In summary:
New Jersey attempts to capitalize on the success of the band’s previous album. It’s great when it works, it just doesn’t work often enough.
New Jersey receives 8/11.
★★★★★★★★
How do you follow an album as big as Slippery When Wet?
That’s the daunting task which faced U.S. rockers Bon Jovi as they geared up to record their fourth studio LP.
They decided their best play would be to stick to the bombastic 80s hair metal sound which had worked so well for them last time out, and who can blame them?
New Jersey features some top notch guitar work from axeman Richie Sambora, and 35-years later it remains the last rock record to have 5 singles make the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, so the fact this album still disappoints only goes to show how high the bar had been set by it’s predecessor.
You see, there’s nothing inherently wrong with New Jersey.
It’s a fine album, and there are plenty of great moments scattered throughout it’s 12-tracks, yet it struggles to escape the enormous shadow cast over it by Slippery When Wet for long enough to let the material shine on its own.
Several tracks stutter and trip over themselves as they try to combine verses and choruses which, as catchy as they may be, simply don’t belong together.
It’s most notable in the awkward key changes which interrupt the flow of tracks like Wild Is The Wind and Love Is War, and I think we can all take a second to appreciate the fact that the fantastic chorus of Living In Sin deserved to be surrounded by a superior arrangement.
So why did this happen?
Well, the truth is it should’ve have happened at all.
In a ideal world, Bon Jovi would’ve learned from following up their debut with a rushed second album three years earlier, but they didn’t. Once again they bowed to record company pressure (who wanted them to strike while the iron was hot in order to continue the momentum of their third LP) when they simply weren’t ready to do so, and the album suffers for it.
It’s also the LP where frontman Jon Bon Jovi decided he wants to be a cowboy.
Yes, he played with this formula on Wanted: Dead Or Alive two years earlier, but trust me, there are so many Wild West references on New Jersey it could be a concept album.
The cowboy-isms provide us with a couple of standout tracks, like the huge Stick To Your Guns and the anthemic Blood On Blood (which Bon Jovi and Sambora consider their proudest song-writing achievement to date), but it mostly falls flat on it’s face (Homebound Train, Ride Cowboy Ride, and the cringe-worthy bar-room chatter of Love For Sale).
Anyway, those cowboy references would stick with him for the rest of his musical career.
For the highlights, you need look no further than the singles.
Three of them (the gospel-infused Lay Your Hands On Me, party rock anthem Bad Medicine, and stupendously good ballad I’ll Be There For You) have become mainstays of their live setlist, and helped them to crack the Top 20 in several countries.
Each one does a great job of bottling the essence of the 80’s hair metal scene, with Bon Jovi representing a nicer, more acceptable version of Motley Crue who you could introduce to your parents without worrying they were going to snort cocaine off your grandmother’s favourite picture.
In some ways, New Jersey could be seen as a “last hoorah” for 80s hair metal.
By the time their next album came around (1992’s Keep The Faith), the band had seen Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction reset rock back to its gritty roots, and then Nirvana’s Nevermind stamp out the hair metal scene for good.
To their credit, this album also demonstrates why Bon Jovi were one of the few bands able to survive such a radical shift. Because New Jersey features a handful of songs which most of their contemporaries would’ve considered career highlights, yet for Bon Jovi those tracks were merely the latest in a very long line of hit singles which would eventually make for one of the best greatest hits collections ever made.
Russ’ re-worked playlist:
Maybe it’s the autism in me, but I’ve always been good at re-working album playlists to create a superior listening experience. What can I say, Superman got laser eyes and I got this! So here’s how you should listen to Bon Jovi: New Jersey (1988) for maximum effectiveness:
- Lay Your Hands On Me (5:58) ★
- Blood On Blood (6:16) ★
- Stick To Your Guns (4:45)
- I’ll Be There For You (5:46) ★
- Bad Medicine (5:16)
- Born To Be My Baby (4:40)
- Living In Sin (4:39)
- Homebound Train (5:10)
- Ride Cowboy Ride (1:25)
- 99 In The Shade (4:29)
- Wild Is The Wind (5:08)
- Love Is War (4:01) ^
- Love For Sale (3:58)
^ This is from the special edition.
In summary:
New Jersey attempts to capitalize on the success of the band’s previous album. It’s great when it works, it just doesn’t work often enough.
New Jersey receives 8/11.
★★★★★★★★
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