Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, coming to Hulu

I think in general if you have a producer that is also a writer and a guitar player, and at the same time you have your guitarist fading away to his substances, what we had is logical. And very, very unfortunate in my eyes. If I had one restrospective wish with the band, it would be to hire a producer for HAND who didn't write songs at the same time.

Would I do same as Jon, in terms of rely more on next best thing instead of less and less present Richie? Probably. And let's not kid ourselves, Richie was really not present anymore since HAND in any comparable way. He came to do songwriting credits, but was relegated more with each new project. Did it even prolong band's career? Perhaps. Perhaps the well was empty. We don't have counterfactuals. But no-one here fell in love with this new "dynamic duo", whatever the narrative was the last decade about reasons of band's downfall.

You can't use that as an excuse. Richie was on his solo tour and came back to work on the album once that had finished. Richie was in good health in 2012, anyone that saw him on his solo tour would testify to that. The band were supposed to be on a break when suddenly Jon decided he wanted to make another record. Tico was already annoyed at this. It just felt like at this point Jon just didn't give a damn about the rest of the band. I honestly feel that bringing everyone back in to do WAN was the beginning of the end with Richie.

I think there is a difference to Richie re-recording guitars on a song that was originall intended for a solo release, to actually working on a Bon Jovi song and not including him. As far as I know there wasn't anything on Crush that didn't feature Richie. I don't really count B-sides and demos.

I think the difference is also that I expect Richie knew that Bobbie was going to play on Wildflower and was ok with it. But if he turned up in the studio and Shanks had already recorded some of his guitar parts, you can imagine that that wouldn't go down well. Shanks has a lot to answer for but to be honest Jon should never have let that happen.

Shanks is not to blame for the change in dynamics, only Jon. If Jon's somehow asked me now to change both Richie and Shanks' roles, I would be in awe. But it's fair that we as fanbase can begrudge this development.

I blame Shanks because he is rather less talented than Richie. I blame Richie for falling of the wagon. I blame Jon for being lazy and relying on his producer, while simultaneously seeing his output becoming stale and not commercially successful.

But the blame game is not the point. Shanks is a talented producer/songwriter/guitar player. Guess what, I am also talented in all those parts. Do any of you even care to listen? No, and that's the point. I don't care. I don't care about Shanks or any other of hundreds talented artists. The dynamic duo and magic was happening between Jon and Richie. Producer was always there to direct that. Not to replace that.

Spot on - Shanks overstepped the mark. Whether that's Jon's fault or Shanks or a combination, we don't know. But Shanks DOES produce artists that he doesn't write with and doesn't play on the record, so you have to think that Jon was pushing in this direction.

I'm not talking exclusively about WAN. The dynamics changed with Shanks completely, starting with HAND. Before, I was thinking his producing is to blame. But I was wrong. He's not "producing" really. He's not there mixing, his hired guns are doing it for him (and this is not quite normal as someone could perhaps guess). He's songwriting and guitar playing guy first (at least for Jovi).

And this is the problem. Because that is Richie's part. Richie should have been songwriting, guitar playing and co-producing exclusively with Jon. With producer on top of that hierarchy, once they hit the studio.

Bon Jovi as a band never had a producer who said: wait, let me pick my guitar and write these lyrics so we can have different bridge and alternative verses. Never. Prove me wrong, but as far as I know, never before Shanks.

Dynamics changed, and coupled with Richie's problems, dynamics changed so dramatically that even the checks, the worldwide tours, the fame, was not enough for Richie. I don't believe he "fell of the wagon" in 2013. It was cumulative of all this in the band, with whatever happening with his daugther also.

True, and that's why I think Jon became complacent and lazy in relying on Shanks too much. In my view, either just make him part of the band and songwriting pal and give someone else power to produce, or let him produce but find some other songwriting pal. Not both.

You all make a compelling argument. I obviously agree regarding Richie and Shanks, and it makes plenty of sense that Richie became tired of this and that was at a reason for him leaving. However, if it was such a problem for him, why has he made it clear he wants to go back? There were strong rumors that he wanted back just months after dropping out. It doesn't make sense if the reason he left was because of how Jon was structuring his creative partnerships.

And while from the point of the consumer, Jon's decision has been garbage music, he may be somewhat vindicated by the fact Richie has had virtually no output for a decade. Would Jon have needed to drag Richie through this period? He found a creative partner who would go along for the ride. Also, Richie is co-writer on enough shit Bon Jovi songs that he would be no guarantee of improving on what we have been given over the last 10 years.

I still fall on Richie being angry about being dragged back to do WAN, an album he may have seen didn't need to be made. At a time when he was focusing on his solo career, no matter successes or lack thereof. And, I have always believed his reasoning regarding his daughter. He overplayed his hand a bit and then Jon closed the door permanently.

Yeah you make good points. I do think Richie was kind of disillusioned with Shanks with time, but when you frame it like that, there were other concerns there, perhaps new cycle being too early as the main one.

And I don't think Richie had antagonism towards Shanks in HAND or LH era, any outside creativity would be first welcomed after 20-25 years of band (I guess). Richie was no guarantee of quality, I agree with that. It's just that if demise had to happen, I'd rather it happens organically with them two, instead of us now arguing counterfactuals and role of producer.

In the end, bucket stops with Jon. I adore the man and I am his biggest critic at the same time. He is to blame for much of developments, as he is also the main and key reason for Jovi's success and longevity as a band. To be a little forgiving, band seems to survive still as a stadium band, no matter the voice, the lack of hits, the lack of guitar player, the vast amount of underwhelming albums. Jon handled this last PR challenge very successfully I would say, and first time he used his own weakness to his strength.

If only this point of view was present when Richie was having challenges, perhaps another direction was possible after LH instead of CEO of major corporation hunting his NFL team.

Loving these points. It's tough without knowing the situation. Wifllower wasn't produced by Shanks and Jon had someone else play on it. That speaks volumes regardless of why or how Richie didn't do it.

No you're right, he played every note on Crush. I count the b-sides because songs were released under the band's name and gives the impression it's the band. I spent my first three or four years as a fan thinking Richie played on Stay etc.

WAN I hope to learn a timeline. We know Richie played all the solos on it and some of the rhythm (You can honestly tell who is who by this point) but did Richie record more that got re-recorded OR did he come in AFTER the fact to lay down his parts.

The timeline gets funky since work on the album started in early 2012 (song writing) I think it was?

Bad CEO, making his most important employee unhappy.

Forcing that record, one of the weakest the band has ever done, only to not buy a football team, onto the band was an incredibly shitty move.

You know, there's an interesting thing to this all. You know The Rolling Stones? When Keith Richards was a full blown junkie in the 70s, Mick Jagger actually wrote a lot with Mick Taylor, their then lead guitar player. Taylor rarely got any songwriting credits (part of why he left) - they still always read Jagger-Richards. But behind the scenes, Jagger was preparing for the scenario in which Richards became unusable due to his issues.

Jon took the wrong page out of the Stones playbook.