I've been a long time fan of Bon Jovi, going back to when Slippery When Wet was their then current album. Although 'These Days' (sorry) they might not be achieving the heights they managed with Slippery and New Jersey they can still pen a fine tune and, having seen them in 2006, they can put on an excellent show drawing from their now quite large back catalogue.
With such a stock of tunes to draw from it's not too surprising that a retrospective album should come out. A greatest hits collection? Already done that with Crossroads (which cheekily included a Jon Bon Jovi solo song) so maybe a live album? Well yeah, please. Perhaps with an accompanying DVD? Sadly not, what we instead get is a reworked collection of songs from their days gone by. In itself an intriguing concept - something Anthrax managed with Aplomb when they re-recorded Belladonna-era songs with John Bush on vocals - but in this instance not brilliantly executed.
Not one reworking improves on the original version and while some are tolerable, others simply make you yearn for the version you're used to in place of the sometimes barely recognisable versions on this album. It would be one thing for a covers band to mess up a classic but to do it to your own songs?
All in all this still has a curiosity factor attached to it and might be worth getting at eBay prices (or downloading - from a reputable legal source obviously) to satisfy that and also for completeness' sake but don't expect to be listening to it too often.