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Riding the wake of hair metal fame, Bon Jovi’s
Slippery When Wet has sold over 26 million copies
since its release in 1986, and songs like Livin’
on a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name have forever
been engraved into the hair metal/pop metal anthems
of the eighties. To some, these songs represent one
of the lowest times for rock music. For others, myself
included, they represent a time when musicians could
still play their instruments, and fans wouldn’t
fall asleep when a great guitar solo was played.
Now that the hair band scene is over, it is very hard
for bands like Bon Jovi to figure out what to do with
their music. Apparently, Bon Jovi decided to go Country.
As a result, his latest record, Lost Highway has some
catchy hooks, beautiful ballads and outstanding guitar
solos, but there is also a tedious similarity between
each song on the album. Fortunately, the overall feeling
you get by the end of the album (mostly thanks to
a great last song) is a good one.
The first two songs are fairly catchy as long as you
don’t have a bias to country/pop music, and
the third song, is a slower song that would be this
album’s “Bed of Roses”, with a nice
emotional progression from the beginning of the song
to the end that for some reason has a bit of a U2
vibe to it.
The song that Bon Jovi does with Big and Rich called
We Got It Goin’ On is really nothing that special
except for the awesome talk box solo from Bon Jovi’s
guitarist, Richie Sambora. A Seat Next To You is another
pretty good ballad with a very sweet sounding harmony
between Bon Jovi and Hillary Lindsey. Till We Aint’
Strangers Anymore is probably the best song on the
album, featuring the wonderfully rich, sweet, and
powerful voice of Leann Rimes (I’m not endorsing
her albums here, just her voice) as she sings a duet
with Bon Jovi, and an emotionally vibrant solo from
Sambora. It’s a shame that it has such a similar
feel to the other ballads on the album because by
the time you reach it, the sound is a bit tiresome,
but the song on its own, is really gorgeous.
After the duet with Rimes, the album begins to sound
like it is just repeating itself with the next two
songs, The Last Night, and One Step Closer, and loses
a lot of its momentum. The last song, I Love This
Town, is a bluesy/country sounding song that really
picks the album up from mediocrity and ends it on
a great note that definitely will have your feet tapping
and your hands playing air guitar along with Sambora’s
best solo on the album.
The songs that I have not mentioned that are on
the album, are all pretty average and sound a little
too much alike, but there are a few songs on the album
that really make up for the mediocrity of the rest
of the album. Bon Jovi has definitely changed his
style a lot (except for his very run of the mill lyrics),
and that’s ok with me. He’s one of the
few major rock artists coming out of the eighties
that is still making music and doing it with almost
as much flare as when he started.
Key Tracks: Till We Aint’ Strangers Anymore,
I Love This Town
Reviewed by Mark Chenoweth
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