Released: 1994
Tracks: Livin’ on a Prayer; Keep the Faith; Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night; Always; Wanted Dead or Alive; Lay Your Hands on Me; You Give Love a Bad Name; Bed of Roses; Blaze of Glory; Prayer ’94; Bad Medicine; I’ll Be There For You; In & Out of Love; Runaway
Best track: Wanted Dead or Alive, possibly Livin’ on a Prayer
Tracks to skip: Keep the Faith, Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night, Always, Bed of Roses, Prayer ’94 (damn, they took all the fun out of it!)
Damn this is some catchy stuff! How could Livin’ on a Prayer NOT have been a hit single. I gotta laugh at that key change though; Jon Bon Jovi can barely hit those notes! Speaking of him, he sounds awful on Always. It’s a dumb song anyway (very bad lyrics), but Jon’s voice makes me cringe. Yes, this is the soundtrack to my Junior High years (also a bit of late elementary). It’s really hard for me to not laugh while listening to these songs. Granted some of them are very well written, but there’s also just a plethora of Total Cheese all over this disc. And it’s so serious too! Of course they take their music seriously and I shouldn’t rag on them for that. It’s just that to me, songs like Always and Bed of Roses are so pompous. If you’ve been paying attention to anything on this website you’ll know I pretty much despise love songs. They do have their time and place, but for nearly all pop music to be solely concerned with the topic of love is a tad ridiculous. I know, I know…all this coming from a guy who loves the Beatles and Journey. I never said anything about loving all the love lyrics. I just think love songs are overrated and overdone.
Anyway, I’m railing on dumb love songs (I’ll Be There For You) while I’m supposed to be reviewing this time capsule of my youth. There’s too much Bruce Springsteen on these songs. Specifically Saturday Night and Bed of Roses, but it’s just all over here. I’m not a big Springsteen fan so the obvious influence on Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora is naturally going to annoy me. You know what, who really cares! It doesn’t matter. For me, I like music with more substance than this. I skip a good number of these songs, most of them aren’t that great. I think Richie Sambora’s a pretty good guitarist, but Jon Bon Jovi does NOT have a good voice. It’s really grating. Of course if *you* like all these old Bon Jovi songs then by all means pick this up. It does have all the hits on here so it’s as good enough of a starting place as you can get.
Rating: 71
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