bon jovi your opinions

[wonderwall]

do you like bon jovi or do you think there just Another run of the mill soft rock band if so what album /single do you like.Ive found myself strangely listening to the these days album lately?

[Shireblogger]

I've always rated "Slippery When Wet" (1986), but it's the only album of their's I own, because I think they're rather formulaic.

I will, however, be buying the forthcoming Greatest Hits album, because there'll be some decent singles on it.

[raliverpool]

I think the perfect description of them was by a Manic Street Preacher (I forget whether it was James Dean Bradfield or Nicky Wire):

"Bon Jovi are the Westlife of Rock".


Minimal talent, inferior to similar bands around at the time, but very successful because of their good looks and media corporate whoring (especially the "Tom Cruise of Rock" Jon Bon Jovi). Yet are still going today and are very popular with a lot of people even though they very quickly lost what little credibility they once had and are despised by music critics to the extent that they make Duran Duran seem like REM.

To be fair Bed Of Roses; Keep The Faith; It's My Life are good songs, but the likes of Living On A Prayer (= ghastly rock music for X-Factor fans - Sweet Child O' Mine it is not); Always (how did Celine; Mariah or Whitney never get their hands on this overwrought emotional tripe); and even the sloganistic Have A Nice Day are awful sub Aerosmith meets Bruce Springsteen at there most banal.

[Earl Purple]

I have the Keep The Faith album and it's good, and it's a total insult to compare them to Westlife.

Living On A Prayer is a classic piece of anthemic pop-rock but you are too much trying to fit them into a category where they don't belong. There is no point trying to compare them to Aerosmith or Guns N Roses or Metallica because they are a different band and make different music.

They have always been hated by music critics for exactly that reason - they don't fit into their categories - and that is often too much of a problem with rock-pop.

[suedehead]

Not a fan at all. Formulaic American soft rock at its very worst.

[raliverpool]

Sept 2, 2010 20:27:47 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

There is no point trying to compare them to Aerosmith or Guns N Roses or Metallica because they are a different band and make different music.

Agreed. Aerosmith; Guns N'Roses (when they were a band, and not an Axl Rose vanity project) & Metallica made great music.

To me comparing Bon Jovi with those great rock acts, let alone Led Zeppelin; Black Sabbath; Deep Purple; Van Halen is like comparing Westlife with The Beatles; Rolling Stones; etc.

There is a very good reason why rock critics don't like Bon Jovi and it is that they are a bunch of pretty boys who perform their dumbed down Dylan/Springsteen-esque earnest lyrics over bland fomuliac soft rock (not a patch on the likes of Journey; Foreigner; Def Leppard) marketed to the mothers and daughters who love American Idol & X-Factor today.

Put it this way do you seriously think Bon Jovi would have sold shedloads of records to the mothers of Justin Bieber fans if they looked like big ugly men with greasy hair and bad teeth?

[o]

Name me a rock band that have ugly men with greasy hair and bad teeth?
I liked them as a teenager, sounds a bit dated now at times, but they are still classic songs, and to put it down to them just being pretty is fairly patronising really. Do Westlife write their own songs? At the end of the day they can play live and put on a great live show. Def Leppard did ok with a 1 arm drummer in the US! And I'd say that Aerosmith and Guns n Roses were sold on the sex factor as well with their lead singers.

[wonderwall]

Sept 3, 2010 10:29:22 GMT 1 o said:

Name me a rock band that have ugly men with greasy hair and bad teeth?
I liked them as a teenager, sounds a bit dated now at times, but they are still classic songs, and to put it down to them just being pretty is fairly patronising really. Do Westlife write their own songs? At the end of the day they can play live and put on a great live show. Def Leppard did ok with a 1 arm drummer in the US! And I'd say that Aerosmith and Guns n Roses were sold on the sex factor as well with their lead singers.

totally agree they have some great songs in there back catalogue very talented songwriters.

[Smurfie]

I'm not sure the comment was a criticism of their writers rather than their sound - you may have to admit they have been pretty cut and paste since 1986 with their hits as have Westlife since 1999. They have been coffee-table-lite for many many years for a certain generation. A bit like Def Leppard.

[Earl Purple]

Def Leppard did not become successful in the UK at least until AFTER Bon Jovi had, and Whitesnake also made a spectacular comeback around that time. Bon Jovi pretty much set the path, and it isn't like they took someone else successful and just copied them. Yeah, they probably had influences in Deep Purple etc but they weren't just a copy band of them.

They didn't only appeal to the people you have suggested and not only for those reasons. People liked their music. I liked it enough to buy one of their albums.

[darkstar79]

Sept 2, 2010 19:06:10 GMT 1 raliverpool said:

Bon Jovi are the Westlife of Rock

That's insulting Westlife a lot ;D

[Earl Purple]

Apart from Sweet Child Of Mine and possibly November Rain I don't really rate Guns N Roses that much actually. I'm not sure it was a great idea releasing two "Use Your Illusion" albums at the same time, perhaps there is one good album's worth in there.

As for great Bon Jovi songs: I can make many that I put in that category

- You Give Love A Bad Name
- Living On A Prayer
- Wanted Dead Or Alive
- Bad Medicine
- Keep The Faith
- Bed Of Roses
- In These Arms
- Dry County
- Always
- Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

That's enough to be getting on with in the first 9 years of their career, and many of the ones I missed weren't bad either.

[TheThorne]

Sept 3, 2010 10:29:22 GMT 1 o said:

Name me a rock band that have ugly men with greasy hair and bad teeth?
.

Iron Maiden
Motorhead
AC-DC

But on this topic I half agree with Earl P, Bon Jovi introduced a generation to rock music, 'LivinG On A Prayer ' was overplayed in 1987 never mind now but the less played track slike 'You Give Love a Bad Name' and 'WanteD dead Or Alive' still sound great.

and yes Def Leppard,Whitesnake, Kiss etc all had hits in 1987 thanks to Bon Jovi getting US rock into the single charts,also thanks to Europe as well but lets not mention them 2 much.

As for the patronage of Journey they are closer to Westlife than Bon Jovi ever were most of their music was super bland. It was actually said at the time dont know who 'US have Journey, we have Bros they dont want our rubbish and we dont want theirs'

As for Bon Jovi I loved them, then I thought they were ok, then I paid them no attention and now I quite like them again.

[Earl Purple]

Iron Maiden and Motorhead were heavy metal bands. Bon Jovi were rock, not metal.

Not sure whether I'd call AC/DC metal.

Bon Jovi were more in the style of Alice Cooper and Kiss who preceded them.

[TheThorne]

ok I see the point ugly rock bands hmmmm Toto

www.moondancejam.com/images/bandspage/07toto.jpg [/img]

[Earl Purple]

Whatever, I don't think their success was down to their looks. I think people liked their music.

[raliverpool]

OK, first things first I'm not trying to upset anyone, everyone is entitled to their musical opinions as Brian Eno once said "There are only three types of music: Music I like; Music I don't like and music I'm indifferent to". That is something I truly believe in, so if I'm coming across as a music snob I apologise in advance.

But ..... Firstly, Bon Jovi released two albums 1984's Bon Jovi & 1985's 7800° Fahrenheit which only reached USA#43 & USA#39 respectively (hardly on a par with contemporaries - Journey whom had already had 4 USA Top 10 albums; or Def Leppard - 1983's Pyromania spent 9 weeks at #2 in the USA behind some album you might have heard of called Thriller; Foreigner had 5 consecutive US Top 5 albums; etc), before their blockbusting 28 million + counting "Slippery When Wet" album in 1986.

The difference for Bon Jovi was the utilisation of top rock songwriter Desmond Child. Whom was recommended to the band by both Kiss and Ratt whom Bon Jovi had supported on tours.

Tunesmith Desmond Child co-wrote Bon Jovi's two breakthrough USA#1 smash hits "Livin' on a Prayer", "You Give Love a Bad Name" (as well as two other tracks) which set up the album to global appeal. He has since co-written with Bon Jovi: "Bad Medicine", "Born to Be My Baby", "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", "Keep the Faith", "Something for the Pain", "This Ain't a Love Song", "Real Life", "One Wild Night", "All About Lovin' You", "Misunderstood" & "(You Want To) Make a Memory". A pretty hefty chunk of their best singles. But lately they have been collaborating with songwriting/producer John Shanks (Sheryl Crow; Melissa Etheridge; Take That; Michelle Branch; Ashlee Simpson; Jewel; Natasha Bedingfield & Miley Cyrus) on their last three albums.

For the info Desmond Child's other most well known songs include: Kiss' "I Was Made For Lovin' You"; Aerosmith's "Angel", "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", "Crazy"; Joan Jett & The Blackhearts' "I Hate Myself for Loving You"; Alice Cooper "Poison"; Michael Bolton's "How Can We Be Lovers?"; Cher's "Just Like Jesse James", "Save Up All Your Tears"; Robbie Williams' "Old Before I Die"; Billie Myers' "Kiss the Rain"; Hanson's "Weird"; Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca", "She Bangs"; & Katy Perry's "Waking Up in Vegas".

I've always liked art-rock which means that a musical act must be self contained. Hence, most of the major great music rock acts did not need outside help when writing their own original material. Lennon & McCartney did not; Jagger & Richards did not; Led Zeppelin did not (if you ignore some of their traditional folk & blues steals); The Who's Pete Townsend did not; Black Sabbath didn't; AC/DC do not; Nirvana didn't; Metallica do not; etc. As a result I think Bon Jovi are not a credible rock outfit as they need assistance from songwriting producers responsible for "She Bangs"; "The Climb"; ""Pieces of Me" & "How Can We Be Lovers?

That and the fact they lead the ghastly "Hair Metal" soft "cock" rock resurgence of the second half of the 1980s the worst musical genre in the history of rock music IMHO with the exception of Emo and it is easy for me to dislike them.

No wonder in a 2003 interview Simon Cowell was asked to name his favourite rock band and he replied "Bon Jovi". But hey Simon Cowell in his "I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But..."2003 autobiography described David Bowie & Kate Bush as the two British male and female acts that he thinks are "pretentious" and "overrated" and "I don't see what people see in their music"; Radiohead as "hideous miserable non music" and Bjork as "the worst singer of all time". But hey who am I to argue with the multi-millionaire responsible for Westlife, Robson & Jerome, Teletubbies, Zig and Zag, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; turning down signing The Spice Girls; passing up the option of signing Robbie Williams as a solo act to BMG (post Take That); dropping Kylie Minogue from BMG and saying that "she is past it and should go back to acting"....

[Earl Purple]

Jim Steinman wrote most of the best songs for Meat Loaf and also wrote a lot of great songs for others. For me they remain classic rock even though the singer didn't write them (and everybody knew Steinman wrote them at the time), and I haven't stopped liking this music even though Jim Steinman later on in his career produced Take That (Never Forget) and co-wrote a song that was a big hit for Boyzone (No Matter What). I was personally rather disappointed with Whistle By The Wind but as with many songwriters who couldn't reproduce their best later on, it doesn't diminish his earlier work.

Desmond Child was clearly a great songwriter even if not everything he wrote was great. Although these were all "co-writes" so you just wonder how much they all wrote. Plenty of the major rock bands of the time seemed to use him. (And actually, Nirvana covered songs by the Vaselines, as I discovered when I looked into that band's history further).

[TheThorne]

Yes that is a good point but the rock acts in the 80s were getting all the big songwriters working for them other examples are Heart,Starship,Aerosmith(already mentioned) and all three were credible rock bands in the 70s. The trend at the time was big Diane Warren tracks etc that now get given to boy bands and pop artists.

Saying that Bon Jovi had not had much credibility but they are still great live performers and if I listed my favourite songs of 2010 none would hold a candle to their 1986-1989 output.

btw I love it how we still argue NM even when I agree with you lol

[borneoman]

for me, it was also a bit frustrating that all these rock bands needed other people to write their ballads. Like Heart's Alone was penned by this Steinbeck guy that also did Madonna's Like a Virgin. And Diane Warren wrote for like everybody, from Aerosmith (I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing) to Heart (I Didn't Wanna Miss You) and then some pop acts too like Milli Vanilli or Belinda Carlisle, so a ballad by Bon Jovi could have been sung by anyone really...