But then the video for Wanted Dead Or Alive came out. As JBJ frequently says in concert prior to playing this tune "Please rise for the singing of our national anthem". This song is epic. The first verses are acoustic and mellow and then it erupts with a classic Richie Sambora guitar solo. And I ride! He plays the double neck acoustic guitar and then straps on the electric guitar for the rest of the song! Amazing. The video is like a mini-movie of life on the road as Bon Jovi was in the midst of hitting it big. By this point, I likely had the vinyl of "Slippery When Wet" and I remember my dad taking me to the Exhibition Stadium in Toronto during the summer of 1986 or 87 to see Bon Jovi. It was the loudest concert ever. We were at the train station and we could still hear Wanted Dead Or Alive perfectly. I'm not sure if I have fond memories of this concert but I know I got a killer 3/4 length Bon Jovi shirt that I wore frequently. I think I liked the whole album but in my early days I was all about singles and American Top 40.
"New Jersey" followed in 1988 and I believe I got the cassette of this one as I was onto cassettes by then. Bad Medicine I liked but I started drifting away from music around this time, focusing instead on sports (namely the Toronto Blue Jays, Maple Leafs and Miami Dolphins) because I was going to be a sports commentator when I grew up. The only time I listened to music really between 1988 and 1991, my taste was what you would call "questionable". Paula Abdul, MC Hammer, Wilson Phillips, yikes. Also Roxette but I'm not putting a yikes beside that. Their greatest hits are solid.
In a past blog post, I mentioned that "Wayne's World" and Bohemian Rhapsody got me back into music and "Classic Queen" was my first CD. This was late 1991 or early 1992. I then read or heard Bon Jovi was coming out with a new album after taking 4 years off (during the hiatus JBJ made "Blaze Of Glory" and Richie Sambora made "Stranger In This Town"). The album and first single was titled "Keep The Faith" and it was certainly different from "Slippery" or "New Jersey" fare, but I was pretty into this song. Great lyric, chorus and guitar solo. I picked up the CD and found that the first 5 songs were pretty amazing. I Believe, Keep The Faith, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, In These Arms and Bed Of Roses. Nice front load of potential hit singles. But the song that was the dark horse in this collection was Dry County, a close to 10 minute epic about JBJ's journey on his motorcycle across America during the band's hiatus. It contains a completely unbelievable 2-3 minute Richie Sambora guitar solo and the lyrics are good, almost movie-like. I also enjoyed the last three songs - I Want You (a more contemporary power ballad), Blame It On The Love Of Rock n' Roll and A Little Bit Of Soul. I remember Bon Jovi had an MTV (or MuchMusic) special called Keep The Faith An Evening With Bon Jovi that I taped and watched frequently. Say what you want about Bon Jovi and their cheesiness, etc, but they were a top-notch live act, especially around this time. They had something to prove after being gone for 4 years and watching music seemingly change overnight. Around this time, I made Bon Jovi and supporting Bon Jovi my mission, my cause, if you will. My friends, I feel they sort of liked the music, but they didn't really have a choice. It was being played in my parent's Ford Villager 24/7 whether you liked it or not!
One of the best moments in Bon Jovi worship/collecting during this era was when we hit the HMV superstore in Toronto one weekend in 1993 (this was a big thing for us Burlingtonians) and I saw "Keep The Faith" in the new releases even though it came out in 1992. So I flipped the CD over and noticed there was a bonus track on the album proper (Save A Prayer) and a bonus live / acoustic CD with 8 tracks. For $17, this was a steal. And thus began my trend of re-buying Bon Jovi albums once I found their special or import editions months or years after the real albums came out. This practice continued until "Bounce", where I couldn't find a special import edition. I wore out the album proper from this edition, which kind of angers me because I still don't have a good version of Save A Prayer and this is a really good song. The bonus live disc is still money today - live renditions of In These Arms, Keep The Faith, Bad Medicine and an acoustic Bed Of Roses and Never Say Goodbye. This is my go to version of NSG. In fact, I heard the original on Sirius XM's 80's on 8 the other day and I didn't understand it fully because it had 80's drums and electric guitars.
I went back and picked up "Slippery", "New Jersey", "Blaze Of Glory" and "Stranger In This Town" on CD. Eventually I acknowledged they had albums before "Slippery" and picked up "Bon Jovi" and "7800 Degrees Fahrenheit" (still my least favourite of the pre-2000 era, but has some good songs on it). I also got their CD singles (the only one I'm still missing from the "KTF" era is In These Arms) because they contained live tracks which were awesome. In February 1993, a bunch of us went to see Bon Jovi at Maple Leaf Gardens, and the band filmed the video for In These Arms. I remember we were so pumped for this concert. I think we had to wait 2 or 3 months and we had daily countdowns. Seriously. Then we went to see them again in December 1993 in Hamilton, where they busted out Dry County. I still have all of my concert shirts from this era and I still proudly wear them from time to time.
I re-discovered "New Jersey" and specifically Living In Sin and Blood On Blood during Christmas of 1992. The latter song was about me and my friends, bar none. We adopted it as our anthem. I don't think any of us now are uptown lawyers, or medicine men or even singers in long haired rock and roll bands but listening to this song still takes me back to ball hockey, Sega Genesis, filming music videos, playing shark in my parents' pool. "New Jersey" is really close to "These Days" in being my favourite Bon Jovi album and it certainly deserved the deluxe anniversary treatment it got last summer. Solid reissue that I now realize should have been put on my best of 2014 list as the CD of unreleased demos is the best thing they've released since "These Days". Hindsight!
I used to bring my old school CD player / ghetto blaster into the bathroom and rock out while in the shower. I programmed the best "New Jersey" songs in this order: Blood On Blood, Wild Is The Wind, Stick To Your Guns, ending with Living In Sin. Long showers were the norm back then.
As you can gather, many of their songs from the "KTF" and earlier eras spoke to me as I was getting deeper into high school, dealing with new feelings, girls, etc. Bon Jovi was there for me, these five words they swore to me. They picked me up. I used to love guitar solos in songs because of Richie Sambora. I was disappointed when songs didn't have guitar solos and didn't understand why they wouldn't. I realize that a lot of music I listen to now doesn't have guitar solos but that was pretty much cost of entry for me to like a band between 92 and 95. I was still consuming other music at this time, but none of it really surpassed Bon Jovi in terms of being my favourite (until fall 1995, see blog post #1).
I was so ultra obsessed and overt with my obsession with Bon Jovi (I used to have a "Keep The Faith" baseball hat that I wore to school, without any shame. I have no idea where this went but I really wish I still had it), it came to the point that when people thought of Bon Jovi, they automatically thought of me and vice versa. I think that is still the case and I am okay with it being part of my identity. You know, husband, father, market researcher, writer, Bon Jovi fan. This is fine. It certainly wasn't in vogue (en vogue?) to be a guy who liked Bon Jovi in high school, but I think people just realized it wasn't a gimmick, I actually cared about the music so everyone just accepted it. There is a lesson in there kids and it's be true to yourself!
"Crossroad" the best of Bon Jovi came out in 1994 and contained the monster power ballad Always and the underrated gem Someday I'll Be Saturday Night. The less said about the other "new" song on the collection, Prayer '94, the better (they had a much better acoustic version of this song on the aforementioned Evening With Bon Jovi special). This was a nice stop gap release until "These Days" dropped in the summer of 1995. I remember hearing the first single This Ain't A Love Song in May of 95 and not being blown away, but like the rest of "These Days", it was a grower. "These Days" starts off with Hey God, which is probably Bon Jovi's bleakest tune. It sounds like it came from the grunge era but still holds up today. "These Days" is the last great album made by the band, IMHO, every song is good. No throwaways. It is in my top 10 albums of all time. As an aside, most of my favourite albums are, it's like that scene in the movie (and likely the book, which I've read twice, but it slips my mind) "High Fidelity" with John Cusack where he is arranging his albums autobiographically. A person's favourite music says something about you, but it may not be the most obvious thing.
The title track of "These Days" is probably in my top 20 of all time favourite songs. "These Days" was the first album I put on in my dorm when I got to Guelph in September 1995. I missed my floor's frosh week ceremony because we were seeing Bon Jovi at the Molson Amphitheater. Definitely in my top 5 best concerts of all time, close to a 3 hour show, many "These Days" tracks included, the band was on fire. It is here where the band reached the cross roads (pardon the pun). In North America, "KTF" and "TD" were moderately successful, certainly not as successful as their earlier albums from the 80's but they were an 80's band surviving and in my opinion, thriving making the music they wanted to make.
But then they took another hiatus. JBJ made some movies (the best being "The Leading Man" and "No Looking Back"), a great solo album in "Destination Anywhere" (not successful commercially in North America but it is really quite good), Richie made another solo album, "Undiscovered Soul" (definitely worth checking out) and married Heather Locklear. Tico started a line of kids clothing and such called Rock Star Baby. The only Bon Jovi band music to come out between 1995-1999 was the song Real Life from the movie EdTV. This song was somewhat disappointing in that it contained no Richie Sambora guitar solo. Although it was underwhelming, I still spent what little money I had at that time buying the soundtrack and playing the shit out the song, almost willing myself to like it.
For me, new Bon Jovi albums were akin to a new Star Wars movie being released. They were events. So when I heard they were coming out with a new album called "Crush" in the summer of 2000, I was all in. Then the first single It's My Life dropped and I loved it instantly. Total throwback to Livin' On A Prayer, they even slid Tommy & Gina and the wah-wah guitar pedal back in to connect the dots. This was a better effort than Real Life forsure. I was pumped for the album to be released and it happened to come out the same Tuesday as the Hip's Music @ Work, so HMV was opening at midnight. I was there, despite having to work the next day. Whatever, I was young then. I bought "Crush" and I'm sure I bought some additional albums (not the Hip though, I was against them then for some reason. Likely because I hated the song New Orleans Is Sinking), got home at 1am and put it on.
And on that note, we'll move onto Part II of the saga...stay tuned...
