There are a lot of worse bands, and you can’t argue with all their hits. Pretty lightweight material but not without merit.
Not at all a fan of BJ, but even I have Living On A Prayer on my iPod. Those fuckers have staying power. They’ve remained somewhat relevant for thirty years or so, and come across as Jersey guys that stayed true to their roots.
Unlike KISS who seemed to be purely about making money, I get the feeling that BJ actually cared about the music and put together some pretty good records, even though they really aren’t my cup of tea.
I’m pretty sure the first Unplugged was done by Squeeze, one of my all time fave bands.
Come on back and let me know what you think.
Overall, I’d say it’s pretty solid. It’s nowhere near as anthemic as the previous two albums, and by 92 I was in to much harder stuff, but there are a few stand outs. I was surprised how good “Bed of Roses” is- I didn’t like it much at the time. “If I Was Your Mother”, while being an extremely cringe-worthy title upon first glance, had some really interesting change ups in it. I also like “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”. I can hear “Allentown” influences in “Dry County”, and Richie’s got some sweet guitars, particularly on the fast solo (and the rhythms behind that solo are very different for a Bon Jovi song up to that point.) The album seems like their first “mature” album, where they weren’t just writing for 80s fans. “Fear” is also a very different sound for them.
I also hear some songs that sound like rewrites of previously popular formulas: “Woman In Love” has a “Bad Medecine” vibe in parts, and even the opening of “I Believe” seems to follow the convention on the previous two albums of the first track fading in with what, for lack of a better term, I’ll call “pump up music”. There was another song on there that reminded me of a previous hit, but I’ll need to listen again to remember which.
As for “Blame It on The Love Of Rock & Roll”, I tend to look at songs where musicians talk in first person of how much they can’t help but rock as a sign of being out of ideas and/or past their prime. Bret Michaels does this crap constantly, Brad Delp did it a few years back in a new Boston song, Ozzy’s been doing it for 15 years now. This song is a paint-by-numbers stinker.
Funny enough, but then “Save a Prayer” comes along to end the album and starts off with a mono “Love For Sale” sound, so I’m thinking AH-HA! He’s doing it again! Then the song changed into something that sounds like no Bon Jovi song before it. Nothing too cutting edge by today’s standards, but very different for the time, and especially for them. I really ended up liking this song a lot.
All in all though, it’s good, and I’ll listen to it again. Thanks for the suggestion!
Reviving this zombie to add the following:
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
-waves lighter-
A fan vote, correct?
Indeed, plus the fact that last night (2017_12-12) I heard they’ve been nominated (again) for the class of 2018
Overall, I like the band. I’m on the opposite corner of the nation and I’ve got just about every album. I generally agree with the Pup’s opinions but I’ll add a couple notes:
Up through New Jersey, they were very clearly pandering to the college crowd – their general age-group. Then they did Keep the Faith and showed they weren’t just loud and shallow like every other glam/hair/early “metal” band out there; they could really lay down lyrics with conscience & criticism (as well as stereotypical ballads that would be sure to sell).
And then they took a break. There were lots of reasons and there was a lot of speculation that they were just plain done. And during that hiatus the label put out the first of many compilation albums and, while it seemed largely a move to milk the cow before it completely died, it also highlighted their best products so far and (at least in the Japanese version I got) threw in three previously-unreleased tracks, a ballad, an odd piece written from the perspective of a homeless teen, and a rarity for the Japanese market. The thing is those three additions showed different faces of the Band that normal fans didn’t get to see. Looking back, that was a perfectly-named album because, as one does at a CrossRoads, it was time to look back and see how far they had come and what they had achieved and review the highlights of their effort. And it was also a point at which to consider new directions and even whether-or-not to go separate ways.
I was still in Japan when These Days hit the CD stores. There were lines for blocks and mine was a tiny little backwater town and everyone seemed to want that album more than anything else. Kids were skipping school to stay in that line – and that’s a pretty drastic thing to do for a school kid in Japan!
These Days was their new direction. I heard the first track and realized, “They’re back, but they’ve grown up.”
And the albums from then on haven’t been the same old college-oriented Let’s Party Like There’s No Tomorrow!!! * tracks from start to finish. They still put out one or two of those with each album, but there’s clearly a lot more maturity in their thoughts and lyrics (excepting, perhaps, the eponymous Burning Bridges).
Still, the music critics/experts lump them in with what is now called Power Pop, along with Def Leppard, Triumph, and others who outlasted the Glam Metal/Hair Band fad but haven’t hewed closely enough to Blues to satisfy the purists. Me, I stopped making distinctions back in the 1970’s when it was all Rock and hadn’t yet splintered into Pop/Rock/Glam/Metal/Soul/HipHop/whatever. And it’s still all rock n roll to me.
On the one hand, every single album they’ve done has had at least one song I didn’t even bother to rip to my collection. But, spinning it more positively, there’s only ever been one song per album that I haven’t absolutely loved.
Do they deserve to be included in the R&RHOF? Yes, definitely. Realize, however, that due to the odd rules of nomination and acceptance, getting into the R&RHOF isn’t necessarily considered The Holy Grail of a band’s success. It’s a nice distinction above tons of also-ran bands that never made it so far, but the industry and genre are built on fads and fashion anyway so there’s no unwavering standard for excellence built into the inclusion process.
–G!
*Apologies to Billy Joel for manglng his chorus.