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Trivia / Bon Jovi

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  • Alan Smithee: Oddly, the track "Ride Cowboy Ride" off of New Jersey is credited not to Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, but to Captain Kidd and the King of Swing, known nicknames for the two.
  • Banned in China: The band was supposed to perform in Beijing and Shanghai but were cancelled by Chinese authorities, possibly due to using the Dalai Lama as a backdrop for a few seconds when "We Weren't Born to Follow" was performed during The Circle Tour in 2010, five years prior to the tour that would have landed them there.
  • Black Sheep Hit: "Who Says You Can't Go Home" somehow crossed over to Country Music radio (helped in part by duet vocals from Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland), making Bon Jovi the first rock act to have a #1 country hit.
  • Chart Displacement: Their four Hot 100 #1's don't include "Wanted Dead or Alive", which is their best-selling single in the United States but never went past #7. Also, "It's My Life", which sparked a re-interest in the band and certainly ranks among their best-known hits, topped at #33 and is outcharted by lesser songs from prior ("In These Arms", "This Ain't a Love Song") and after ("Who Says You Can't Go Home", "(You Want To) Make a Memory").
  • Creator Backlash:
    • The band hated how 7800° Fahrenheit turned outnote  While it was played live consistently until 1991, it's been largely abandoned since then, with only very rare performances of "Tokyo Road" and "Only Lonely" representing the album.
      Jon: All of us were going through tough times on a personal level, and the strain told on the music we produced. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Lance Quinn wasn't the man for us, and that added to the feeling that we were going about it badly. None of us want to live in that mental state ever again. We've put the record behind us, and moved on.
    • He's also embarrassed by the video for "Runaway."
      Jon Bon Jovi: "I hate videos. If you wanted to torture me you'd tie me down and force me to watch our first five videos. Five times you're chump before you learn what you're doing. The first time we'd just made a record and we were all excited and some a—hole decides we're going to make a video for 'Runaway.' So instead of making it about what the song's about, he decides to put a concept to it with his little niece in it. It's the worst piece of s—t I ever saw in my life. There's a girl with like fire coming out of her eyes. They dressed the band. Richie's wearing a jumpsuit and shoes that are three sizes too big. They kept squirting us down with this greasy solution to make it look like we were sweating. We all look like assholes."
  • Executive Meddling: Hinted, if Burning Bridges, Jon's 10-Minute Retirement from the label, and "Devil's In The Temple" off the succeeding album were any indication.
  • False Credit: Fans nowadays generally know that the bassline to "Livin' on a Prayer" was played not by Alec John Such, but his future replacement Hugh McDonald. Other accounts give McDonald credit for the entire Slippery When Wet, New Jersey, and Keep the Faith albums, with the band's episode of Behind the Music claiming that Alec "stopped contributing to the band's albums" long before his dismissal from the band.
  • He Also Did: Besides playing keyboards for the band, David Bryan is a Tony Award-winning musician; he wrote the music and lyrics for Memphis and the musical adaptation of The Toxic Avenger.
  • Invisible Advertising: Aside from lyric videos of all tracks note  of Burning Bridges and the Asian mini-tour that followed, Word of God has it that the album received little promotion as it was meant to fulfill a contractual obligation with Mercury Records and was going to be their last release under the label.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Subverted with "Cadillac Man", but only because Word of God has it that it was never recorded in the studio. So that means the only recordings of that song are from audience bootlegs from the early 90s, most, if not all of which are available on YouTube. Ditto for "Heart of America," which was only performed once ever (in 1985) and was never recorded in the studio as well.
    • Played straight however with "Mona Lisa," a Bounce-era outtake. Only a 45-second snippet has come out of it, not to mention someone was apparently scammed trying to obtain a copy.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Greatest Hits - The Ultimate Collection.
    • The Updated Re Release of New Jersey in 2014 is the Deluxe Edition. The Super Deluxe Edition has a DVD on it.
  • No Export for You: Two of their compilations, Hard and Hot and Tokyo Road: Best of Bon Jovi were exclusive to Australia and Japan, respectively.
    • Japan has been getting country-exclusive material from the band since 1984.
  • The Pete Best: Hugh McDonald, the current bass player, played on "Runaway." Afterwards, Alec John Such became the bassist, then after the latter was sacked in 1994, McDonald replaced him. He has also claimed to have played in every Bon Jovi album except for 7800° Farenheit.
    • A lesser example: Richie Sambora isn't the band's first guitarist, Dave Sabo is.
  • Reclusive Artist: After getting kicked out in 1994, bassist Alec John Such basically vanished from the public eye, supposedly to open up a custom bike shop. He has only performed publicly twice in the last 20 years, for two songs with the rest of the band. Other than that, he was not heard from again until his June 2022 death.
  • Technology Marches On: Check out the bulky computer monitor and flip-phones in the "It's My Life" music video.
  • Troubled Production: The "Blaze of Glory" video was chaotic. They had to have a drive-in movie theater built from scratch in the middle of the Utah desert. Getting the screens and cars all lifted onto the butte was a complicated process. It proved to be obscenely expensive, so much so that nobody who worked on the video can tell you exactly how much it cost. Jon Bon Jovi had to perform on the edge of a cliff, which proved to be a dangerous shot. The crew had to cope by drinking margaritas on set.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • The country version of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" was originally planned as a duet with Keith Urban, who was also to play banjo on it. However, Jon Bon Jovi thought that Urban's voice was too close to his own.
    • New Jersey was originally envisioned as a double album called Sons of Beaches. The demos for that album were released as the second disc for the New Jersey Deluxe and Super Deluxe editions in 2014.
    • Sex Sells began as Jon's solo album slated for release in 1999, but many of the songs were re-recorded with the band. The working title would later be changed into One Wild Night (which would be later used on their live album in 2001). Three of the tracks made in onto Crush which would be released a year later. The posters advertising Sex Sells can be seen throughout the music video of Real Life.
    • "They're recording tonight's show for a part of our live album which is gonna be next."
    • "Livin' On A Prayer" would have just been another outtake hadn't it been for Richie persuading Jon to keep the song.
    • Avicii and Jon Bon Jovi collaborated on a song in 2014, but nothing came out of it.
  • Word of God: Producer John Shanks revealed on Twitter that he played the guitars on Burning Bridges, as the album doesn't come with any credits. They did list the credits on the band's website a week after the release though.
    • Phil X has stated over Twitter that he did not play on This House Is Not For Sale's Title Track. John Shanks did.

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