January 21 1984
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Runaway
Shot Through the Heart
Get Ready
Bon Jovi was the subject of one of the first Listening Post series. My opinion of them hasn’t changed: Jon would latch on to whatever was popular at the time and try to emulate it as best he could and make money selling as many records and tickets as he could. Sometimes that would work (for me) and other times it was a disaster. Incidentally, this is the same template followed by none other than David Bowie. Instead of hearing what was happening in the mainstream and aping it, Bowie would hear what was bubbling in the underground and appropriate it. Is that very different? Well, it makes Bowie seem like more of an innovator than a practitioner and it makes Jon seem much more callous and craven but they both intersect in the big arena pop 80s so I would say they are two sides of a very particular coin. Don’t @ me.
This is the hair metal pop glam power pop entry.
The lead single still crackles with Springfieldian urgency. No wonder, Tim Pierce played guitar on it. Roy Bittan played keys. It was made for 1984 radio. And it worked. A few other songs hit the exact power rock for me, “Roulette”, “Shot Through the Heart”, ‘Come Back” & “Get Ready”.
Are they great? They might not even be that good, but they get me right in my Working Class Dog heart. The clunkers pull the alums rating along with the pedestrian, formula of many of the songs.
It's a little bit Leppard, a little bit Bay City Rollers/Hudson Brothers, a touch of Journey and a whole lot of Rick Springfield.
I’m okay with that.
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