The monster hits from Bon Jovi’s multi-platinum breakthrough album Slippery When Wet were still rocking and resonating in everyone’s ears when the boys from Sayreville released New Jersey in September of 1988.
Recorded shortly after the Slippery When Wet tour concluded in October 1987, the band wasted little time to bask in their success and headed straight back into the studio to record the new album. The highly anticipated powerful follow-up hit number one on the Billboard charts and stayed on top four consecutive weeks.
Released on September 19th, 1988, the 12-track strong New Jersey was another unstoppable juggernaut of radio smash singles and MTV hit videos. The album had five top ten songs in total (Bad Medicine, Born To Be My Baby, I’ll Be There For You, Living In Sin and Lay Your Hands On Me), the most ever for a rock album and solidified the band’s place as a force in rock to be reckoned with.
While Slippery boasted the pound for pound perfect blueprint for the balls out power power pop metal that defined the genre at the time, New Jersey allowed band leader Jon Bon Jovi, guitarist/songwriter Richie Sambora and the rest of the band to expand their licks a bit, despite the extremely short turnaround between albums. Tracks like Bad Medicine, 99 In The Shade and Lay Your Hands on Me were expected radio-friendly crowd pleasers, but Born To Be My Baby, Love For Sale and Ride Cowboy Ride offered fans some unexpected diversity from the Bon Jovi sound.
Back in the late ’80s, music videos were the hear and soul of MTV, and you had the option to listen to albums on multiple formats. First videos and MTV premieres marked heralded returns of poplar bands. Music videos were lavish mandatory marketing tools as well as must see viewing (and this was still years before TRL’s heyday). New Jersey has been in my personal music library since its initial release, and I still have my LP, cassette and CD. Needless to say it’s still a part of my digital jukebox, and among my collection of all the Bon Jovi releases.
The build-up to New Jersey‘s release was inescapable to us MTV viewers of the day. Fans in LA were invited to a live show and given small film cameras to shoot a live performance and the footage would be edited together for the final music video. Bad Medicine was the first single off of New Jersey and given the grainy fan footage treatment. These days fans could just upload their smartphone videos to the band themselves, saving the video producers the task of distributing and re-collecting the handheld cameras, plus actually develop all the film. How times have changed.
As part of Bon Jovi’s 30th anniversary and re-release of their catalogue, New Jersey has been remastered as a 2-CD Deluxe Edition, which includes the album plus b-sides and previously unreleased demos from the Sons of Beaches (the original album title) studio sessions.
The hits sound even better remastered on the first disc. Blood On Blood remains my personal favorite track and would have been the easy choice to open the album. A live staple for the band, a high octane straight forward rocker has killer riffs, great one-two vocals from Jon and Richie and lyrics about enduring friendship. Disc one also includes a cover of Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town (previously released on the Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell concert benefit album), an acoustic version of Born To Be My Baby, and the b-side Love Is War.
Demos and unreleased tracks (13 included on the Sons of Beaches disc) can be a mixed bag for some artists. But in this case it’s a good thing. Pop and rock music has evolved drastically since 1989, and the dominance of the hair-metal genre was laid to rest by the Nirvana-led grunge movement in the early 90s. But bands like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, who both successfully played into this popular Rock of Ages era, also had much more to offer when you washed out all the hairspray. The unreleased tracks on the second disc are definitely a great time capsule. Needless to say Bon Jovi has changed with times since 1989 and does not make music like this any longer. So for fans like me who still enjoy re-visiting that era, this collection is well worth listening to.
The second disc of unreleased treasures include demos of New Jersey tracks Wild Is The Wind, Stick To Your Guns and Homebound Train. Diamond Ring, also here was later recorded for 1995’s These Days. Of the various rockers and ballads, some are more polished than others. Several even include Tico Torres’ drumstick count-in at the beginning, but most sound pretty far into the selection process and have production value better than most of the unreleased demos from other band archives.
In a different world, we could have had an acoustic version of Born To Be My Baby on New Jersey, which was the album’s second single. This stripped down version offers a take on what could have been. The Jon and Richie vocals duet is raw and the song bears little resemblance to the familiar hit with the “2-3-4-nah nah nah nah” opening we all recognize. It’s worth a listen to learn how things can drastically evolve in the studio, but the final amped up-tempo rocker is irreplaceable.
An interesting demo is House of Fire, penned by Alice Cooper, Joan Jett and Desmond Child. It reamined unreleased by Bon Jovi but was eventually recorded by Cooper for his 1989 album Trash. Jon and Richie bring a sexy swagger and boogie to the song and it works as a Bon Jovi tune, but you can’t not hear the Alice Cooper version if you’re familiar with it. Cooper ultimately brought the necessary dirtiness to the tune to go with the lyrics (it got heavy rotation play on MTV).
New Jersey as released in 1989, was and still is a solid good time album for the band and earned its place in rock history. Bon Jovi was at the top of their game and on top of the music world.
Revisiting a remastered New Jersey with its unforgettable hits with killer guitar licks and stadium worthy chorus background vocals is a trip worth taking. I don’t feel any of the unreleased songs included here, many running near or over 5 minutes, from the demo sessions should have been included on the final release. The album was definitely loaded with the strongest material. But for fans who enjoy the Bon Jovi experience, this entire collection is well worth your while.
Since I don’t have too many excuses to post this (there may never be a better place than here), here is a picture of my now vintage LP signed by Jon, Richie, Tico and Bryan several years ago when I had the opportunity to meet the band.
i like this wow..great jovi captain ……….
The Shade and Lay Your Hands on Me were expected radio-friendly crowd pleasers, but Born To Be My Baby, Love For Sale and Ride Cowboy Ride offered fans some unexpected diversity from the Bon Jovi sound.