Quote:
Originally Posted by semigoodlookin
I like how Aftermath is slowly becoming a guitar driven album to some. Richie even thought it was, which to me tells me everything. He is not in the zone in a recording aspect for guitar playing, it has been drastically bad on Bon Jovi albums and Jon shouldered the blame. However, Aftermath highlights Richieīs poor guitar work more than anything Bon Jovi has done recently, simply because he was touting it has having extended solos and jamming, which lets be honest it has neither of. By the way, the end of Seven Years is not an extended solo in the slightest.
Perhaps he is getting back into the guitar player way of thinking, this mini tour of his has certainly had a ton of guitar, extended solos, and jamming, even if it has been sloppy. The reason the guitars were poor on recent Bon Jovi records was because Richie was not bringing his game. Why would Jon not include something special that had been laid down by Richie in the studio. Yeah, bin the phenomenal solo because Fast Cars is just perfect on its own.
If Jon was outright stopping him flourishing in the studio, why is Aftermath so bland from a guitarists point of view? Stranger had some magical guitar parts, and so did Undiscovered Soul in its own way, but there is nothing special on Aftermath. We were treated to the same licks endlessly though, or at least the same rehashed ideas, even on the gold standard Seven Years Gone By.
For what itīs worth, I like Aftermath, didnīt love it, but would trade over WAN easily.
Perhaps Richieīs creative process was hampered in the songwriting and not guitar. Perhaps he wanted to go deeper than some of the songs he wrote on, but followed Jonīs vision and wrote what he had to so to speak. Maybe he got tired of that, but certainly not is guitar input.
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To be fair, Burn the candle down, Learning how to fly with a broken wing and Seven years gone have two decent length solos of the shredding variety
each which is almost unheard of for a Bon Jovi track. One of the those songs alone has more guitar work on it than the entire WAN and Circle albums combined.
And live, these tracks definitely have the jamming feel that Richie eluded to.
Even Sugar daddy has some fun guitar stuff on it, so there's 4 decent guitar tracks of Aftermath.
Whereas look at something like ''Happy Now' of The Circle - there's that brief instant where you think there's going to be this huge guitar solo ripping in, and before you even know it, it's over. I almost laughed out loud first time I heard that. Same with the ''GEET-TAR!!1!'' in Born to follow, the first version - before all the fans called the band out on how shit the guitar 'solo' was.
So yeah, I believe of course Richie is in some way told what part he is to play/add to Jon's vision of a particular song. Especially with regards to last few albums and especially WAN - i can only think one song with any memorable guitar in it (I'm With you) and one other with some good work (Army of One).
This is studio work I'm talking about, his live stuff is another discussion - yes, he can be sloppy/unimaginative sometimes, but there have been flashes of brilliance. He's just not consistent anymore.
Andi