And yes, Jon is wearing a T-shirt featuring U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.) Full confession, Rolling Stone‘s Rob Sheffield inspired me to rank this one at least a dozen spots higher because of his love for the song: “I always think ‘Wild in the Streets’ could have been Bon Jovi’s biggest, bonniest and Joviest hit, but for some reason, they never played it on the radio; it’s the one that got away. I also love how Jon yells that nutty “rock me!” during the guitar solo. Someday, I pray that Morrissey will cover this – and change it to ‘Wilde in the Streets.’”

30. “Let’s Make it Baby,” New Jersey/Sons of Beaches demo (1988)
Following their impulses, the band crafted a seismic ode to unspoken desires. Don’t let the title fool you: There’s nuance and a delicate dance on this largely unknown track. The song made waves when the demo tape leaked, then Bon Jovi shockingly put an edited version of this track on a 2-CD re-issue of These Days meant to promote a 1996 summer tour of Europe. The longer version is led by a lingering bass, jazzy drums, a distinctive organ and Sambora’s talk box hauntingly harmonizes with Bon Jovi’s hazy vocals. One can understand that a highly erotic meditation wouldn’t fit well on New Jersey, and I guess we should feel fortunate it’s been released at all.

29. “Bad Medicine,” New Jersey (1988)
Ringing keyboards inaugurate a tongue-in-cheek rocker that heralded the band’s return in the fall of 1988. It all began by chance. “That was a funny situation because that chorus was essentially written when we were shooting a commercial for Fuji tape in Japan, standing in water up to our knees!” Richie Sambora told Metal Hammer in 1994. “I was in a rocky, volatile relationship at that point, and all of a sudden this title just banged up into my head: ‘Bad Medicine.’ I walked up to Jon on the set between takes and I said it to him, and he said ‘Yeah, hang onto that because we’re going to make that real good.’ We rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it, until it was really, really very good.”

28. “If That’s What It Takes,” These Days (1995)
Tucked away as the penultimate track on These Days, this may be the most underrated cut in Bon Jovi’s discography. “If That’s What It Takes” has never been played live, despite being fused with some of the most expressive playings in the band’s history. Richie Sambora’s fondness is exemplified by the shifting chord changes, the love and longing of his solos and by the closing – which finds Sambora and Torres riding this one off into the sunset with a never-ending guitar solo and crashing cymbals. “Musically, it was greatly influenced by Richie,” Jon told Metal Edge in 1995. “He’s real fond of it.” Listen to the way Bon Jovi sells the final line of the first verse (“But I’d bet my life on a roll of the dice for you”): This is a resounding pledge to someone who needs it and a flawless performance that makes you believe every word sung and every last note wrung from their instruments.

27. “Just Older,” Crush (2000)
Written in 1998 for a potential solo album that eventually became Bon Jovi’s Crush, this song takes the listener on a journey that speaks as much to Jon’s experiences as our own. “When I sang this, my chest was out, my backbone was straight and I was very excited singing it – and I saw that the audience felt that,” Jon said. “It’s a question of feeling experience because of the song.” The chorus is one of Jon’s best: “I like the bed I’m sleeping in / It’s just like me, it’s broken in / It’s not old – just older / Like a favorite pair of torn blue jeans / This skin I’m in, it’s alright with me / It’s not old – just older.” This song is a celebration of being.

26. “Stick to Your Guns,” New Jersey (1988)
Jon Bon Jovi played the Slippery When Wet demos to a handful of kids in 1986, dubbed the “Pizza Parlor Jury.” That made him reconsider “Wild in the Streets,” “Never Say Goodbye” and “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Taking an if-it-ain’t-broke, why-fix-it approach to choosing the songs for New Jersey, the band sought out advice from friends, fans and family members to help them narrow down a pool of more than two dozen songs for the final album. Bon Jovi was surprised by the reaction “Stick to Your Guns” and “Wild is the Wind” received, helping those two tracks make the final cut. Playing against a cowboy motif about standing your ground (“when you spit, you better mean it”), Sambora’s guitar dominates with David Bryan’s keyboard chiming in for a triumphant sound that is quite affecting.

25. “Something to Believe In,” These Days (1995)
A dramatic departure where the bass and drums are an imposing force, “Something to Believe In” takes the band into uncharted narrative waters. This soul is a witness to the contradictions of life but manages to pull himself out of a self-imposed prison to face the world. “It’s the first one I wrote for the record, very introspective,” Bon Jovi said later. “Just a guy that’s questioning everything around him.”

24. “In These Arms,” Keep the Faith (1992)
This cut was created with David Bryan in 1992 at Jon’s Malibu house. “David wanted to write a song so bad,” Bon Jovi said in a promotional video back in 2010, “and I started to write that with him and we were calling it ‘Changing Water Into Wine,’ and it never worked. Then Richie came over.” Sambora liked what he heard and told them about a title from a ballad he wrote five years earlier, “If You Were In These Arms Tonight.” The mid-tempo love song overflows with cheerful seduction and a chorus that emphasizes Bryan and Sambora’s pipes.

23. “August 7, 4:15,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
Bon Jovi wrote this out of anguish in August 1996 after long-time manager Paul Korzilius’ six-year-old daughter was mysteriously found dead in her Texas neighborhood. The lashing rhythm and searing guitars give passage to the indescribable pain of a parent burying their child. In 1998, Unsolved Mysteries aired a program on the incident in the hopes it could be resolved, but the death remained unsolved. An agonizing chapter in Bon Jovi’s history culminates during these 296 seconds with a dynamic drive infusing every player. As the sound of a car whisks off into the night, so did a lot of hopes and dreams from those left behind.

22. “Living in Sin,” New Jersey (1988)
The only song from New Jersey to be written in California, this solo Jon Bon Jovi composition became the band’s fifth Top 10 hit from the album – a record for a hard-rock band. (Bon Jovi was one of only a few rock groups to ever achieve this; Genesis and Huey Lewis & the News did it first while Def Leppard just missed it.) Digging into his Catholic upbringing, Bon Jovi carefully peels off layers of lyrics while the band dexterously follows his lead, sounding larger than life. “Living in Sin” really opens up after the second chorus and guitar solo, where you can feel the pressure ready to pop: “I don’t know where to begin / I don’t know where we fit in / sometimes it scares me.” A four-piece rock orchestra, led by David Bryan’s keyboards, Sambora’s substantial guitar and Bon Jovi’s gale-force vocals, then signals the song home.

21. “Damned,” These Days (1995)
Another rhythm-and-blues burner that had Jon excited when interviewed about the album in 1995; “I can’t wait to play it live,” he said. “I used the Asbury Juke horn section. I wanna be a Juke! My most prized possession is a blue satin Juke jacket from ’77!” The scrupulous soul groove wouldn’t have been out of place on a Southside Johnny record, and always raised the temperature of the venue when performed live.

20. “Every Word Was a Piece of My Heart,” Destination Anywhere (1997)
A breathtaking composition of openness directed at the band from their restless leader, “Every Word Was a Piece of My Heart” was written in Vienna during Bon Jovi’s 1996 tour. “‘Every Word’ is a song I’d written on the road with the band. I wrote this song with the idea that making no apologies, here it is,” Jon remembered. “This is what I did, and like it or not, ‘Every Word’ was all I had to give.” The song is unique for having two equally stupendous versions. Producer Steve Lironi’s downbeat edition made the final cut, while the energetic and eager Dave Stewart mix became a B-side. This relationship can be summed up with the lines: “You know that I love you, but I hate you / ‘Cause I know I can never escape you.”

19. “Bang a Drum,” Blaze of Glory (1990)
One of Jon Bon Jovi’s most grandiose statements, “Bang a Drum” features a nimble arrangement and a poignant Jeff Beck solo punctuated once again by the Waters Sisters’ gospel hues. Despite being boxed in by the events of Young Guns II, this is the one song that bears little connotation to the finished film. Instead, it is a humanistic hymn to life’s ambiguities. The job of an artist is to give a voice to those who don’t have one, and Bon Jovi dives into an America he would study closer in the coming years, putting a spotlight on those who struggle to survive. The arrangement and gospel tinges are so beautifully shaped, it hits you square in the heart. Bon Jovi would often mine similar themes after “It’s My Life,” but none were as poetic or not perfect as this one. Country singer Chris LeDoux later covered “Bang a Drum” as a duet with Jon Bon Jovi for his 1998 One Road Man album.

18. “Born to Be My Baby,” New Jersey (1988)
Counting it off “2-3-4, na-na-na-na-na!,” Jon Bon Jovi greets the listener to a loose sequel to “Livin’ on a Prayer.” The down-on-your-luck couple returns in a song that is chock full of resolve, and the band defiantly tears through it. “Born to Be My Baby” was brought to conclusion in concert during the New Jersey tour with an extended harmonica solo by Jon. He’d wanted to include that on the album version, too, but was voted down 4-1.

17. “Hey God,” These Days (1995)
The album opener sounds like the roar of a sledgehammer as it throws you into the thick of a battle of haves and have-nots that is relentless and cruel, leading to a dazzling musical climax that leaves you emotionally exhausted. “An observation: I don’t know how I can walk down 57th Street in Manhattan and step over a guy who’s sleeping in the street. It makes no sense to me,” Jon told Kerrang! magazine at the time of the album’s release. “Why does America have to have this? You get the guilties. ‘Why not me?’”

 

16. “Next 100 Years,” Crush (2000)
Despite their enormous success in Japan, Bon Jovi didn’t score their first No. 1 single there until “Next 100 Years” hit in 1999 – and it was a cover version by J-Friends, a supergroup of boy bands from Japan that were formed to raise funds for the education of children involved in the Great Hanshin earthquake. “We sent them the original demo,” Jon said, “and they recorded it.” Meanwhile, Bon Jovi planned for their version to be the centerpiece of a forthcoming album; it also became a dizzying musical celebration of camaraderie: Sambora’s solo is his second-best ever, superseded only by “Dry County.” “I came up with a crazy idea to add this double-time jam that lets me go kind of crazy as a guitar player,” Sambora said back then. “They basically let me go nuts for like three minutes, which I think people dig live, and it also gives me a chance to expand myself as a guitar player. I think what that does is tell people that this band is still a rock band.”

15. “Always,” Cross Road (1994)
“Always” was originally written for the Gary Oldman film Romeo Is Bleeding, but was pulled by Jon because he did not like the movie. A&R man John Kalodner heard the original demo, recorded on the road in 1993, and urged the band to re-record it with producer Peter Collins. “Always” was eventually released on the compilation Cross Road in late 1994. It gave the band its biggest international hit, and it spent upwards of six months in the U.S. Top 10. The instrumentation on this cut is ethereal, with the band congealing in an opulent manner highlighted by an opening drum roll, lush piano, subtle orchestration and vocals that shift from whispers to howls. “Always” is a contender for the best-produced song in Bon Jovi’s catalog.

14. “You Give Love a Bad Name,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
On their most perfect pop single, the hook, the chorus, the switchblade guitar and the a capella opening made jilted love sound good. Jon Bon Jovi viewed Bryan Adams with envy – not because of his recorded success, but his ability to write songs for other people. Being a realist and a shrewd businessman, Bon Jovi knew that if his band didn’t make it, he could make a living writing song for other people. Paul Stanley recommended he begin a partnership with Desmond Child, who had co-written Kiss‘ “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” and “Heaven’s On Fire.” “You Give Love a Bad Name” was the second song they wrote, and Bon Jovi and Sambora wisely decided to keep it for themselves. Unbeknownst to the band or Mercury Records, Desmond was essentially plagiarizing himself, since the melody had originally been written for Bonnie Tyler under the title “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man).” That single flopped and Child repurposed the idea, arriving at the meeting with the title “You Give Love a Bad Name” in his back pocket. They paired that with “Shot Through the Heart,” an earlier Bon Jovi title, and the rest is history.

13. “This Ain’t a Love Song,” These Days (1995)
You could see a great blues artist in a Chicago nightclub tear through this song, which stands as one of Bon Jovi’s most unappreciated classics – despite reaching No. 14 on the Billboard singles chart in the summer of 1995. “It’s just us doing R&B,” Jon told Kerrang! “A great, great singer with a voice better than mine could have a blast here! Otis Redding, for example. It’s us flexing a little more of our influences.” The sonic grittiness and lyrical sophistication hit all the perfect notes, while the Bob Clearmountain mix allows the song to breathe. It’s this intimacy that allows the listener to feel the heartbeat of the storyteller, as Bon Jovi evolved from lighter anthems to more mature fare.

12. “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night,” Cross Road (1994)
Bruising guitars born out of bad luck come into focus in the verses, where downtrodden lives have been derailed – but the search for a remedy bursts to life on the chorus, where they seek a connection to combat the chaos. Written in early 1994, “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night,” was inspired by the Oliver Stone movie Talk Radio. When the band took longer than expected to write what would become These Days, their label asked for a pair of songs for the greatest hits compilation Cross Road. Of the new compositions, they loved “Saturday Night” the most and gave it the coveted spot.

11. “Lay Your Hands on Me,” New Jersey (1988)
While tracking New Jersey in Vancouver, the video production team of producer Curt Marvis and director Wayne Isham encouraged Bon Jovi to write a song to open their show in a grand and mighty fashion. The result is one of the finest moments of the pop-metal era. It’s entirely possible they lifted the title from Peter Gabriel. The band caught Gabriel on July 11, 1987, in Toronto, during a rare night off on the Slippery When Wet tour. Toward the end of the main set, Gabriel stretched his arms into the air and dropped himself backward onto the crowd; they then lifted and carried him, ultimately stripping him off his shirt. It had to have made an impression. What Bon Jovi did was borrow his vision, build on it and make it their own. The accompanying clip is Bon Jovi on steroids, as the performance is edited to show more pyrotechnics than you would find at a Kiss concert, a catwalk that hovered above the audience giving those in the nosebleeds an up-close look at the band, and a crowd interaction which is the hallmark of their live shows. Standing on the catwalk during the bridge, Jon hangs his microphone out and cuts the band off. “Just the people,” he says, and the crowd chants the chorus before Jon asks “Just a little louder, won’t you now?” The crowd continues its sing-along and Jon asks “One more time,” as he stretches his arms out counting off “1-2-3-4,” leading to the pyrotechnic finale. (It’s not for nothing that Chuck Klosterman called Bon Jovi the “Jedi Masters” of the music video. “From a creative standpoint, no other band could rival their sincere appreciation for the audience,” Klosterman wrote in his first book, Fargo Rock City. “Watching a Bon Jovi video made you want to see them for real, even if you didn’t like their songs. And why? Because they seemed legitimately honored to be performing for their fans.”) In the end, there’s a spiritual quality to the song, reflected on Dolly Parton’s 2014 cover. To some, it may be crude, unsophisticated and blatant but to a generation of fans, it was the road to salvation. The video for “Lay Your Hands on Me” was a raucous celebration of the band and fans as they become one. This is the single greatest live video ever to grace MTV in its prime. The big four of pop-metal (Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Motley Crue and Poison) all made variations of this clip, but the sheer dynamism of Bon Jovi takes the song and the video to a higher plane.

10. “Wild is the Wind,” New Jersey (1988)
This deep cut from their second-best album deserves its placement for a few reasons. “Wild is the Wind” opens with an introspective acoustic guitar and an array of emotions from the band, musically and vocally, which find them truly exposed. The softer verses shift tonally on the chorus, where “Wild is the Wind” sounds like a conquest of love, but it’s underscored by heart-rending lyrics. Torres’ placid drums are a ticking time bomb of emotion, as the narrator comes to terms with knowing he’s not good enough for the woman he’s with – and yet he can’t imagine life without her. Sambora and Bon Jovi once again solidify their voices, and the anguish flows through to their instruments which ache with regret and sorrow for not being able to be better men.

9. “I Believe,” Keep the Faith (1992)
A self-empowerment anthem for the ages, the opener on Keep the Faith is an impassioned plea fueled by hope, launched by a fade-in loop before Richie Sambora comes to the forefront with a crushing guitar chord. Bon Jovi then carefully builds tension in the background before Jon makes his presence on the band’s first album of the ’90s known with a walloping yawp. Melodically fierce in its delivery, “I Believe” captures the pulse of optimism which allows the listener to crawl through the wreckage onto the other side. The song’s arrangement is stout and sturdy, as the band tear open their souls, expunging demons with a rawness not heard before on record. There are times when an artist’s output matches their drive, psyche and soul, and “I Believe” exemplifies Bon Jovi at their most sanguine.

8. “I’ll Be There For You,” New Jersey (1988)
The atmosphere here is ethereal, distinguished by Sambora’s bluesy guitar. His fretboard weeps and the chords make your bones ache. Often mistaken as a passionate expression of love, because of the chorus, the verses on “I’ll Be There For You” are filled with regret and remorse, as the narrator begs for mercy. Birthed from a painful break-up that Sambora endured, this song finds he and Bon Jovi paired together to show the world why they were light years ahead of their contemporaries. It transcends the genre of the power ballad with an earnest performance where Sambora and Bon Jovi’s vocals play off one another in remarkable heartfelt emotion.

7. “Blood on Blood,” New Jersey (1988)
Inspired by Rob Reiner‘s Stand By Me, a film adaption of the Stephen King short story The Body, Bon Jovi returned to a pair of friends from high school, Danny and Bobby. They previously appeared on “Bobby’s Girl,” where he reminisces about growing up. The result is one of Bon Jovi’s mightiest compositions, with a scorching guitar to open the song, urgent drums and bass at full tilt while David Bryan adroitly punches out sterling piano chords that make your heart swell. The song brims with sentiment like no other in their catalog. The bridge will never cease to bring me to my knees, as it triggers a flood of emotions about the friendships that help guide and define us: “Through the years and miles between us / It’s been a long and lonely ride / But if I got a call in the dead of the night I’d be right by your side.”

6. “These Days,” These Days (1995)
This is the sound of a sedated society without a road map, aimlessly seeking answers to questions that go unanswered. The characters are respectable people confronted with desperation from societal and domestic dwellings beyond their control, but “These Days” also forces one to look inward to keep the darkness at bay. “So many people in the world today are reaching for their dreams,” Jon said before the album arrived, “That’s there, but is not easy to find.” The character of “Jimmy Shoes” is a homage to Jimmy Iovine, then-president of Interscope Records: “Jimmy Shoes busted both his legs, trying to learn to fly / From a second story window, he just jumped and closed his eyes / His momma said he was crazy – he said, ‘momma, I’ve got to try.’” The verses and chorus shift back and forth between the sweet and sour, pointing to the highs and lows of life. Bon Jovi does not camouflage the confusion and heartache, but they also push you to seek out rays of light emitting from the heavens above. This is one of the band’s darkest, dreamiest and ultimately most beautifully redeeming songs.

5. “Dry County,” Keep the Faith (1992)
In the summer of 1991, Jon Bon Jovi was at a low point. Unsure what his next move would be, he set out on his bike with his wife, then-manager Doc McGhee and a few friends. “I rode cross-country on a motorcycle. It was the best thing I ever did in my whole life,” Jon told Lonn Friend for a Rip magazine cover story in 1992. “A bunch of friends and I got together, went through an issue of Life magazine featuring all the incredible national parks and places in America, and we cruised. We found places in New Mexico and Arizona that were right out of the 1800s. We pulled into a little gas station in the middle of nowhere. It was like something out of an old movie. We were wrecked and wanted a drink. The old man at the station told us we couldn’t do any drinking there because it was a dry county, no booze. I thought about it for a year and finally wrote the song on the piano.” “Dry County” became the band’s most ambitious song, coming in just shy of 10 minutes. This operatic tale of “hard and desperate times” is a triumph. Jon wrote the song by himself, but he needed the band to bring his desert vision to reality. David Bryan’s understated piano melody anchors things, while Sambora channels the disillusionment of America circa 1992 through a two-part solo stretching more than 150 seconds. Sambora knew many of the Los Angeles based-guitarists could outplay him and was faster, but what they couldn’t do was outperform him. Sambora had eclectic musical tastes spanning several rock genres, but it was the way he merged the perseverance of Jimmy Page with the minimalism of George Harrison that made Sambora stand alone in the pop-metal universe. “Dry County” is a prayer for desperate times, anchored by a band ready to show the world there was more to them than meets the eye.

4. “Livin’ On A Prayer,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
Written with Desmond Child in 1986, Jon Bon Jovi didn’t think “Livin’ On A Prayer” was good enough for Slippery When Wet, feeling it would be better suited for a movie. It took Sambora and the rest of the management team to convince him otherwise. The original demo represented the song in its crudest form, but the energy is there, along with that sky-high chorus. Producer Bruce Fairbairn and engineer Bob Rock guided the tale of Tommy and Gina to perfection. The ingenious use of the talk box gives “Livin’ On A Prayer” its cinematic sheen. Released as the second single from Slippery When Wet, it spent four weeks at No. 1 in early 1987, becoming the only song to do so during that year. Bon Jovi and Sambora then hit the stage with two guitars and stole the show with an acoustic version at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1989, as many suddenly came to realize that there was more to the band and this song that they were led to believe. “Livin’ On A Prayer” is the band’s most enduring classic and, whenever you witness this song in concert, it is a unifying moment like no other.

3. “Edge of a Broken Heart,” 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong (2004)
This was the first song Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora ever wrote with Desmond Child in 1986. Shockingly, it was left off Slippery When Wet for reasons that remain unclear. The track found a home a year later on the Fat Boys movie Disorderlies, where it received significant airplay. Still, “Edge of a Broken Heart” remained pretty tough to find until it was made the B-side of “Always” in 1994. Ironically, this track serves as a spiritual stalker prequel to “Always,” featuring a lamenting and broken-hearted narrator pledging his love to someone who has left him. The high ranking here stems from Jon Bon Jovi’s agonizing vocal: It’s easy to believe he’s singing in the first person. Sambora’s luminescent riff is a call to arms, while Tico Torres’ drums crack until the band solidifies as one, as a propelling synthesizer carefully accompanies the narrator’s tale: “And there I stood just like a soldier / I was tough until I saw her.” Jon Bon Jovi has spent his entire life attaining the unattainable, and that’s what makes this song so inspiring. This vocal performance leaves him exposed. The tension in “Edge of a Broken Heart” is palpable, and the pleading in the third verse reflects his longing: “When you’re waiting for love / I’ll be waiting for you / Only for you / Oh baby, for you.” As the song reaches its conclusion, he stretches and releases a primal scream stressing the pain, loss and repentance in an unforgettable vocal that he’s never matched. The reason “Edge of a Broken Heart” resonates so strongly with the diehards is because, for once, Jon Bon Jovi is genuinely defenseless. It takes great courage to confess something to someone you care about. We lose ourselves in music like this because the songs often say what we can’t. Here’s someone who has everything and yet, as he weeps and wails, you begin to realize he doesn’t have what matters the most. He’s brave when he needs to be and, at this moment – despite having seen a million faces and rocked them all – he’s one of us.

2. “Keep the Faith,” Keep the Faith (1992)
Inspired by the Los Angeles riots in April 1992, “Keep the Faith” became pop-metal’s “Gimme Shelter,” a liberating anthem that captured a searing and severe era. Despite that, Bon Jovi found a spark in the dark, turning everything they knew on its head from a musical perspective. “Keep the Faith” featured a pulsating rhythm track that was the heart of the song. Tico Torres gives his most distinguished performance behind the kit, while Alec John Such’s bass ricochets off of Richie Sambora’s inferno guitar, which in turn paves the path to the hushed bridge as the drums replicate anguish and disenfranchisement. Then, the band makes for a high-speed getaway as the chorus fades out. Bon Jovi saw the world at its knees without hope and created a tonic for their tragedies. Keep the Faith was the band’s stab at reinvention, along the line of U2’s Achtung Baby. They not only expanded their musical palette but shed their image for a more mainstream rock approach, as well. They also hired Rattle & Hum filmmaker Phil Joanou to shoot the “Keep the Faith” video, their first without Wayne Isham in seven years. Bon Jovi also brought in U2 and Depeche Mode’s photographer Anton Corbijn for the album and single. This song’s greatest legacy has been its concert performances over three decades, as “Keep the Faith” has proven to be an anthem for the ages. The most powerful aspect of live music as an art form is its ability to evolve and transform. The crashing and exuberant performances of “Keep the Faith” are tacit musical attacks that reshaped lives, providing the listener with new ways to look at the world.

1. “Wanted Dead or Alive,” Slippery When Wet (1986)
“Wanted Dead or Alive” isn’t so much a song about a rock band on the road, as it is a statement about five men working through unresolved issues. The song and the video clip, directed by Wayne Isham, are synonymous with one another. Isham followed the band for a few weeks in March 1987, with the bulk of the performance footage coming from Chicago’s UIC Pavilion. In the clip, Isham channels Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, which explored the life of boxer Jake LaMotta, a man who could never learn to love himself enough to know when to stop despite his success, or wife and family. Watching the “Wanted Dead or Alive” clip, I can’t help but question why these five men set out to be working musicians. Two of them, Alec John Such and Tico Torres, were both older than Jon Bon Jovi, while Sambora and Bryan and had done some serious time in the back of vans and sleeping on floors. The chances of making it are so minuscule that it becomes an all-in game (“I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back”). You begin to realize that this video is not a celebration of the road, but rather a portrait of five men who refused to be knocked down even when they lost the fight. If you look at the band, they’re beaten down by the road despite five-star hotels and private planes. The constant need to provide gratification wears on them. They look like hell, the pinup pictures from glossy rock magazines were nowhere to be found. You never saw a photo from this video hang on any wall anywhere. The band would perform another three hundred shows after the filming of this video before March 1990. Yet, Bon Jovi is a band that has wrestled with critical acceptance their entire career. They were always told they weren’t good enough or that another band deserved their success. There’s something hidden in each of their psyches, where the fear of never being good enough drove them to be one of the biggest bands in the world. All of this is exemplified in “Wanted Dead or Alive,” in a widescreen vision where the black-and-white silhouettes in the video tell a different story. The clip reflected the hardships of the road, the draining pull of those around them and how the concert stage is a refuge for the band. Bon Jovi transcended LaMotta’s reality because they were contenders, victors and cowboys who defied everyone who said they would never be good enough, strong enough or smart enough to endure. When Jon Bon Jovi is found still standing at the microphone during “Wanted Dead or Live,” arm stretched to the air, he cries at the altar of redemption: “I’ve seen a million faces and rocked them all.” Bon Jovi’s salvation is complete.

Special thanks go to the following sources: Bob Coburn’s superb Rockline interviews from 1986-94. Gerri Miller of Metal Edge magazine for always getting into the minutiae of the songs. ‘Kerrang!’ for its continual coverage of the band, notably Steffan Chirazi’s 1993 and 1995 interviews. Lonn Friend of ‘Rip Magazine’ whose cover stories on the band in 1991 and 1992 delved deep into their psyche; and Bryan Reeseman’s ‘Bon Jovi: The Story,’ which provides the clearest picture of the band’s 1978-83 era.

The Rolling Stones delivered the 20th and final show of their Hackney Diamonds tour in Ridgedale, Missouri, on Sunday night.

The 20-song set didn’t include any tour debuts, frequently a feature of previous shows. “Let it Bleed” was the song chosen via the audience poll, from a selection that also included “Dead Flowers,” “Far Away Eyes” and “Sweet Virginia.”

During the road trip the Stones played a total of seven songs once only – “Bite My Head Off,” “Emotional Rescue,” “Far Away Eyes,” “Fool to Cry,” “She’s So Cold, “Sweet Virginia” and “Time Is on My Side.”

READ MORE: 10 Highlights From the Rolling Stones’ ‘Hackney Diamonds’ Tour

Along with “Bite My Head Off,” five other tracks from 2023 album Hackney Diamonds made an appearance: “Angry” featured in every show; “Whole Wide World” in 19; “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” in 17, “Tell Me Straight” in 15; and “Mess It Up” in 13.

During a brief pause after “Gimme Shelter” and before “Paint It Black,” Mick Jagger took a moment to tell the crowd: “I want to thank so much the crew of the show for helping us put this whole thing together,” he said. “It’s a long time… We first played in Missouri in 1966, I think, in the [St. Louis] Convention Hall, which doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, thank you so much, Missouri, for coming back to see us tonight.”

The band haven’t discussed any future plans, although Mick Jagger said “see you soon!” on a social media post thanking fans for coming out for the tour.

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘Start Me Up’

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘Tumbling Dice’

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘Whole Wide World’

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform Keith Richards-led Three-Song Set

Rolling Stones Perform ‘Gimme Shelter’

Rolling Stones – Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, Ridgedale, 7/21/24 – Set List

1. “Start Me Up”
2. “Get Off of My Cloud”
3. “Tumbling Dice”
4. “Angry”
5. “Let It Bleed”
6. “Street Fighting Man”
7. “Whole Wide World”
8. “Mess It Up”
9. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
10. “You Got the Silver”
11. “Little T&A”
12. “Before They Make Me Run”
13. “Sympathy for the Devil”
14. “Honky Tonk Women”
15. “Midnight Rambler”
16. “Gimme Shelter”
17. “Paint It Black”
18. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
19. “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”
20. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

“Nothing in this world is free,” Jack White declares on the opening track of his surprise-released sixth solo album – branded as “No Name” on the disc and at least for our purposes now. Call it hubris or humor, mischievousness or muso conceit. White’s Third Man Records “released” the 13-track set on July 19 in an unmarked white sleeve, by slipping the vinyl set – yes, for free – into the bags of customers at its retail outlets in Nashville and White’s hometown of Detroit. An online post encouraged lucky recipients to “Rip It” and share the music with the rest of the world. No details, not even song titles, were revealed. (When contacted about the project, one company exec told UCR, “Not really sure what you’re talking about, but would be a great day to go and buy a record in the [Detroit] Cass corridor.”)

Coming off White’s ambitious couplet of albums in 2022 – Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive – “No Name” is a louder affair than the acoustic-based latter and somewhat more raw than the former, a record loaded with the kind of ferocious rock ‘n’ roll White’s fans do pine for. Its energy is unflagging, its dynamics explosive and, in spots, sophisticated and surprising.

His roots and influences – blues, garage rock, psychedelia, Led Zeppelin – are on its proverbial sleeve, recalling much of 2012’s Blunderbuss and its 2014 follow-up Lazaretto and, in spots, the White Stripes. The fusillade propels the beatnik street poetics of White’s lyrics (“Another holy roller trollin’ / So tell me how to stop this fool”), straddling the carnal and the philosophical; on Side One, Track 5 he even steps to the pulpit to declare, in an Eminem-flavored cadence, “God spoke to me / Said listen to me / I anoint you with the power that’ll get ’em all moving.” And on Side 2, Track 4 he tosses out sly quips such as “I’m back seat drivin’ when you’re driving me crazy / But I can’t drive a stick” and “I’m on a mission baby / I’m like a missionary / Put me in that position and I’ll make you miss me again.”

Read More: Five Reasons the White Stripes Should Be in the Rock Hall of Fame

“No Name” comes out of the gate with slinky blues-rock, ebbing and flowing with a big stomp (we’re betting on regular bassist Dominic Davis and drummer Daru Jones as the rhythm section, but White’s not saying) and tricky tempo shifts, with some keyboard colors popping up as the song goes along. White bellows – and invokes God again – over the heavy riffs and meaty grooves of Side One, Track Two, while Side One, Track Six and Side Two, Track Three are blazing punk assaults, the former with one of the album’s hottest guitar solos, while Side Two, Track Four has a smooth but galloping jam feel that steps apart from the rest of the album’s sonic histrionics.

Side Two’s opener marries AC/DC‘s “Highway to Hell” and the Rolling Stones‘ “Honky Tonk Women” into more chordal nirvana, and Side One, Track Five builds off a riff drawn from the ice and snow of Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” Side One, Track Three makes use of clever vocal echo patterns, as does Side Two, Track Four, one of “No Name”‘s change-ups with its twangy roots feel and White’s cinematic slide guitar lines. The album closer, meanwhile, bookends its trippy, Zep-sourced Eastern-flavored vibe with the sounds of barking puppies. The surprising nature of “No Name” makes the ride exciting, but so does what’s in its (literal) grooves. We don’t know much about it, but it doesn’t take much to recognize this is White firing full-throttle and giving us the kind of album that’s made him arguably rock’s greatest 20th-century hero.

The most traditional way to put out an album is to announce one, promote it over a period of time and then release it on an agreed-upon date.

But that’s definitely not the only way.

There’s also the far less orthodox method of giving away as little information as possible — in some cases nothing at all — and simply releasing an album on a particular day. In July of 2024, customers at Third Man Records shops — Jack White‘s company — reportedly began receiving copies of his new album with the title No Name, slipped into their bags by staff.

READ MORE: Which Rock Act Released the Best Two Albums in a Single Year?

In 2011 and 2012, David Bowie was so determined to keep his upcoming album The Next Day a secret that he had some of the people working with him sign non-disclosure agreements.

“Normally there are interns at studios, but whenever we were there, they gave their interns time off. They didn’t want them to witness it,” Bowie’s producer, Tony Visconti, told The Guardian in 2013. “When we were working there, they had a skeleton staff of two, which is not normal.”

A year after that, U2 released their 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence, with no warning. It was uploaded to all iTunes Store customers at no cost, a move that was both innovative and risky. The way Bono saw it, it was an opportunity to reach new ears.

“People who haven’t heard our music, or weren’t remotely interested, might play us for the first time because we’re in their library,” he wrote online at the time. “And for the people out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way…the blood, sweat and tears of some Irish guys are in your junk mail.”

Below, we’re taking a look at 12 surprise-released albums and EPs.

Jonathan Cain isn’t sure about the prospects of a complete Journey album, but he says the band is nevertheless moving forward with new music.

“It’s so tough out there,” Cain admits, in a new conversation with Classic Rock magazine. “We had hoped for better results with Freedom, even though it was cut-and-paste, a bit of an experiment during COVID.”

Journey was forced to work remotely to complete their most recent LP, with Cain in Florida, Neal Schon and Narada Michael Walden in the Bay Area, Arnel Pineda in his native Philippines and Randy Jackson in Los Angeles. An advance single, “The Way We Used to Be,” arrived in the summer of 2021.

READ MORE: See Where ‘The Way We Used to Be’ Ranks Among Post-Steve Perry Journey Songs

“The COVID song I wrote with Neal, ‘The Way We Used to Be,’ was tongue-in-cheek all the way,” Cain says. “I heard a lot of bad COVID songs – I mean some really bad ones – so we needed to do something that was really slick. That’s when I had the idea of two lovers not being about to see one another.”

Freedom followed a year later, but the massive 15-song project stalled at No. 88, Journey’s worst showing since 2005’s Generations only reached No. 170 on the Billboard album charts.

Journey has largely avoided the album while building set lists for their ongoing 2024 tour, which just jumped to stadiums with Def Leppard and Steve Miller. “Right now we’re only playing one [‘Let It Rain’],” Cain confirms, “but we are working on a new, new song – and if we can get that up to speed, we may be playing that one too. We’ll see.”

Cain reiterates that this track is “brand new, right out of the box. If it gets accepted then who knows … it might be a single.” He confirms that the title is “‘This Town.’ It’s about the fans – that 50-year relationship we’ve had with them. We wrote it about their loyalty. The hook is: ‘Tonight, it’s all about this town.'”

Nick DeRiso is author of the Amazon best-selling rock band bio ‘Journey: Worlds Apart,’ available now at all major bookseller websites.

You Think You Know Journey?

Founding Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller has died of unspecified causes at the age of 81.

According to Deadline, the news was first posted on the Moby Grape Facebook fan page and by journalist Eric Brenner.

Born July 10, 1943 in Tacoma, Miller played on an early version of the 1960 Bobby Fuller hit “I Fought the Law.” In 1966 he and his bandmate in the Frantics, drummer Don Stevenson, moved to San Francisco and formed Moby Grape with bassist Bob Mosley and fellow guitarists Peter Lewis and Skip Spence.

The group quickly built a strong reputation, and after a bidding war released their acclaimed self-titled debut album in 1967. With all five members writing songs and vocals, Moby Grape blended psychedelic rock, pop and country in unique and inventive ways.

Read More: The Story of Moby Grape’s Debut Album

Miller recorded four more albums with Moby Grape over the next four years before their initial breakup. Partly due to ongoing legal conflicts over ownership of the name with their former manager, he would reunite with his bandmates in various configurations and under varying names over the next few decades.

He also led his own group, the Jerry Miller Band, and collaborated with his former bandmates on many of their solo albums. Miller celebrated his 81st birthday on July 14 with a party in his hometown of Tacoma. He can be seen performing at that show below.

Hear Moby Grape Perform ‘Hey Grandma’

Rock stars are reacting to the news that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the race for re-election.

The 81-year-old President has been under increasing pressure to call off his campaign after a disastrous performance in a debate against Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump last month. Polls show Biden behind Trump in many key battleground states, with voters stating that the President’s age and declining coherence during public appearances has made them less likely to re-elect him.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote on social media. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

Read More: Rock Star Vs. President Songs

“Never in my life will I understand how a debate on TV could mean more than an insurrection on the Capitol,” former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach posted, referencing the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack.

Ted Nugent‘s first reaction was to post a photo of current Vice President Kamala Harris with her face replaced by former President Barack Obama. It is widely expected that Harris will be the new Democratic candidate, a move endorsed by Biden in his messages today.

You can see more rock star reactions to President Biden’s decision to end his re-election campaign below. We will update this list throughout the day.

 

Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain says the band had instituted a new rule to address the fact that he can’t play as well as he used to.

He suffered a stroke in January 2023 that left him partially paralyzed, although he returned to action after months of intensive physical therapy.

After a few dates of their summer tour that year left some fans asking questions, McBrain – now 72 – explained that he’d been left with some limitations in his performing ability, but that he believed he was at 70 percent at the time.

READ MORE: Bruce Dickinson Worries Iron Maiden Doesn’t Push Hard Enough

“I’ve gotta be honest with you: it was a touch and go last year for me,” he recently told the crowd at a show in Pompano Beach, FL, with his side-project Titanium Tarts (video below).

“I couldn’t play; I was paralyzed on the right side. Fortunately… there’s a girl called Julie Blum that looked after me, and in three months, she had me playing again.”

He admitted: “And it ain’t the old Nicko – it’s not the old one by a long shot. But at least it’s part of me. And my band, bless their hearts, Steve Harris and the rest of the guys turn around and say, ‘If you can’t do something in a song, we just won’t do that song.’”

He went on to cite the example of Maiden track “Somewhere In Time” from the 1986 album of the same name, which managed to escape the new rule through some inspired thinking from Harris.

How Steve Harris Helped Nicko McBrain Deal With His Limitations

“Now, there’s a middle section; it’s all snare drum on the record. I can’t play it,” McBrain confirmed. “Those of you nerds that are in the audience [will] go, ‘He didn’t do the drum fill!’ Well, that’s why – I fucking can’t do it! … Steve turned around to me and I said, ‘Okay, I’ve got an idea. if I do the double on the snare…’ and I played it for him and he went, ‘No. Have you got anything else?’

“I went, ‘Yeah, I’ll play it on the cymbal.’ ‘No. You got anything else?’’ That’s me spent, mate.’ … [H]e thought about for about half a minute…and he’s going, ‘Why don’t you play it straight?’

“I went, ‘You’re a fucking genius, Harry!’ And there’s me, the drummer, supposedly, supposed to come up with all these ideas… I didn’t even think of that. And so we rehearsed it from there on in, and we play it straight – which I’m sure 90 percent of you don’t give a fuck about that bit anyway!”

Watch Nicko McBrain Discuss His Stroke

Listen to Nick McBrain’s Simplified Roll During ‘Somewhere In Time’

Sammy Hagar’s hopes of meeting the state trooper who wrote his “I Can’t Drive 55” speeding ticket appear to be dashed following an ex-cop’s attempt to solve the mystery.

The singer will bring his Van Halen-focused Best of All Worlds tour to Saratoga Springs, New York, on July 22. He’ll be close to Albany, where he was stopped one fateful night in 1984 and ticketed for driving 62 miles per hour in a 55 zone. The incident inspired the song that became one of Hagar’s signature solo hits.

Local radio station Q105.7 attempted to get to the bottom of the story with the help of retired trooper Mike Wells, to see if it was possible for Hagar to reconnect with the officer who inadvertently changed his life.

READ MORE: How David Lee Roth Helped Sammy Hagar’s ‘I Can’t Drive 55’ Video

Wells, secretary of the Association of Former New York State Troopers, tried his best, explaining: “I put it out to our network. The story started going back and forth; somebody said it was this guy, somebody said no, it had to be this guy … I think we had it narrowed down to about four.”

Sammy Hagar’s Ticket Writer Likely Deceased

There was even the chance that two troopers had been present. “If it was 2 a.m. the state police usually have two-man patrols,” Wells said. Regardless, identification was no easy task because things were so different 40 years ago: “The Department of Motor Vehicles may have a record of Mr. Hagar getting a ticket [but] back then the individual tickets were all paper.”

Wells continued: “Of the likely people, they’re all deceased … There wasn’t anybody that stepped up and said, ‘It was me.’ There wasn’t anybody that said, ‘I know it was this guy.’”

Hagar fans can watch the Red Rocker perform his classic hit on the Best of All Worlds tour, which has dates booked through late September.

Watch Sammy Hagar’s ‘I Can’t Drive 55’ Music Video

Kiss has always taken its share of knocks from the critics and sometimes, even fellow musicians. Former guitarist Bruce Kulick will be the first to tell you that’s unfair.

“Nobody could play it better than those guys the way they performed it,” he explains, using the solo in “Detroit Rock City” as one particular example. “Anyone that considers Kiss simple or easy music to play, they’re idiots. This stuff is hard. It’s just that the band never got credit that way and it always should.”

Kulick has had some extra time since his departure from Grand Funk Railroad became official in January, but it’s hardly been idle time. He traveled overseas for the first time in nearly a decade to do a series of events and clinics in Finland in May. He followed that with an appearance at New England’s Super Megafest in June. This week, he’ll travel to Ohio to host the Kiss-themed You Wanted the Best charity benefit on July 23, with proceeds supporting the Alzheimer’s Association.

As he discussed during an appearance on Ultimate Classic Rock Nights, each of these events have put him back in front of a mix of guitar players and Kiss fans, who are thrilled to get the chance to pick his brain, something that he understands as a guitarist.

When you’re hanging out with people who come to see you that also play guitar, what do they want to know?
It varies, of course. Lately, a lot of people share, “Oh, I learned ‘Forever’” or “Here’s the ‘Reason to Live’ solo.” Some of them get it really close. Sometimes, I even learn from one guy. I go, “That’s a better way to play that!” Because I’m having a hard time playing [some of this stuff] 40 years later, so I’d like to play it differently. It would be easier on my finger choice. People have reached out from the bands that are performing that are fans, who have shared things with me. You know, I actually have the inside thing on most of the Kiss catalog, obviously. Now, there are certain songs from the makeup era that I did have to interpret or guess, even though I might have played it with Paul [Stanley] and Gene [Simmons] and [Eric Carr and Eric Singer] — but I didn’t know exactly what Ace [Frehley] played. One time on a cruise, Grand Funk was on it — and Ace played! So of course, Lisa and I went to see Ace, which was fun. I went, not only to see his show, but also, it was like, “Oh, that’s the way he likes to play ‘Parasite,’ oh, that’s interesting!” Because I wasn’t going back to YouTube and studying every vintage video of Kiss.

READ MORE: Kiss: Their Last Great, Last Good, First Bad Album

Listen to Kiss’ ‘Parasite’

You get to see the hand positions.
Right, right. That’s one thing that always impresses me — or disappoints me, how people are confused by how it’s done. I do give some lessons and I also do some arrangement help with bands and artists. It’s always interesting to me how everybody approaches things a little different and they may not know better, but I like sharing my experience. I was challenged…..there was one thing that I learned new in Finland. I’ve had people ask, “Can I play the harmony part on ‘Tears Are Falling,’” and I’m always nervous about that, because it might throw me. If they go off or they don’t play it right, I’m going to be freaked out. Because I’m solid with me. Sure enough, in Finland, I let the guy try it at rehearsal and I was kind of like, “You got it right, but I’ll tell you before the gig.” Then, at the gig, I did let him do it. It was flawless, so I kept giving him [props] after the solo was done! But you don’t know what you’re going to get when you’re jamming with people.

What’s the Kiss song that was the most difficult for you to play when you first joined the band?
That’s a great question. When it comes to, what was I told before going on tour? I knew the Animalize record had some terrific playing from Mark [St. John]. Some of it was real speed metal. I remember Paul giving me a tape. I have it archived and I don’t refer to it, but I know it’s popped up in my head that I need to go check that out again. We didn’t do all of the songs that were on it, but he had live stuff from the Lick It Up tour. So there was Vinnie [Vincent] playing those things and there might have even been something from another tour. I’m not sure. But I know that they wanted me to listen to the studio stuff and listen to that live thing. Vinnie took some tremendous liberties that I didn’t agree with, to be honest, with the playing. That’s up to Paul and Gene, okay. But obviously, they didn’t take any liberties with Tommy [Thayer] being the Spaceman, we know that. He would play Ace’s riffs. I was never given a direct order to play one way or another. I think they knew…..I’ve always had this ability to know the essence of the solo and make it your own — but [how important it is to] never lose what that artist created.

READ MORE: Top 10 Ace Frehley Songs

I’m not going to play the beginning of [Grand Funk’s] “We’re An American Band” wildly different than what was played on the hit by Mark Farner. There’s no reason to. So if Ace has some cool riffs, I’m going to use them. I might make them my own. But I think that’s why I connected with some of the Ace fans. But a challenging song? Obviously some of that stuff from Animalize was a little bit hard. I had to interpret a bit, “Thrills in the Night.” That’s all on Animalize Live and we were playing too fast — faster than the record. But one song later on in the catalog that I was really excited about was “100,000 Years.” We did that later on. Obviously, acoustically, we fooled around with “Goin’ Blind,” I was like, “Whoa, this is cool. That works acoustically too!” You know, “I Still Love You” is a great tune. But I did that early on. “100,000 Years” and “Makin’ Love.” There’s great riffs there. I mean, you’ve got to remember that a lot of that material, when it was created and first played live, especially on Alive!, they were just dialed in.

READ MORE: Kiss Live Albums Ranked

Listen to Kiss Perform ‘100,000 Years’ 

Sometimes I refer to earlier Kiss as a “littie bit garage band,” because they weren’t trying to be overly finessed. Which is why all of the Seattle bands gravitated to early Kiss — they didn’t necessarily relate to my era, because it was more polished. I mean, by the time Bob Ezrin walked in [for] Destroyer, he walked around with the whistle. He was contributing a lot of things. Nobody in Kiss wrote the “Detroit Rock City” solo, that was an Ezrin idea. That’s orchestrated. It’s brilliant, it’s like a trumpet, but nobody could play it better than those guys the way they performed it. So anyone that considers Kiss simple or easy music to play, they’re idiots. This stuff is hard. It’s just that the band never got credit that way and it always should. Gene never wants to brag about how good he is on bass and what a tremendous musician he actually is. That’s part of his schtick, I believe. I don’t buy it for a second.

READ MORE: 10 Most Demonic Gene Simmons Kiss Songs

He’s actually unbelievably gifted at playing an aggressive style with [Paul] McCartney melodic bass lines and those lines he came up with in songs. I don’t buy that any producer spoonfed him a whole lot at all, if anything. Paul is a tremendous rhythm player. Whatever he hears for leads that he can’t play, he can sing it to you. The “Tears are Falling” solo wouldn’t have been that special, that first half, without Paul’s direction. These guys are really, really talented musicians. The body of songs and the catalog that they created, I’m just thrilled to be part of it. I know sometimes that some of my era’s songs are slagged. “Oh, Gene was busy with movies” and all of that, but I don’t buy that completely. Everyone’s going to like their own thing. People rave about Carnival of Souls, others are like, “That doesn’t sound like Kiss, I don’t like it.” So what can I say? It’s a huge body of music and you have to respect Kiss, even if you’re not a fan.

The Portland, Oregon-based tribute band FooVana was joined by a special guest on Thursday evening at their show in Vancouver, Washington: original Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic.

“Get down here to Georgie’s Garage and Grill! Show’s about to start! Oh yeah that’s right… Somebody else is here!!!” the band wrote on their social media before the show, sharing a photo of Novoselic.

Together, they played three Nirvana songs: “Blew,” “Lithium” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” You can watch the performances below.

Is There Any Chance of a Nirvana Reunion?

Last year, Novoselic was asked by NME if he was interested in reuniting with the other surviving members of Nirvana: Dave Grohl and Pat Smear.

“I’d like to,” he said. “There was a time after Kurt [Cobain] died when I said to myself, ‘I’m never going to play these songs again.’ That was part of the grief I went through. We don’t want to overdo it, we try to make it special and be grateful.

“When the opportunity comes, we do it if it feels right. In the meantime, we just remember Kurt and do our thing.”

READ MORE: Revisiting Nirvana’s Final Concert

Watch Krist Novoselic Perform ‘Blew’ With FooVana

Watch Krist Novoselic Perform ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ With FooVana

Watch Krist Novoselic Perform ‘Lithium’ With FooVana

The Police had the biggest album of their career with Synchronicity and then it was all over. Guitarist Andy Summers says it’s a familiar tale which led to the group’s demise.

“It’s the typical process where you become incredibly famous and they throw all of this money at you and then the rot sets in,” he laughs during a conversation with UCR. “It’s very hard to stay away from that.”

Though he would have preferred a different ending, he’s remained in a constant creative state over the decades that have followed. Sometimes, one project will lead to another. That was the case last year when he put out A Series of Glances, the latest book of his celebrated photography. It spawned a soundtrack of sorts, which has now been released as an EP called Vertiginous Canyons.

During a recent appearance on Ultimate Classic Rock Nights, Summers discussed his new music and also shared some thoughts on the forthcoming Synchronicity box set.

It seems like this new EP happened in a fairly organic way.
It’s an unusual path to this one. It’s not my normal process. I’ve got a little shack at the end of my garden. It’s very nice, it’s got guitars and I sit there with a recorder. I go into composing mode and I write out the music. I come into the studio and make better demos and go through [that part of] the process and that gives me another layer of thought. For this one, I had the book, so there was a big creative process with the photographs in the book. Because I did the layout and a German guy, rather grumpily, put it all together the way I wished. But they made a very beautiful book in high end quality. Somewhere towards the end of the printing of the book, they said to me, “Would you do some music for the book?” I went, “Music for the book? What’s that? I’ve never done that before!” They said, “No, we can do that. People can put their iPhone over the [code] like a menu and the person can listen to your music while they view the photographs.”

READ MORE: Why Andy Summers Sees His Photos Sort of Like Songs

That was not an offensive idea, it was like, “Wow, that’s quite a sweet idea.” It’s sort of a mini-movie scoring job, if you like. So I said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it.” Because they’d made a beautiful book and I found no problem with that. I got the book in the studio and I’m flipping through it. Of course, like most modern guitarists, I have all sorts of pedals and sonic devices that I can play through. But it’s mostly done on one guitar. I did the whole thing in three hours. It was not laborious. It was fun for me, because I would get a great sonic thing going through the pedals and that would be the inspiration for whatever the track became. Because they’re mostly improvisations, but with different setups in the sonic department. I didn’t always get it on the first go, but I literally made that between two o’clock and five o’clock in the afternoon. Which if you go back fifty years, that’s the way records used to be made. Hopefully, what you get out of that is a fresh thing and maybe that’s what’s coming through. You know, I had fun doing it and everybody’s happy and now they want to put it out as a little CD, so I’m not fighting it.

Listen to Andy Summers’ ‘Into the Blue’

I like that you played for three hours and just let it all come out. How much did you have to do to it from that point?
I might have had one or two false starts. I didn’t necessarily have a completely full track on the first go, but it was pretty fast. I mean, I’ve been playing all of my life and I am a great guitarist. [Laughs] So it wasn’t too terrible.

You’re known for that.
Well yeah, if you weren’t very good, you’d probably have a hard time. But I’m completely used to my studio and the gear and the things you can do with guitars and all of that. So yeah, it wasn’t a struggle. It was sort of a pleasant exercise.

You grew up playing jazz. What do you think that added to your toolbox as a player that was important?
I started off when I was 15 trying to copy Wes Montgomery until I could play the whole solo on “West Coast Blues.” That showed me how to play through minor seventh chords and I started to get it. So that goes deep and I’m a musician that has perfect time and rhythm. I’m there. You know, I can play the drums as well, which is the main thing. If you think you’re going to be good, if you haven’t got [time and rhythm], you’re never going to be that good. That’s the sacred law. But I grew up playing all of that stuff and life went on. I was at least 20 years old when I started listening to the blues and stuff like that. Then, you pick up these other things along the way. But the deepest one for me was definitely listening to Wes and Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Rainey, people like that. These are my heroes. Not to mention, Miles Davis and the wonderful Sonny Rollins of course. My phrasing and my sense of time and space really comes out of that. That was my education as a teenager, which is when you really take it all on board. Of course, the rest of your life, you’re trying to take what you know farther and get into more complex chords and understand chord progressions and ways you can voice chords until you have a complete guitaristic knowledge and you’ve got the geography of the neck solid [to where] you can play anything anywhere. It takes time.

How were you finding the music of people like Wes and Sonny?
They were all coming out when I was a kid. Wes Montgomery, of course, blew the whole jazz world away. He was this incredible guitarist out of Indianapolis, who played with his thumb and wasn’t a so-called educated musician, but he was a virtuoso beyond belief. No one could believe he played like that. He played such beautiful melodic lines, an incredible, natural jazz player. Of course, he was one of three brothers, so he was in an environment where it must have been encouraged. He played with them a bit, but he became such a star on his own. [This was at] the time in musical history when the guitar was really starting to emerge more and become sort of the premier instrument in music, generally. I think that’s a fair thing to say. Basically, all guitarists bowed to Wes. There are other great ones as well, but no one could really touch Wes.

Fans are excited about the Police box set for Synchronicity. What was your involvement?
Well, you know the way that goes. [Laughs] People say, “You must have wrangled over every single track!” No, the record company made it. They go, “Okay, boys, we’re going to pull out all of these tracks that you never released. Here’s the Synchronicity album and here’s all of the artwork.” They basically pull it all together and then they pass it by us. We go, “Don’t like that.” There was a bit of a wrangle about someone who wrote an eight page essay about the Police. I thought it was terrific. Then Sting’s camp didn’t like it, so it got rewritten. Stewart [Copeland] and I didn’t like it, so it got rewritten into whatever is in there now. So, there’s some involvement, because there are sensitivities in all of this. But I feel good about it. I hope it’s going to be number one. That’s what I hope. I don’t know, I don’t want to say there’s an element of revenge, but it’s like, “Yeah, see? You should have listened the first time!” [Laughs] I’m not sure what I’m thinking, but I’d just like to see it go to number one, because it would be a kick. We’ll see.

From your perspective, what’s the song on Synchronicity which took the most interesting journey?
“Every Breath You Take” is an interesting one. When you hear the demo on that, you won’t even believe it. The whole album was difficult, but “Every Breath You Take” was going to go in the trash, basically. We thought it was too light and it wasn’t very good. Sting and Stewart just couldn’t agree about where the kick drum and the bass went and so on. It reached the point where we were all getting pretty tired of it and didn’t really want to do it. Sting said to me, “Go on, go in there and make it your own.” We needed a guitar and I went in and almost instantly played the guitar line that is of course is the signature of the song. Everybody stood up in the control room and cheered. The manager heard it and said, “I’m going straight to A&M. This is going to be a number one.” And it was, that was our first number one in the U.S. It was number one for eight weeks straight.

READ MORE: How ‘Every Breath You Take’ Turned From Romantic to Dark

That’s a good turn of events, considering how you all were feeling about the album generally.
It was a tough album, period. I mean, we had been together five years and were massively successful. Sting was obviously feeling his oats and wanted to leave the band and go out on his own. In a sort of anal way, he was ready to finish off the contract, which was five albums. “You know, we’ve done what we’re contracted for, why should we stay anymore?” Of course, any band would stay, naturally, because it was going so brilliantly well. We dominated the world. No one wanted us to break up, but Sting wanted to go and be the thing all on his own.

READ MORE: Police Albums Ranked Worst to Best

One of your early song ideas, “Goodbye Tomorrow,” evolved into what became the B-side, “Someone to Talk To.” What do you remember about that particular song?
That was a really nice piece and I thought it should be on the album. But it wasn’t on the record. “Mother” was my sort of Captain Beefheart weird song that I put on the album. It didn’t really fit with it at all. I think A&M were probably a bit shocked that something like that was on the album — they didn’t really want something like that. I was always trying to push the envelope in terms of musical hipness, but my thinking was less commercial. I did write “Someone to Talk To” and I was very pleased with it, but it didn’t make it onto the album. It would have probably been a hit.

What have you come to appreciate about Synchronicity with some added hindsight?
Well, it’s not my favorite album, actually. I appreciate it and I think it’s got some great songs on it and the playing is very good. This is not very commercial thinking, but for me, the best album was the second album [Reggatta de Blanc]. We were still raw and the album was made in 10 days. I think it’s got all of the excitement of three young guys trying to make it. That’s the toughest album for me. Synchronicity proved to be more sophisticated. We were adding other instruments onto the tracks. It was slightly less of a trio album, although it was trio-dominated. But it was a little bit out of that [original idea]. Something like “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic” is too keyboard for me. We couldn’t do that on stage, so I had to figure out a fancy guitar part to cover that. I like all of our albums, but I particularly cherish the second album and I think the first one [Outlandos d’Amour] was good too. It’s the typical process where you become incredibly famous and they throw all of this money at you and then the rot starts to set in. [Laughs] It’s very hard to stay away from that. In fact, maybe one of the only bands that never happened to was U2. They all seemed to hang together very well. I don’t know if it’s because they’re Christians or what it is. Although I don’t think people were ever as hysterical about U2 as they were the Police. That would be a [topic to] debate.

Listen to the Police Demo For ‘King of Pain’

On July 21, the Rolling Stones will perform the final show of their North American Hackney Diamonds Tour, a trek that has taken them across the continent over the course of just three months.

If you were lucky enough to score tickets  — more on luck and tickets down below — you know these were high-energy, fast-paced shows that had fans on their feet all night long.

It’s unclear exactly what the Stones’ next steps will be, but in the meantime, we’re taking a look at 10 highlights from this tour.

1. New Music From ‘Hackney Diamonds’

Perhaps the most important highlight — and the reason, really, for this entire tour — is the new music from the Stones’ 2023 album, Hackney Diamonds, their first LP since 2016’s Blue & Lonesome and their first collection of new original material since 2005’s A Bigger Bang. Not all the songs from the new album made the tour set list, but here are the ones that did: “Angry,” “Bite My Head Off,” “Whole Wide World,” “Mess It Up,” “Tell Me Straight” and “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”

 

2. Surprise Songs and Tour Debuts

While much of the Stones’ set list stayed consistent throughout the entire tour, there were some surprises along the way and not every audience saw the exact same show. Songs like “Time Is on My Side” and “Emotional Rescue” were played for the first time in many years, while rarities like “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)” and Bob Dylan‘s “Like a Rolling Stone” were thrown in from time to time. Don’t worry, we have a full list of those tour debuts.

 

3. Fan-Voted Songs

It’s the Rolling Stones’ world, we’re all just living in it. Except when it comes to one song at each of their concerts, where, prior to the beginning of the show, fans get to vote from four set list options. The winner gets played that night. Among the champions on this tour: “Monkey Man,” “She’s a Rainbow,” “Wild Horses,” “You Got Me Rocking” and plenty more.

 

4. Mick Jagger’s Plea to American Fans: Vote

Speaking of voting, Mick Jagger is well aware that there’s more of that to be done in the United States later this year, and at many of the tour’s stops, he’s been encouraging people to vote as he announces the fan-voted song of the evening. “More importantly,” he said in Foxborough, Massachusetts, “there’s a presidential election in November; don’t forget to vote in that. Don’t take anything for granted!”

 

5. Guest Appearances

On a couple of occasions, the Stones brought out guests to perform with them. In New Orleans, they did “Time Is on My Side” — their first live performance of the song since 1988 — with Irma Thomas, the woman who recorded the song in 1964 just a few months before the Stones did. There were also “Dead Flowers” duets with opening acts Tyler Childers and Lainey Wilson in in Orlando, Florida and Chicago, respectively.

READ MORE: 32 Songs the Rolling Stones Have Rarely Played Live

6. Opening Acts

Is there a better gig than opening for the Rolling Stones? Talk about exposure. Instead of picking one act to follow them around, the Stones selected several artists to open for them in different cities. It featured a healthy mix of veteran performers like Widespread Panic, Joe Bonamassa, Bettye LaVette and Gary Clark Jr., plus up and coming stars like Lainey Wilson, the Linda Lindas, Lawrence and more.

 

7. Lucky Dip Tickets

We all know that getting affordable tickets to concerts these days is something of a challenge. On this tour, the Stones have been selling a select amount of tickets via a program called Lucky Dip. Through a lottery system, batches of tickets were sold for approximately $40 a piece, but the catch is that you won’t learn where your seats are until you pick up the tickets from will-call that evening. Still, for that price, any seat is a good one. Take that, scalpers.

 

8. Steve Jordan on the Drums

There will never be another Charlie Watts. But there is a Steve Jordan out there, and he’s been holding down the beat on this tour. When it was announced in August of 2021 that Watts would be taking time off for health reasons, it was him who reassured Keith Richards, who was hesitant to go on the road without him, that Jordan was the right man for the job. “Charlie said to me, ‘You can do it with Steve. He can take my seat anytime,'” Richards recalled to Rolling Stone in 2022. They’ve been big shoes to fill, but Jordan has stood up to the plate with talent and class.

 

9. Chanel Haynes in ‘Gimme Shelter’

It’s one of the most iconic vocal performances in the history of rock music: Merry Clayton’s blistering part in “Gimme Shelter.” On this tour, singer Chanel Haynes, who has performed with the Stones before, took on the responsibility of performing that vocal, both honoring Clayton’s original recording and making it her own, too. That was the advice Clayton had once given her: “‘What I want you to do is sing it like Chanel would sing it,'” Haynes recalled Clayton telling her (via Rolling Stone). “I’m giving you that authority. The church is in you. I know you’re a church girl. Trust it. Go with it, but do it your way.’”

 

10. Keith Richard’s on Extra Lead Vocals

Every frontman, even Jagger, needs a little break every once in a while on stage. Richards got a chance to shine a little bit extra on this tour, singing at least two, often three songs per show, including “Little T&A,” “Before They Make Me Run,” “Happy,” “You Got the Silver” and “Tell Me Straight.”

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

 

Since signing a new record deal 11 years ago, Deep Purple has found new life in a career that seemed to have bottomed out at the turn of the century. The move coincided with the band’s affiliation with veteran hard-rock producer Bob Ezrin, who’s produced the band’s past five albums, including 2020 highlight Whoosh! and =1, the 23rd LP of a six-decade run that now includes more than a dozen members among its ranks.

The group’s classic Mark II lineup – the one that made 1972’s Machine Head and included singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Roger Glover, keyboardist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice – is three-fifths back for =1, as the rejuvenated Deep Purple eyes the future with one foot firmly planted in its past.

Gillan, Glover and Paice, along with keyboardist Don Airey (a member since 2002) and new guitarist Simon McBride (replacing Steve Morse, who left following 2021’s covers album Turning to Crime), find little reason to break from the formula this late in their career. Like its immediate predecessors, =1 doesn’t throw any curves; this is Deep Purple sounding more like Deep Purple than they did on the records they released in the ’80s and ’90s.

READ MORE: 2024’s Best Rock Albums Reviewed

Deep Purple has said the album title translates as “Everything equals one.” And while the concept of a unified world is admirably optimistic, it has little to do with =1‘s 13 songs. This band has never been conceptual and has rarely gotten too heavy in its thinking. Songs such as the opening “Show Me,” the ’70s throwback “Portable Door” and “Lazy Sod,” a strutting blues, reveal no pretense other than continuing their decades-old role as hard rock ambassadors.

Musically, Deep Purple pushes an aggressiveness that rivals contemporaries in their field; Airey and McBride bring homage but never sink to nostalgia (check out their keyboard and guitar interplay on “A Bit on the Side” and “Sharp Shooter”). The 78-year-old Gillan can’t hit those celebrated high notes these days, but he delivers his lines with a suitable slippery wink. Though =1 sags a bit in the back half and could be trimmed by a few songs, the album furthers a career renaissance for Deep Purple that shows few signs of waning.

Jack White appears to have released a new album — but so far it’s only appeared as an unlabeled LP in the bags of Third Man Records shoppers around the world.

A post on White’s subreddit tipped fans off to the new release, which follows a pair of 2022 albums, Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive. The post included a picture of a record in a plain white sleeve, with a white label emblazoned with the words “No Name” in blue.

“Picked up a tee from Third Man Soho today and the guy on the tills put this in my bag too,” the Redditor wrote. “I asked and thought maybe it was his demo or something aha but he didn’t seem to have a clue, saying he’d just been told by ‘management’ to give it out to customers. I’m not gonna have access to a record player until after work sooo curious to know if anyone else has seen this / it means anything to anyone? Maybe I’m overthinking the blue.”

READ MORE: Five Reasons the White Stripes Should Be in the Rock Hall of Fame

Another user on the same thread said they had visited the Third Man Records Nashville location and commented, “I can totally confirm that is a new Jack White album. I gave it a listen and it’s pretty good.”

On a separate post in r/JackWhite, a different user shared more details on White’s apparent new album, which they received at Third Man Records’ Detroit location. They said the album contains seven songs on its A-side and six songs on its B-side, and the contents are “definitely more stripped down blues rock. The songs go hard!”

White has not yet made any mention of the surprise album on social media. Inquiring minds can hear a snippet of the first song here.

Before he was a convicted murderer, Charles Manson was an aspiring musician, who, at one point, rubbed shoulders with Neil Young.

That was thanks to Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wilson and Manson had become friends in 1968, occasionally making music, hanging out with girls and experimenting with drugs, none of which would have raised too many eyebrows at that time, even if Manson appeared a bit more intense than other people around him.

“Sometimes Charlie Manson, who’s a friend of mine, says he’s god and the devil. He sings, plays and writes poetry,” Wilson told Rave magazine that year (via Far Out Magazine).

“Dennis was enthralled by him at one time,” his Beach Boys bandmate Mike Love recalled to ABC News in 2017, “and it didn’t hurt that Charlie Manson came with this group of girls – young girls, who were very enamored with Charlie, and looked up to him as a leader.”

As far as Wilson was concerned, Manson was simply an eccentric but well-liked burgeoning artist who had an interest in pursuing music more seriously. Manson expressed a desire to meet Mo Ostin of Reprise Records, and so Wilson introduced him to a fellow Los Angeles dweller, Young, who was signed to the label.

Like Wilson, Young also found Manson to be somewhat over-the-top and strange but creative nonetheless.

“He had this kind of music that no one was doing,” Young explained in a 1985 interview with writer Bill Flanagan. “He would sit down with the guitar and start playing and make up stuff, different every time, it just kept comin’ out, comin’ out, comin’ out. Then he would stop and you would never hear that one again. Musically I thought he was very unique. I thought he really had something crazy, something great. He was like a living poet. It was always coming out.”

Manson having “followers” at that point didn’t seem out of the ordinary to Young: “He had a lot of girls around at the time and I thought, ‘Well, this guy has a lot of girlfriends.'”

READ MORE: Neil Young Albums Ranked Worst to Best

In fact, Manson possessed a kind of improvisational skill that impressed Young.

“His songs were off-the-cuff things he made up as he went along,” Young wrote in his 2012 autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, “and they were never the same twice in a row. Kind of like Dylan, but different because it was hard to glimpse a true message in them, but the songs were fascinating. He was quite good.”

Good enough that Young even said it to an executive at Reprise. “He’s just a little out of control,” he recalled in a documentary years later (via The New York Times). Manson even auditioned for producer Terry Melcher, who’d worked on the first two Byrds‘ albums. Melcher eventually declined to sign him and both he and Wilson moved on from the relationship.

Of course, nothing ever became of Manson’s music career. In 1971, he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate who was killed in August of 1969, roughly six months after Manson had been introduced to Young.

“I don’t know why he did what he did. But I think he was very frustrated in not being able to get [a record deal], and he blamed somebody,” Young said in 1985. “And he really was unique. But I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what they got into. I remember there was a lot of energy whenever he was around. And he was different. You can tell he’s different. All you have to do is look at him. Once you’ve seen him, you can never forget him. I’ll tell you that. Something about him that’s…I can’t forget it. I don’t know what you would call it, but I wouldn’t want to call it anything in an interview. I would just like to forget about it.”

Not all that long after Manson’s conviction, Young did what any normal person would do: he wrote a song inspired by the events from the perspective of a bloodthirsty killer. That song was called “Revolution Blues” and it appeared on his 1974 album On the Beach: “Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars / But I hate them worse than lepers and I’ll kill them in their cars.“

Listen to Neil Young’s ‘Revolution Blues’

‘Don’t Sing That’

This was evidently a step too far for Young’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmates when the group went on tour that year.

“Man, they didn’t know if they wanted to stand on the same stage as me when I was doin’ it,” Young later told journalist Nick Kent. ‘I was goin’, ‘It’s just a fuckin’ song. What’s the big deal? It’s about culture. It’s about what’s really happening.'”

David Crosby himself had played rhythm guitar on the studio version of the song and the whole thing unnerved him — “Don’t sing about that. It’s not funny,” he reportedly told Young then, according to Neil Young: Long May You Run: The Illustrated History.

You might think that a life sentence in prison would put an end to Manson’s musical dreams, but it didn’t. In 2009, it was reported that he’d sent a note to producer Phil Spector, then in prison himself for the second-degree murder of actress Lana Clarkson, hoping for a behind-bars meet-up.

“A guard brought Philip a note from Manson, who said he wanted him to come over to his [lockup]. He said he considers Philip the greatest producer who ever lived,” Spector’s wife Rachelle told the New York Post then (via Rolling Stone). “It was creepy. Philip didn’t respond.”

Listen to Neil Young Perform ‘Revolution Blues’ Live in 1974

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

Abbey Cone repeatedly claims to hate Bruce Springsteen on her newest single, but the truth is she’s really just trying to convince herself she’s not heartbroken.

You can see the video for Cone’s “I Hate Springsteen” below. The single’s artwork finds her recreating the famous front cover from Springsteen’s 1984 album Born in the U.S.A.

The lyrics of the peppy “I Hate Springsteen” find Cone, who once described her music as “country soul,” trying to convince herself of things that obviously are not true: “Baby I don’t smoke / I don’t drink / My eyes ain’t brown / And I don’t think you were the one that got away / And I’m not going insane / I love being alone / I hate Springsteen  / Texas ain’t home  / Grass ain’t green / Yeah if that’s true we’re still 22 / And i don’t miss you.”

The 1973 concert sample of Springsteen introducing the song “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” during an important early-career show that found him opening for Dr. Hook at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles also suggests the song’s title is a lie, as does the fact that SetList.fm says Cone has covered Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” at her own shows.

You can learn more about Cone and her upcoming tour dates at AbbeyCone.com.

Read More: 44 Songs That Mention Bruce Springsteen

Song Arrives the Same Day Springsteen is Declared a Billionaire

In the highly unlikely event Springsteen takes offense to the lyrics to Cone’s new song, the young singer will have made herself a very rich enemy. According to Forbes, Springsteen’s net worth has just crossed the one billion dollar mark. That makes him the second rock star to hit that mark so far this year, following Paul McCartney.

Hear Abbey Cone’s New Single ‘I Hate Springsteen’

Hear Bruce Springsteen Perform ‘Wild Billy’s Circus Story’

Bruce Kulick says he understood why Kiss leaders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons decided to stage an original lineup reunion, complete with makeup, in the ‘90s – but it took him a while to accept it.

And the guitarist pushed back against the pair’s dismissal of the work done during his twelve-year stint that started in 1984, arguing it compared favorably to the group’s best output.

His termination as a band member came in December 1996, after Ace Frehley and Peter Criss had successfully taken part in that year’s reunion tour. By that point, Kulick had been retained with full pay for a year.

READ MORE: Bruce Kulick Wouldn’t Have Rejoined Kiss as the Spaceman

“Paul and Gene did the right thing by keeping us on salary for a year, but they had to do that because they could go back if the reunion blew up,” he told Guitar World in a new interview. “But once success came, and Ace and Peter did their jobs, the writing was on the wall.”

He continued: “I’ve always looked at it as I was never fired from Kiss; I was left behind for a wildly successful commercial venture. You don’t have to be an accountant to understand Paul and Gene. What Kiss would make with Eric [Singer] and me was like five million, but with Ace and Peter, we’re talking about netting 50 million; that’s truly obscene.”

Responding to the suggestion that the lineup change had been made “at the expense of chemistry and musical integrity,” Kulick said: “True. All the cracks reopened. If you look at [1998 album] Psycho Circus, that was not a band album. It’s got Tommy Thayer on guitar, Kevin Valentine on drums, I’m playing some bass – and Ace and Peter are barely there. Sure, the four of them toured in support of it and did that ‘final tour,’ but the truth is that putting the makeup back on at the time was a purely commercial decision.”

He replied cautiously when asked if the return to makeup had “killed Kiss as a creative entity,” saying: “That’s tough to say because you’ve got people who like the music they did after the reunion… [D]id they turn their back on what was a very creative and solid band? Yes, they did. But it was for the popularity and massive success of a reunion tour, which I can understand.

Bruce Kulick Says Grunge Didn’t Kill ’90s Kiss

“Our version of Kiss had a lot of promise. We clicked, got along, and shone brightly. It’s a shame it was killed. I understand why it happened, but it took me time.”

Kulick went on: “In the ‘90s, musically speaking, we were as good as any Kiss era… I’ve heard Gene pick on [1993’s] Alive III… It’s like, ‘Dude, give me a break. We were killing it then.’ Here’s the truth… we could play the old shit right, and we played the new shit right. I’m not saying we had the magic of the original band, but don’t put that era down because you’re trying to sell the makeup.”

He added: “I also don’t buy Paul putting down some of that stuff. He was there. He sang his heart out. He worked hard on it. Is Paul entitled to his opinion? Of course. But to reduce an era to nothing? I don’t buy it.

“We persevered and would have made it out to the other side given a chance. It wasn’t grunge that killed that era; it was a reunion tour.”

For several years, Bob Dylan has banned cell phones from many of his concerts. Damon Albarn of Blur doesn’t agree with this practice.

“If you start banning things where does it end? I think you’ve just got to turn up and do your thing,” he said in a recent interview with BBC. “People won’t want to be on their phone if you’re engaging with them correctly.”

Last week, Dylan announced an upcoming run of U.K. and European tour dates, all of which will require fans to turn off their phones upon arrival and place them in a Yondr pouch, which is locked by staff members. It can only be opened by staff members in designated areas of each venue, or when the concert is over.

Other Artists Who Have Used Yondr Pouches

Dylan is not the only artist to utilize the pouches. Jack White, Guns N’ Roses, Alicia Keys, Childish Gambino and more have used them at their shows.

“I don’t have a setlist. I really react to the crowd, just like a stand-up comedian would. If I finish a song and it’s ‘tah-dah!’ and it’s crickets. I don’t know what to do now,” White explained in a 2018 interview with Apple Music. “What I don’t like, is that how they really feel or are they just not even paying attention because they are doing this, they are texting? When you go to a movie theatre, a symphony, church, there are all these moments in life when people put them away and engage.”

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Bob Dylan Album

Dylan’s first European show will take place Oct. 4 in Prague, Czech Republic. The tour will conclude in mid November with three concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Bruce Springsteen is now a billionaire. According to a “conservative” Forbes estimate, the Boss is worth $1.1 billion.

Springsteen has had a lucrative last few years. In December of 2021, he sold both his masters to Sony Music and his publishing to Sony Music Publishing in a deal that earned him in the vicinity of $500 million.

He’s also been out on the road performing since February of last year, and even with backlash over ticket prices and various postponed shows, the tour has reportedly brought in $380 million in revenue (via Variety). Most recently, Springsteen landed on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the first time in his career, having been featured on Zach Bryan‘s song “Sandpaper.”

Fellow Billionaire Paul McCartney

Springsteen is not the only musician to break the billionaire barrier this year. Paul McCartney did so back in May, making him the very first billionaire musician in the U.K.

Read More: Bruce Springsteen Albums Ranked

Like Springsteen, recent developments helped McCartney reach that status, including the release of the Beatles “final” song, “Now and Then,” in 2023, and Beyonce‘s covering of “Blackbird” on her newest album, Cowboy Carter.

A six-part documentary series about the life and times of Prince was described as “dead in the water” as the fallout of his 2016 death without a will continued.

A handful of reasons were reported to be behind Netflix dropping the project, including a battle over editorial control with the divided heirs of the musician’s estate.

Director Ezra Edelmen – who created the Emmy-winning 2016 documentary O.J.: Made In America – started work in 2018, Variety reported. He delivered nine hours of TV instead of the agreed six. That represented a breach of contract, which invalidated the agreement, leaving it open for renegotiation or cancellation.

READ MORE: Underrated Prince: The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album

“[R]epresentatives for the late artist’s estate claimed a first cut of the film was filled with ‘dramatic’ factual inaccuracies and ‘sensationalized’ renderings of certain events from his life,” the reported said.

“[Edelman’s] violation of the agreement… presumably enabled the estate to withhold music rights. Although Netflix and Edelman maintain final cut of the film, a Prince documentary without his music would face daunting, if not insurmountable, creative and commercial obstacles.”

It was noted that – for once – both parties which represent Prince’s estate agreed on blocking the documentary. Prince Legacy is operated by his former manager on behalf of three court-determined heirs; the other three sold their share to Primary Wave Music. One of several lawsuits between the parties remains in play. Notably, the documentary deal was done before the estate had been settled, having been arranged via Comerica Bank, which had been put in place as interim executor.

What Upset Prince’s Heirs About Abandoned Netflix Documentary?

According to one of Variety’s sources, the offending material in the first cut had no connection to “drug use or sexual stuff,” but instead related to sensationalization and a lack of fact-checking – even though Edelman had been given access to Prince’s archive.

“[D]ifferent sources [said] that the issues were more about ‘control,’ and the estate felt the documentary was not sufficiently positive,” the report added.

Edelman was said to be “devastated” over the collapse of his project, although Variety said “a willingness by all parties to compromise has been suggested.”

The Smashing Pumpkins will release a new album titled Aghori Mhori Mei on Aug. 2.

It will be the 13th album by the band and follows Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts, a triple record that was released in three parts. The final installment arrived in May 2023.

According to a press release, frontman Billy Corgan wrote, produced and recorded the new album with the the band during their touring schedule over the past few years.

READ MORE: Reviews of 2024’s Best Albums

“In the writing of this new album I became intrigued with the well-worn axiom, ‘You can’t go home again,'” Corgan notes. “Which I have found personally to be true in form but thought, Well, what if we tried anyway?

“Not so much in looking backwards with sentimentality but rather as a means to move forward; to see if in the balance of success and failure that our ways of making music circa 1990-1996 would still inspire something revelatory.”

What Are the Smashing Pumpkins Doing in 2024?

The new LP will arrive soon after the Smashing Pumpkins ended the European leg of a world tour that resumes with North American dates on July 29. The band recently announced a Latin America tour that will begin in early November with shows in Brazil.

You can see the track listing and updated tour dates below.

The Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Aghori Mhori Mei’ Track Listing
1. Edin
2. Pentagrams
3. Sighommi
4. Pentecost
5. War Dreams Of Itself
6. Who Goes There
7. 999
8. Goeth The Fall
9. Sicarus
10. Murnau

The Smashing Pumpkins, 2024 North American Tour
7/29 – Washington, DC – Nationals Park*
7/31 – Muskoka, ON – Kee to Bala
8/1 – Toronto, ON – Rogers Centre*
8/3 – Montreal, Quebec – Osheaga Festival^
8/4 – Bangor, ME – Maine Savings Bank Amphitheatre
8/5 – New York, NY – Citi Field*
8/7 – Boston, MA – Fenway Park*
8/9 – Philadelphia, PA – Citizens Bank Park*
8/10 – Hershey, PA – HersheyPark Stadium*
8/13 – Chicago, IL – Wrigley Field*
8/14 – Kansas City, MO – Starlight Theatre
8/16 – Springfield, IL – Illinois State Fair
8/17 – Minneapolis, MN – Target Field*
8/18 – Sioux City, IA – Battery Park
8/20 – Des Moines, IA – Vibrant Music Hall
8/21 – St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
8/22 – Cincinnati, OH – Great American Ballpark*
8/24 – Milwaukee, WI – American Family Field*
8/27 – Simpsonville, SC – CCNB Amphitheatre at Heritage Park
8/28 – Atlanta, GA – Truist Park*
8/30 – Nashville, TN – Geodis Park*
9/1 – Pittsburgh, PA – PNC Park*
9/4 – Detroit, MI – Comerica Park*
9/7 – Denver, CO – Coors Field*
9/10 – Southaven, MS – BankPlus Amphitheatre at Snowden Grove
9/11 – Arlington, TX – Globe Life Field*
9/14 – Los Angeles, CA – SoFi Stadium*
9/18 – Phoenix, AZ – Chase Field*
9/20 – San Francisco, CA – Oracle Park*
9/21 – Reno, NV – Grand Sierra Resort
9/23 – Seattle, WA – T-Mobile Park*
9/24 – Airway Heights, WA – BECU Live at Northern Quest
9/25 – Portland, OR – Providence Park*
9/27 – Las Vegas, NV – BleauLive Theater inside Fontainebleau Las Vegas at Fontainebleau
9/28 – San Diego, CA – Petco Park*

*The Saviors Tour with Green Day
^Festival

2024 Latin American Tour
11/1 – Brasilia, Brazil – Arena BRB
11/3 – São Paulo, Brazil – Espaço Unimed
11/5 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – Movistar Arena
11/10 – Lima, Peru – TBD
11/12 – Quito, Ecuador – Coliseo General ruinahui (pre-sale begins 7/22, on-sale 7/26)
11/14 – Bogota, Colombia – Movistar Arena
11/16 – San Jose, Costa Rica – Parque Viva

It’s well-known that, due to music industry contracts, it’s often impossible for artists to prevent their music from being used in ways they don’t like.

In the instance of Steely Dan seemingly being unable to stop covers band Sixwire from performing “Reelin’ In the Years” at the Republican National Congress this week, the band decided to react by offering an alternative suggestion.

“Hey! Sixwire: If you want to play our music, how about playing ‘The Man in the Tin Foil Hat’?” read an image post on the Steely Dan website and social media channels, with no additional text seemingly needed.

READ MORE: Rock Stars React to Donald Trump Assassination Attempt

They’d made their point, given that the 2017 track – written by Todd Rundgren and featuring Donald Fagen – is decidedly anti-Donald Trump in spirit, as the video below clearly shows.

“The song was primarily driven by our common frustration with what happened in the recent election,” Rundren said at the time. “It was still pretty fresh, and we were still pretty mad about it, so it happened pretty organically.”

He added, “If you’re a Trump supporter, don’t come to my show, because you won’t have a good time. And also, I don’t understand your frickin’ values. Because I’m not singing about that. If you don’t understand that basic thing, you’re just fooling yourself. I mean, if you can’t take a joke, or you can’t admit that you’ve made a mistake, you don’t belong with the rest of us.”

UCR noted that “the shuffle rhythm of ‘Tin Foil Hat’ is reminiscent of Steely Dan’s ‘Chain Lightning,’ a song about attending a fascist rally.”

Along with playing the RNC, Sixwire – formed in 2000 – have been seen on TV shows such as Nashville Star, Next Great American Band, Next Superstar and Nashville. The set performed for Trump and his supporters also included Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me,” Foo Fighters’ “Learn To Fly,” Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin,’” U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way.”

Watch Todd Rundgren and Donald Fagen’s ‘Tin Foil Hat’ Video

Back-to-school shopping may be fun but it’s not cheap! We’re giving you a chance to get your budget out of detention with those much-needed back-to-school funds.

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You could score a $500 prepaid Visa Gift Card. That’s enough to buy:

• 4,411 no. 2 pencils
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Here’s How You Can Enter the Sweepstakes

Follow the prompts below to get social with us. The more you subscribe, like, share, and follow, the more entries you can earn. The sweepstakes is open from Monday, July 22 through Sunday, September 8, 2024.

*This is a multi-market contest open to those 18 and older. One (1) winner will be randomly selected from eligible entries received on Monday, September 9, 2024.*

 

In the following exclusive excerpt from Let It Be Your Guide: The Kansas Album Review, former singer John Elefante joins Tim Durling as part of a larger roundtable discussion about his debut with Kansas, 1982’s Vinyl Confessions. The album was home to “Play the Game Tonight,” with Top 20 sales that were only outpaced by “Carry on Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind.”

Still, Elefante was in the unenviable position of attempting to follow Steve Walsh, who sang both of those career-making hit singles. Vinyl Confessions went to No. 16, but Elefante exited after one more LP. In a period of deep transition, Kansas would lose early principal songwriter Kerry Livgren, too:

TIM DURLING: There can be no bigger shakeup in a band’s lineup than a change of lead vocalist. More often than not, it spells the end of a career, with a few standout exceptions. Kansas had the good fortune in finding John Elefante, who not only sounded like a smoother version of Steve Walsh, but was also an accomplished songwriter.

READ MORE: Top 10 Kansas Songs

Not only did the band rebound with a new vocalist, I’m guessing they proved a lot of naysayers wrong with “Play The Game Tonight.” After two studio albums which failed to produce a single that charted higher than No. 23, this first taste of the “new” Kansas went all the way to No. 17 on Billboard, becoming their third highest-charting single on the Hot 100.

Second single “Right Away” hit the Top 100. John and his co-writing brother Dino Elefante brought a more commercial sound to Kansas, no question. I still think this is a great song, though, and those high harmonies are courtesy of no less than Queen’s Roger Taylor.

John, how did Roger Taylor end up on this track? And, after a Top 20 single, why do think this one struggled on the charts?

JOHN ELEFANTE: Because Kansas did a fair amount of touring with Queen, [stalwart Kansas drummer] Phil Ehart was able to phone his friend, Roger, and he agreed to sing along with me and David Pack [of Ambrosia fame in the ’70s]. Your question about “Right Away” lies inside record company backroom meetings.

TIM DURLING: I really enjoy “Face It.” I almost get a Survivor vibe from this one – and coming from me that isn’t a putdown. I just don’t think this was the right song to include another sax solo. Maybe they were giving a nod to Foreigner’s “Urgent,” a huge hit from the previous year.

JOHN ELEFANTE: I don’t think it was a big thought-out decision. We just thought it would be a cool departure to have Warren Ham play the sax solo.

Watch Kansas’ ‘Play the Game Tonight’ Video

TIM DURLING: Originally written in 1977, “Windows” finds Kerry Livgren in full-on prog rock mode. Super exciting and catchy, and somehow not hindered by its really complicated time signature. Elefante’s vocals are so close to Walsh’s that it’s easy to imagine a version of this on previous Kansas albums. Curiously, they also did a video for this song. Worth a watch for that early-’80s nostalgia.

JOHN ELEFANTE: Yes, it was a song in Kerry’s arsenal of songs, and a great one at that. I personally wasn’t a big fan of that video …

TIM DURLING: “Play On” is the album’s only collaboration between Kerry Livgren and the new guy. It’s a fairly traditional Kansas-sounding song – a shuffle, with clever keyboard/violin interplay. John, I can only imagine it was a thrill to write with the man himself.

JOHN ELEFANTE: A dream come true! His ability to add that Kansas touch — and overall Kansas sound — was amazing.

TIM DURLING: In pretty short measure, Kansas returned with [1983’s Drastic Measures], their second and last album of the John Elefante era. A very different sounding album to its predecessor, this time the band dives fully into ’80s reverb and electronic drum sounds with producer Neil Kernon. Kernon would go on to produce albums for heavier bands like Dokken, Queensryche, and Helix. Drastic Measures was the end of a lot of eras for Kansas. I think one of the most obvious signs that this might be it for the band was the fact that Kerry Livgren only wrote three of this album’s nine songs.

John, you and Dino contributed heavily to this album.

JOHN ELEFANTE: I was actually very disappointed that there wasn’t much more of the Kerry DNA on that record. Dino and I were not trying – or making a conscious effort – to do a majority of the writing. I would have been happy with all Kerry-penned songs.

The Rolling Stones delivered two tour debuts and a rare cover during the second-last stop on their Hackney Diamonds tour Wednesday night.

Mick Jagger and the band performed a 20-track set at the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, which included an airing of “Far Away Eyes” from their 1978 album Some Girls.

The song was a set regular on the year of its release but it’s made only a handful of appearances this century. It was chosen from the regular fan vote list, which had also included “Dead Flowers,” “Let It Bleed” and “Sweet Virginia.”

READ MORE: Will the Rolling Stones Continue to Tour?

Later the band performed “Bite My Head Off” from their latest record Hackney Diamonds – which features Paul McCartney as a guest on the studio version – marking only the second time they’d ever played it, following one outing last year.

Between those two songs, the Stones revisited their cover of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” which was a frequent feature in the ‘90s but had become rarer in recent times, appearing for only the second time in 2024.

After 19 shows across North America, the last tour stop takes place at the Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, Ridgedale, Missouri, on July 24. The band hasn’t revealed plans for any activities to follow that event.

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘Far Away Eyes’

Watch the Rolling Stones Perform ‘Bite My Head Off’

The Rolling Stones, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, California, 7/17/24
1. “Start Me Up”
2. “Get Off of My Cloud”
3. “Tumbling Dice”
4. “Angry”
5. “Far Away Eyes”
6. “Like a Rolling Stone”
7. “Bite My Head Off”
8. “Mess It Up”
9. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
10. “You Got the Silver”
11. “Little T&A”
12. “Before They Make Me Run”
13. “Sympathy for the Devil”
14. “Honky Tonk Women”
15. “Midnight Rambler”
16. “Gimme Shelter”
17. “Paint It Black”
18. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
19. “Sweet Sounds of Heaven”
20. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

Jack Russell, former singer for Great White, has announced on social media that he will be retiring from touring on account of his health.

“To my fans and friends, it is with the heaviest of hearts that I must announce my retirement from the road,” he wrote online. “After a recent diagnosis of Lewy body dementia (LBD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA) in May 2024, I am unable to perform at the level I desire and at the level you deserve. Words cannot express my gratitude for the many years of memories, love and support. Thank you for letting me live my dreams. You have made my life a wonder.”

Lewy body dementia is the second most common type of neurodegenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s disease, affecting more than one million people in the U.S. How quickly symptoms — which include problems with thinking, movement, behavior and mood —develop vary from person to person. (Actor Robin Williams, who died in 2014, suffered from the disease.) Multiple system atrophy, however, is much more rare, affecting approximately between two and five people per 100,000.

Russell sang with Great White from 1981 until 1996 when he left to pursue his solo music. Since then, he rejoined the band on multiple occasions, finally splitting with them permanently in the early 2010s. He has performed intermittently with his own band under the name Jack Russell’s Great White.

Russell recently released an autobiography, The True Tale of Mista Bone: A Rock + Roll Narrative.

Foo Fighters‘ U.S. summer tour leg got off to an inauspicious start on Wednesday when the band was forced to cut its performance at New York’s Citi Field short and evacuate the venue due to lightning storms.

The rockers, who are in the middle of their Everything or Nothing at All tour, only played for an hour and 20 minutes (roughly half of their typical marathon sets) before they got the call to end the show.

You can see the truncated set list and Dave Grohl‘s weather-related announcements below.

READ MORE: Top 25 Foo Fighters Songs

Dave Grohl’s Weather Warning to the Crowd

“I just got word from the side of the stage, there’s a storm coming in. Hold on, hold on! There’s some lightning and shit like that,” Grohl told the audience at the beginning of “Learn to Fly,” the band’s last full song of the evening. “We’re gonna play as much as we can until someone says it’s not safe for you, OK? So just so you know, we’re up here doing our thing for you, until it’s not safe for you. For the time being, we’re gonna sing this shit right now.”

As the storms quickly escalated, Grohl said they would attempt one more song and then try to wait the storm out. “If we can come back, you fucking know we will, right?” he said. “So let’s do this shit before it gets weird.”

Unfortunately, it got weird faster than anticipated, and Foo Fighters only made it through 30 seconds of “Everlong”  before they got the call to leave the stage.

“This fucking sucks, believe me,” Grohl told the crowd. “If I could do something about it, I would. Just fucking hold tight … everybody go get safe. If we can come back and play, we will. But listen, you know we fucking love you. We know we’ll be back for you motherfuckers, right? Go get safe, we’ll see you in a minute.”

A little over an hour later (according to setlist.fm), the concert’s conclusion was announced. Foo Fighters will have their shot at redemption on Friday when they play Citi Field again.

Watch Foo Fighters Play ‘Learn to Fly’ and Issue Storm Warning

Watch Foo Fighters Cut ‘Everlong’ Short Due to Storms

Foo Fighters, 7/17/24, Citi Field, Queens, New York Set List
1. “All My Life”
2. “No Son of Mine” (with snippets of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”)
3. “Rescued”
4. “The Pretender”
5. “Walk”
6. “Times Like These”
7. “Generator”
8. “La Dee Da”
9. “Breakout”
10. “Eruption” / “Thunderstruck” / “Sabotage” / keyboard solo / “March of the Pigs” / “Blitzkrieg Bop” (band introductions)
11. “My Hero”
12. “The Sky Is a Neighborhood”
13. “Learn to Fly”
14. “Everlong” (intro only)

Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro – who only recently returned to the band after a three-year battle with long Covid – discussed how the death of Taylor Hawkins made his condition more difficult to deal with.

The pair, along with touring AC/DC bassist Chris Chaney, had just completed work on their band’s debut album when Hawkins died in March 2022, four months after Navarro had been diagnosed with the long-term version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“I’d just completed making a record with Taylor Hawkins and Chris Chaney,” Navarro told Guitar World in an upcoming interview, referring to the album by NHC that remains unreleased, although two tracks from the project were issued in 2021.

READ MORE: Dave Navarro’s ‘Strange’ Guns N’ Roses Recording Session

“We mixed and mastered it – and then we lost Taylor. That was in the middle of Covid, and it was actually very painful for me to pick up the guitar after that. … I didn’t pick up the guitar for about a year.”

He described Hawkins as “such an inspiring artist,” adding, “Not only was he a phenomenal drummer, but he was also an amazing songwriter and lyricist … he was just one of those humans that everybody loved. Everybody loved him.”

How Dave Navarro Got Back to Playing Guitar

Touching on how his grief compounded his viral infection, Navarro added, “For the first year after losing Taylor, I didn’t play. …Then, about a year into it, I picked up the guitar, started playing some cover songs, and just kind of got used to the instrument in my hand again.”

The guitarist finally returned to action with Jane’s Addiction earlier this year; they’ll release new single “Imminent Redemption” – the first recording by the original lineup since 1990 – on July 24.

Focusing on a decade in which classic rock came into its own, the below list of the Top 200 ’70s Songs spans the gamut of cornerstone bands.

Some were on their way out. But former members of the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel began crafting solo gems for the ages. The stalwart Rolling Stones, meanwhile, showed they weren’t going anywhere – fighting through addiction only to emerge right in the middle of the disco zeitgeist.

Bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Santana – all of whom began to pick up steam toward the end of the ’60s – could be found building the framework of their lasting legend in this new decade. But it wasn’t all familiar figures from classic rock’s initial era, either.

READ MORE: Top 100 ’70s Rock Albums

Next-gen keepers of the flame like Aerosmith, Kiss, Steely Dan and Tom Petty expanded the music’s reach in distinct ways. Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band established a new Southern aesthetic, even as the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac came to symbolize the West Coast’s promise – and its risks. Then an exciting new edge crept into the music toward the end of the decade, personified by the likes of the Clash, the Police, the Ramones and Sex Pistols. But which of their songs made the list? Find out below as we present the Top 200 ’70s Songs in alphabetical order.

Roxy Music has played their last concerts, according to Phil Manzanera. “It was a good time” to say goodbye, he tells UCR. “We might bring out a recording of that tour. I don’t think we’ll do any more live gigs, ever. I think that was it.”

When they first revealed plans to return to the road for a run of dates in September and October 2022, Roxy Music positioned it as a chance to celebrate their 50th anniversary. But even then, the guitarist felt the gravity of the moment.

“You never know when you get to this stage in one’s trajectory whether it’s going to be the last time, so you treat it as if it’s going to be the last time,” he said back then. “I’m gonna have the most fun possible.”

Manzanera has continued to work on a flurry of various projects since then. Of special note is Revolucion to Roxy, his memoir, which arrived earlier this year. He has long been a vivid storyteller, so the book is reliably engaging. It offers a fascinating view into the formative years of Manzanera’s upbringing and how they ultimately influenced the life in music that followed. A companion soundtrack adds an audio component to the autobiography, featuring 10 tracks. Five of them were previously unreleased.

He joined UCR to discuss a number of topics during a lengthy Zoom interview from his London studio.

I love that you made a “soundtrack” to go along with this book.
It came as an afterthought. You know, I thought about doing an audiobook and then I thought, “Oh no,” because it takes so long to do and it’s actually an incredibly tricky process. That’s why a lot of people get actors to do it and stuff like that – because it’s a nightmare for the actual person to do it. I can’t remember, did Keith Richards do his audiobook?

I think he did, at least parts of it.
Well, hats off to him, because it must have taken him forever.

It’s a pain in the ass.
It must have taken him forever to do. I thought, well, I’m a musician, I’m not really a writer. I have written some anecdotes and this memoir and stuff, some funny things. But since I’m a musician, I thought it would be good to have some music to illustrate a little bit of what I’m talking about. When I came to choosing the first track, “Magdalena,” it’s the name of my mother. She taught me how to play guitar in Cuba, just very simple stuff. She was from Colombia and they were South American-y type songs, with a little bit of a flavor that had the Latin thing with it. Halfway through the track, which is some sort of dream sequence [there’s] a bit of Latin music which really, I think comes mainly from my remembrance from what a Brazilian number, “Orpheus Negro,” was like. And then it goes into almost like a Santana-type track and comes to life [in that way].

Listen to Phil Manzanera’s ‘Magdalena’

I thought, well, that’s quite fitting, because [Carlos] Santana was the first guy to really integrate rock with Latin beats in that way — and he’s a beautiful guitarist. So there are things like that. Then I’ve also got some pizzica music, which relates to the chapter when I was the [musical director] for the La Notte della Taranta, which is in Puglia in the south of Italy. It was a genre of music that most people had never heard of. It has a thousand-year-old tradition — and who knew that? Until I was asked to do it, I’d never heard of pizzica. Then, you start analyzing it and you find that Alan Lomax, who discovered and did the whole history of the blues in the States and everything, went over to Puglia and did a whole lot of research on pizzica music. So it’s like wheels within wheels. There’s connections all over the place.

So, some of this music is like a springboard that I can then talk about my anecdotes with. The whole end sequence is when I did Guitar Legends in Seville and that relates to my encounter with Bob Dylan. [Laughs] And all of that kind of stuff. I could have gone on forever, but obviously, you can only have [so much music]. I only wanted 10 tracks. There’s a couple of new things in there. For instance, “Lady of the Lake,” most people think is written by Schubert. It has a sort of religious connotation, which is not what he intended at all. It was grabbed hold of by the Catholic Church and turned into “Ave Maria.” Well, it was about a Scottish poem! It had no religious [intent]. But people know it in one way, so I liked the idea of that. Also, it shows the diversity of the music that I like and the music that I like to play.

READ MORE: Roxy Music Inducted Into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

You mentioned Bob Dylan and obviously, he’s known to be a quirky person. How much were you aware of that going into the whole experience?
No idea at all. [Laughs] Apparently, everybody’s got a Bob Dylan story – because the guy is a genius and he’s so famous. I adore everything he does. But naively, you know, I was a certain age and I thought, “Right. He’s coming down and we’re going to rehearse.” I was the musical director for the whole five nights. I had a budget of seven million pounds, so it was like 10 million dollars. I could ring anybody in the world — famous guitar players, bass players, drummers, you name it — all of the top people, to come and play each night in Seville. It was a pre-event for Expo ‘92. The venue was beautiful and everything. Live on television in the U.K. and America. It was a big deal. I could choose the concepts for each night.

So obviously, I went through [all of it]. “I’m going to have a blues night, we’re going to get B.B. King. We’re going to have a rock night and get Brian May.” All of that kind of stuff. Then, we’re going to have a country night, a folk night — we can get Roger McGuinn. We’ll have Les Paul there. I ran out of concepts, so the last night was my night that I was in charge of as well. So I got supposedly all of the others. And the “others” were Bob Dylan, Joe Cocker, Steve Cropper, Keith Richards, Jack Bruce. All of these kinds of people and I chose some Spanish people as well. My job was to also go through with Bob what we were going to play and rehearse it with the rest of the band. We had the most fantastic group. The Miami Horns, I had Simon Phillips on drums, Jack Bruce on bass, the best people. I’m thinking, “How am I going to approach this?” I thought, “I’ll go to a record store in London and just make sure I’m covered for every Dylan song ever.”

He arrives and his manager comes up and says, “Hi, Phil, this is Bob.” It’s like, yeah, I know who this is! “Hi, I’m Phil. It’s great to meet you!” I say to him, “We’ve got all of your tunes. Choose anything you want to play.” He says, “Oh, do you know a Tex-Mex song from 1947?” And I think, “Oh shit.” I thought we were going to play Dylan songs! I said, “No, but you play it to us and we’ll learn it.” He proceeds to play it differently every time. I’m looking at Jack Bruce and Simon Phillips and they all start making excuses to leave the room. [Laughs] I’m left there with Bob. We’ve got this amazing band and he says [after they leave], “Perhaps we should just play with two acoustic guitars.” Shit! I said, “But, it’s called Guitar Legends and they really want us to play ‘All Along the Watchtower.’” The thought bubble came out above my head, sort of saying, “Don’t say this.” I said, “….but it’s the Hendrix version, not your version.” [Laughs] I thought, “Oh no, we’re screwed.”

But genuinely, upon reflection, I think he probably thought I was Mexican, with a name like Manzanera and he was being nice to me. Or was he playing with me? You know, you read all of the stories about The Last Waltz with the Band, and George Harrison at Madison Square Garden and you think, “Oh, no, he’s just playing with you, because he’s Bob Dylan.” But in my mind, I thought, well, he’s Bob Dylan, he can do whatever he wants, so I’ll just suck it up, I guess! As long as he comes out! And then the manager said, “Well, he might come out — he might not.” He said, “Who’s going to sing if he doesn’t come out?” I looked at Jack Bruce and [he said in so many words], “Fuck, I’m not doing that.” At that point, I’m the musical director for the whole thing and it’s going live on TV. The manager [followed that] and said, “If he does come out, can you introduce him, please?”

So obviously, [I felt] relief when I looked around and saw the black shirt with the white spots on it at the back of the stage, “Oh, phew, he’s coming out.” So I said in Spanish, “Senors and Senoritas, Senor Bob Dylan!” We had no idea what he was going to play. So if you watch on YouTube, you can see me looking at Richard Thompson going, “Wait, so is that G or C? What song is this?” You know, you can hardly decipher sometimes what the songs are — and that’s his mythology. But you know what? I saw that special thing that he did recently that was pretending to be in a club and it was absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So you know, hats off to the guy. But it was a challenging experience.

Watch Bob Dylan Perform ‘All Along the Watchtower’ in Seville

What’s the moment where you realized the essence of who Brian Eno was creatively?
When I went for the audition, I met the four guys who were there that day, Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Graham Simpson. I don’t think Paul Thompson was there that day. I knew they were special. They’re a bit older than me. And they were grownups. They’d been to university, they had degrees, they had bank accounts. They had a car! They had taken out a loan and bought a little PA. I was very impressed. I can spot talent. That’s one thing I think I’m good at. I was brought up with my friends at school listening to everything that happened in the ‘60s. Frank Zappa, obviously, the Beatles, the avant-garde music. Everything. I could tell what was what. There was just something about these guys that was special and something that was very unique about Eno as well – because he was good at chatting and explaining why he was a conceptual artist, really, but that he was a non-musician. Evidently, he wasn’t a complete non-musician. [Laughs] But he certainly liked to have that idea that he was a bit of a disruptor. We got on very well. We used to experiment a lot around his apartment and stuff with tape recorders and stuff like that. It was great. And he’s still the same person he was when I first met him. What he believes in and everything, he’s been incredibly successful doing exactly what he set out to do. It was just a wonderful happenstance that I met these guys. Of course, I did fail the audition to start with.

That’s a minor complication.
Yeah, but lucky them! They eventually came back and asked me to join — and lucky me.

READ MORE: The Day Brian Eno Left Roxy Music

Given your vast body of work, what record do you think would be the best introduction to you for younger players that are unfamiliar with what you’ve done? Where do you start?
Well, personally, I would say For Your Pleasure [by Roxy Music], which has “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” on it, which that was really what we were all about at that stage in Roxy. It’s a million miles away from Avalon. Really, on our farewell tour which we did in the States two years ago in October, we got a chance – and I got a chance – to show what I do virtually for the first time, really. Because I had the technology, I had the visual context for our farewell tour. It’s not maybe what a lot of people thought. You know, when I said I was a primitive guitarist, I really meant it. It’s somebody who decided when he was 17 or 18 that he wanted to spend the whole of his life learning a certain technical thing and not to have too much technique, to deal in other commodities and sound textures and feeling in music.

It wasn’t about a blur of notes — just making every note count, whether it’s sound-wise or by choice. If you hear “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” you’ll hear the way me and Eno used to work together on treatments — treating my guitar or [using] heavy guitar. In the track “Ladytron,” from the first album, you’ll hear again, that same sort of thing. That was my happy place. You know, when you’re in a band and you’ve got songs with someone singing, you have to serve the song. When you get the instrumental bits, it’s like, you’re free and you can fly. But that’s part of the thing about being in a band. You have to be restrained and people want to hear the words that the singer is singing. But then when he stops and it becomes like a free-for-all, then we really get going. [Laughs]

Listen to Roxy Music’s ‘Ladytron’

READ MORE: Top 10 Roxy Music Songs

You mentioned the Roxy Music farewell tour. How did you all arrive at the idea it was time to wrap it up?
Well, when it was mentioned that it was going to be our 50th anniversary…actually, I got a call from Bryan Ferry. He said, “Do you fancy doing some gigs? There’s a promoter in America who says he’d have us to do some gigs.” I’m always saying, “Yeah, sure. If you’re up for it, I’m up for it.” He said, “Yeah, I’m up for it.” So he went and got in touch with Andy, who said he was up for it — and Paul [was also interested]. Then, we realized, we haven’t got a manager, we don’t have a structure. We haven’t been together for 12 years. What are we going to do? We had to put all of that stuff together and luckily, it went [really well]. People were very kind and they knew it was a sort of farewell tour.

It finished at the O2 in London and it was all sold out. I think we thought, “Whoa, we haven’t said goodbye to Europe.” Then, we thought, “Oh, hang on — Brexit happened. It’s so difficult to go play in Europe.” And then the thought occurred, “Well, we finished on a great high. Perhaps we should just say, like poker, or something, ‘I’m out of here, that’s it.’” Let’s finish with something really good and not try and flog it and then people [might] say, “Oh, nah, [they’re] no good now.” So to a certain extent, we did our best and it was very, very enjoyable. As I said, I think it was the first time I thought we were able to play in the visual context we liked, with all of the imagery coming up — and put those songs into that visual context in the live situation. So it was a good time to [say goodbye]. We might bring out a recording of that tour. I don’t think we’ll do any more live gigs, ever. I think that was it.

When the tour was in the planning stages, what sort of conversations or interactions were there with Eddie Jobson?
Well, Eddie had played at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with us. But you know, he lives in New York and we’re in…it would just be too difficult. And we’re looking at the whole period of 12 years that Roxy existed. He was with us for about three years. Eno was with us for two years and then other people were in it. The four of us are still here talking to each other. Eno doesn’t like to go and deal with nostalgia. I do. [Laughs]

Even after David Bowie became a star in the ’70s with a string of albums that helped seal his legend, he still made records that were intended only for single release.

Some of his best-known songs from the era – the original version of “Rebel, Rebel,” “John, I’m Only Dancing” – never made it onto studio albums. Well into the ’80s following his Let’s Dance commercial comeback, he was still recording one-shot songs for movies.

So, Bowie’s singles catalog is vast. There were 119 of them released during his lifetime, dating back to when he was still known as David Jones and going through to just days before his death in 2016. Some of his greatest songs were released as singles during a 50-year career. Some weren’t. (“Ziggy Stardust,” for example, appeared only on a single as a 1972 live version from 1994.)

Like many global stars, Bowie saw his work released at different times, and in different forms, in different parts of the world. U.K. singles differed from U.S. singles, which weren’t the same as the ones released in France. And occasionally, places like the Netherlands and Turkey would get 45 records that nobody else bothered to issue like that.

Our list of Every David Bowie Single Ranked includes many classics – from Ziggy Stardust to the Berlin Trilogy to his late-career renaissance – as well as many tracks from that period where it seemed like the only songs he was recording were for forgettable movies. They all add up to one of rock’s greatest legacies.

How an Old Beatles Song Connected David Bowie With John Lennon

A new box set will collect all of Faces‘ BBC Recordings from the early ’70s.

The eight CD and one Blu-ray box, Faces at the BBC — Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973, includes the band’s surviving BBC Recordings, more than 80 tracks with most of them previously unreleased. The Blu-ray features newly restored footage from April 1972. (One BBC session of three songs is still missing.)

The set, available on Sept. 6, was remastered with the participation of Faces members Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones. (The other two original members have died, Ronnie Laine in 1997 and Ian McLachlan in 2014.)

READ MORE: When Imploding Faces Uncovered Timeless Truths on ‘Ooh La La’

According to a press release announcing the box, “Once thought lost, many of the band’s BBC recordings were recovered from the Faces’ own archives and private collections.”

You can watch “Stay With Me (Live on Sounds for Saturday, BBC, April 1, 1972)” from the collection below.

Faces was formed in 1969 by McLagan, Laine and Jones after Steve Marriott left Small Faces to form Humble Pie. With singer Stewart and guitarist Wood, who were in the Jeff Beck Group, they released four albums between 1970 and 1973.

Stewart also released four solo albums during this period that included backing by Faces. Several songs heard on those records are included in the new BBC collection.

What Is on Faces’ Complete BBC Recordings Box Set?

Faces at the BBC — Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973  gathers the band’s appearances on BBC programs during that time, including John Peel’s Sunday Concert, Sounds for Saturday and Top Gear.

They played most of their best-known songs during these appearances: “(I Know) I’m Losing You,” “Cindy Incidentally” and “Stay With Me,” their biggest single.

You can see the track listing below.

In 2021, both Wood and Jones said the surviving members have recorded new music, but nothing has surfaced since then.

Faces, ‘Faces at the BBC — Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973’ Track Listing
Disc One
John Peel’s Sunday Concert (Broadcast July 5, 1970)
1. “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)” *
2. “Wicked Messenger” *
3. “Devotion” *
4. “It’s All Over Now” *
5. “I Feel So Good” *
John Peel’s Sunday Concert (Broadcast November 29, 1970)
6. “Country Comfort”
7. “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)”
8. “Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man) / Street Fighting Man”
9. “Maybe I’m Amazed”
10. “Around The Plynth / Country Honk / Gasoline Alley”

Disc Two
John Peel’s Sunday Concert (Broadcast May 23, 1971)
1. “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)” *
2. “Cut Across Shorty”
3. “Love In Vain”
4. “Bad ’n’ Ruin” *
5. “It’s All Over Now” *
6. “Had Me A Real Good Time” *
7. “(I Know) I’m Losing You” *
8. “I Feel So Good” *

Disc Three
Sounds For Saturday (Broadcast April 1, 1972)
1. “Three Button Hand Me Down” *
2. “Maybe I’m Amazed”
3. “Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man) / Street Fighting Man” *
4. “Miss Judy’s Farm”
5. “Love In Vain” *
6. “Stay With Me”
7. “(I Know) I’m Losing You”

Disc Four
John Peel’s Sunday Concert (Broadcast February 26, 1972)
1. Intro / “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)” *
2. “Three Button Hand Me Down” *
3. “Miss Judy’s Farm” *
4. “Memphis, Tennessee” *
5. “Give Me The Moonlight” *
6. “Too Bad” *
7. “Last Orders Please” *
8. “Devotion” *
9. “That’s All You Need / Country Honk / Gasoline Alley” *
10. “(I Know) I’m Losing You” *
11. “Stay With Me” *
12. “Had Me A Real Good Time” *
13. “Underneath The Arches” *
14. “Every Picture Tells A Story” *

Disc Five
In Concert (Recorded February 8, 1973) not originally broadcast
1. “Silicone Grown” *
2. “Cindy Incidentally” *
3. “Angel” *
4. “Memphis, Tennessee” *
5. “True Blue” *
6. “I’d Rather Go Blind” *
7. “You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)” *
8. “Twistin’ The Night Away” *
9. “It’s All Over Now” *
10. “Miss Judy’s Farm” *
11. “Maybe I’m Amazed” *
12. “Three Button Hand Me Down” *
13. “(I Know) I’m Losing You” *

Disc Six
In Concert (Broadcast April 21, 1973)
1. “Silicone Grown” *
2. “Cindy Incidentally” *
3. “Memphis, Tennessee” *
4. “If I’m On The Late Side” *
5. “My Fault” *
6. “The Stealer”
7. “Borstal Boys”
8. “Angel”
9. “Stay With Me”
10. “True Blue”
11. “Twistin’ The Night Away” *
12. “Miss Judy’s Farm”
13. “Jealous Guy”
14. “Too Bad”

Disc Seven
Top Gear (Broadcast March 28, 1970)
1. “Wicked Messenger” *
2. “Devotion”
3. “Shake, Shudder, Shiver”
4. “Pineapple And The Monkey” *
Dave Lee Travis (Broadcast March 15, 1970)
5. “Three Button Hand Me Down” *
6. “Flying”
7. “Wicked Messenger” *
Top Gear (Broadcast September 19, 1970)
8. “Had Me A Real Good Time” *
9. “Around The Plyth / Gasoline Alley”
10. “Country Comfort” *
Top Gear: John Peel’s Christmas Carol Concert (Broadcast December 26, 1970)
11. “Away In A Manger” – Rod Stewart *
12. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Good King Wenceslas / Silent Night / O Come All Ye Faithful” – Faces & Choir *

Disc Eight
Sounds Of The Seventies (Broadcast May 3, 1971)
1. “Had Me A Real Good Time” *
2. “Love In Vain” *
3. “Oh Lord I’m Browned Off” *
4. “Maybe I’m Amazed” *
Top Gear (Broadcast October 6, 1971)
5. “Stay With Me”
6. “Miss Judy’s Farm”
7. “Maggie May”

Blu-ray
Sounds For Saturday (Broadcast April 1, 1972)
1. “Three Button Hand Me Down” *
2. “Maybe I’m Amazed”*
3. “Too Much Woman (For A Henpecked Man / Street Fighting Man” *
4. “Miss Judy’s Farm”*
5. “Love In Vain” *
6. “Stay With Me”*
7. “(I Know) I’m Losing You”*

* previously unreleased

Elvis Costello and Daryl Hall‘s joint tour came to New York City on Tuesday night, specifically to the showplace of the nation, Radio City Music Hall.

For those scratching their heads after hearing those two names together — this writer included when she initially heard it several months ago — there is a history. Four decades ago, Hall contributed harmony vocals to one of Costello’s albums, 1984’s Goodbye Cruel World, on a song called “The Only Flame in Town.” (Hall also appeared in the accompanying music video. From Costello’s album liner notes: “Naturally, my romantic rival was Daryl, but my only real humiliation was in having a Columbia promotion woman hector the makeup girl: ‘Make him look handsome,’ while a very hungover Daryl sat in the next chair looking like a movie star. His hair was perfect.”)

And it isn’t as though the two come from entirely different worlds, even if from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While Hall and his one-time musical partner John Oates crafted what might be described as new wave soul, Costello was just a couple years away from taking similar elements and mixing them with a pub rock feel and a Dylan-like lyrical sensibility. Of course, none of these terms are absolute and mostly exist to help categorize artists on a commercial level, but if there is one thing Hall and Costello have in common, it’s that they created the kind of “pop” music that moved the musical needle forward.

Costello took the stage first, donning his signature cockeyed fedora and Fender Jazzmaster, and he brought up the aforementioned “The Only Flame in Town” music video, giving the (as would soon be clear) Hall-oriented audience a reminder of why he was there.

“Daryl arrived I think directly from Studio 54,” he said.” In that moment, I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’ve got a chance…it’s amazing what black coffee and Visine can do.”

READ MORE: Elvis Costello Albums Ranked Worst to Best

Costello’s band is back to the usual five-piece. Last week, the lineup shifted quite dramatically with both bassist Davey Faragher and guitarist Charlie Sexton out sick, leaving Costello performing only with drummer Pete Thomas and pianist Steve Nieve — or as Costello put it himself, “as close to the Attractions as you’re ever gonna get.”

And he’s using it to his full advantage. While some songs stuck closer to their original arrangements, others took on new shapes. “Indoor Fireworks” loped along like the kind of country track Johnny Cash might have included on American Recordings. “Mystery Dance” featured Costello playing a guitar once owned by Chuck Berry — “He played it better” — and was made into a scorching blues number.

Watch Elvis Costello Perform ‘No Reason to Quit’ and ‘Indoor Fireworks’ at Radio City

Then came Hall. “Been a while since I’ve been in this room,” he said. “Seems kind of formal, we’ll make it work.”

Like Costello, Hall played the big hits, with a few solo numbers thrown in, and it was almost immediately evident that for however many audience members left the venue after Costello’s set, they were vastly outnumbered by those who had clearly come for Hall.

Regardless, it was impossible to ignore the jarring and noticeable juxtaposition between Costello’s singing of songs about dragging lakes and leaving fingers lying in wedding cakes to considerably less incisive numbers that, for the most part, neatly followed the studio versions. For all the things the two acts may have in common, it’s not a parallelism that translates well to the live stage.

Still, you’ll hear the classics from both artists in one form or another, and it’s hard to argue with two for the price of one.

Watch Daryl Hall Perform at Radio City Music Hall

Elvis Costello, 7/16/24, Radio City Music Hall, New York City, Set List
1. “Pump It Up”
2. “Watching the Detectives”
3. “No Flag”
4. “Green Shirt”
5. “We Are All Cowards Now”
6. “No Reason to Quit” (Dean Holloway cover)
7. “Indoor Fireworks”
8. “Wonder Woman” (Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint cover)
9. “Everyday I Write the Book”
10. “A Face in the Crowd”
11. “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy” (Mose Allison cover)
12. “Mystery Dance”
13. “Clubland” (with bit of the Specials “Ghost Town” and “Impatience”)
14. “Alison” (with “You’ve Been Cheating”)
15. “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea”
16. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” (Nick Lowe cover)

Daryl Hall, 7/16/24, Radio City Music Hall, New York City, Set List
1. “Maneater” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
2. “Foolish Pride”
3. “Rich Girl” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
4. “Kiss on My List” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
5. “Private Eyes” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
6. “I’m in a Philly Mood”
7. “Everytime You Go Away” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
8. “Sara Smile” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
9. “I Can’t Go For That” (Daryl Hall & John Oates song)
10. “Can’t Say No to You” (Daryl Hall & Dave Stewart song)
11.”You Make My Dreams Come True”

Allison Rapp is a New York City-based music and culture journalist. Her work has appeared in Brooklyn Magazine, Insider, Rock Cellar, City Limits and more. She is also the host of Big Yellow Podcast, a show about Joni Mitchell. She tweets at @allisonrapp22.

2024 Summer Rock Tours

Many of rock’s biggest artists will hit the road for performances once more in 2024.

Gallery Credit: Corey Irwin