Bon Jovi - Should We Care? (Part Two)
FROM WWW.CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM:
The heated Classic Rock website debate continues.
Yesterday we asked the all-important question (or, alternatively, the not-important-in-the-slightest question): Bon Jovi – should we care?
Malcolm Dome reckons we should. In case you missed it, you can read Malc’s caring, sharing BJ opinion piece here.
Now Dave Ling presents his counter view. To wit: we most definitely shouldn’t.
Take it away, Dave!
Firstly, allow me to lay my cards on the table. I used to be a huge fan of Bon Jovi. I was among the first British followers to pick up on the band’s self-titled debut in 1984, catching them several times supporting Kiss.
For their follow up, 7800° Fahrenheit, my friends and I travelled around the country sleeping in the back of a van to experience multiple British shows. I was present at the famous Dominion Theatre gig in London (23.5.85) during which the power went off and Jon Bon Jovi kept the crowd – and his mother, in the royal box – entertained as the problem was fixed. JBJ saves the day… and he loves his mum – great stuff.
Nobody could deny the fact that Slippery When Wet (1986) and New Jersey (’88) remain among the classiest and enduring commercial rock albums ever made.
For myself and, I suspect, thousands like me, there were two things that caused things to go horribly wrong. In the first instance, JBJ cut his hair and lost the plot with Keep The Faith – its credibility-chasing title cut, at least.
Then Jon showed his true colours in a bust-up with Skid Row, the fellow New Jersey-ites that he and Richie Sambora had discovered and turned into stars by signing them to their Underground Music Company. When a disagreement over the spoils from the Skids’ album sales spilled over into a fistfight between JBJ and Sebastian Bach, the latter seemed to sum up his rival’s character by stating that too much of Jon’s time was spent “worrying how to how to turn a $69 million fortune into $71 million”.
The increasingly bland records that Bon Jovi would go on to make suggested that Bach’s assessment was right on the money. These Days [1995] was horrid. 2000’s Crush? Well, apart from the single It’s My Life (co-penned with Britney Speaks hitmaker Max Martin), the thing should darned well have been crushed.
Back in 1990, JBJ tried his hand at the solo market. Even with the help of Jeff Beck and Elton John, the resulting Blaze Of Glory was a prize turkey. Guitarist Richie Sambora, meanwhile, showed Jon up badly with the superior quality of his own record, Stranger In This Town, the following year. For the record, it has also been alleged that Sambora, unlike Bon Jovi, returned his share of the Skid Row money to the group.
JBJ has also tried his hand at acting – let’s just say it was a bad move.
In recent years, the credibility of Bon Jovi (the band) has taken one helluva pounding. 2002’s Bounce was a transparent and dismally doomed attempt to tap back into the group’s signature sound. Have A Nice Day (2005) had one good song – its title cut. Then the band ‘went country’ with Lost Highway in 2007. Pass the sickbag, pur-lease.
Now short-haired and lost in the champagne and stock exchange lifestyle that the band initially mocked – in 1985, they told Kerrang!: “We’re not 40-year-old guys with toupées that pretend believe in the kids, driving around in Ferraris and living in mansions. We know what it’s like to touch the kids in the first row” – JBJ appears to see himself as a celebrity-cum-political campaigner with an occasional sideline in music.
I’ve yet to hear the band’s new album, The Circle, but my old mate Malcolm Dome’s assertion that “it isn’t all that bad” damns it with such faint praise, I simply cannot rid myself of the mental image of JBJ counting the Zeros it will bring him.
After the final indignity of appearing on The X Factor – and being upstaged by JLS, of all people, who appeared with a bigger and better stage production later on in the same show – Bon Jovi are charging anything from £45 (for places at the back of the hall), to £200 (for floor-level seating) to an outrageous £1,275 (for those with a decent view of Jon Bon Jovi’s nasal hair) for tickets to see them during a residency – not an actual tour – at London’s O2 Arena. And despite all the moans ‘n’ groans in the newspapers, the added dates suggest that people are actually paying those prices… unbelievable.
In conclusion any band that elects to call their boxed set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong can only be accused of unbearable smugness. Also, if the mathematics are correct, it’s a fairly safe bet that quite a few of those they refer to must be hearing impaired…
– Dave Ling
Should we care? The answer is unmistakable…we should and WE DO!
Otherwise why would The Circle be a #1 album, the video #2 as of right now and oh yeah, the top selling tour for Lost Highway.
People who are trying to compare SWW or NJ to The Circle, apparently are still living in the 80’s. Wake up people! This is 2009 and music has changed. People who are looking for a real rock album will find it in The Circle. I can hear big stadium songs with sing-alongs that have guitar riffs that reference back to the 80’s. You can’t go wrong with this album.
And comparing them to Maiden, Metallica or anyone else is absurd. There is no comparison. How on earth can you compare has-beens with Jovi who constantly evolve and have #1 hits 25 years later?
And I just don’t understand what the big deal is that they played X-Factor or whatever it’s called. They played American Idol here in the States and we didn’t have any of the crap being said over here that you people are saying over there. Maybe you people are the snobs. To me, its great marketing. Well-done!
And just in case anyone comes at me with It’s not cool to like BJ, they’re not a mans band”, I talked to two guys in their 20’s in the pit at Giants Stadium who said that they have never been to a more “rockin’ show”. Guys…in their 20’s.
Oh, btw, it’s not cockiness, it is in fact, TRUTH. 100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans aren’t wrong!