Bon Jovi

Emerging in the wake of the '80s pop-metal boom, Bon Jovi's early recordings fused the crass popcraft of Journey and Starship with the average-Joe populism of Bruce Springsteen for a sound that aspired to rock & roll grandeur without achieving it. Bon Jovi and 7800¡ Fahrenheit understand the basic formula, but offer little in the way of memorable material, sticking close to pop conventions like heartbreak lyrics and strident, minor-key choruses (although Bon Jovi does at least hint at things to come with "Shot Through the Heart"). The band is nearly redeemed by Slippery When Wet, an album which in its better moments -- "Livin' on a Prayer," say, or "Wanted Dead or Alive" -- actually delivers enough melodic razzle-dazzle to make the band's shameless posturing almost forgivable. Unfortunately, the band's massive sales encouraged the lads to show how little success had changed them, which they did through the bombastic Springsteenisms of New Jersey.

Bon Jovi the band went on hiatus, during which time frontman Jon Bon Jovi released the solo album-cum-soundtrack Blaze of Glory (written for the film Young Guns II), which updates "Wanted Dead or Alive" but otherwise makes the Wild West sound suspiciously like East Jersey. After regrouping, the band quickly returned to form with the cheerfully cliched Keep the Faith, which at least balanced the bombast with the corny but heartfelt ballad "Bed of Roses." Cross Road, a relentlessly tuneful best-of, has charms enough to be a guilty pleasure for all but the most cynical, and even adds to the canon with "Always." (A second best-of, This Left Feels Right, dilutes the catalogue's charm with later and lesser hits.)

From there, the band continued on as if the '90s never happened, cranking out variations on the old formula and somehow continuing to fill arenas (stadiums in its home state). It hardly matters that These Days sounds like it should have been called Those Days (though it's hard not to admire the shamelessness of "Lie to Me"). Destination Anywhere, Jon Bon Jovi's second solo project, sounds more like a collection of demos than a fully-realized album, but it did give the singer the opportunity to flex his melodrama muscles on "August 7, 4:15." Crush is summed up in the chorus to "Two Story Town," which complains of "the same old sights, the same old sounds," but Bounce finds the band briefly revitalized by the tragedy of 9/11. Not that the blunt, jingoistic "Undivided" deserves comparison to the similar-but-superior "The Rising," but it wouldn't be Bon Jovi if the band didn't continue to aspire to Springsteen. (J.D.CONSIDINE)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide