New Jersey (Deluxe Edition)

Released in September 1988, New Jersey sent five singles into the Top 10: “Bad Medicine,” “Born to Be My Baby,” “I’ll Be There for You,” “Living in Sin,” and “Lay Your Hands on Me.” Yet the band had originally envisioned the album as a double LP called Sons of Beaches. This 2014 deluxe edition of New Jersey includes the original 12-song release remastered, plus three bonus tracks that were issued as b-sides or CD-single bonus tracks: a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” “Love Is War,” and an acoustic version of “Born to Be My Baby.” From there, 13 demos from the Sons of Beaches project—more than an hour’s worth of music—create a new album of sorts. “Homebound Train” starts with harmonica and a sense of the blues before turning into a full-blown hard rocker. Band harmonies are as strong as ever, and the less produced sessions let the band’s basic chemistry shine through on tracks like “Growing Up the Hard Way,” “Love Hurts,” and “House of Fire.”