So in my friend Mame’s and my ongoing quest to do a full Bon Jovi retrospective, we discussed whether we were including Jon’s solo albums, although BLAZE OF GLORY was a given, if for no other reason than it’s so strongly linked, thematically, to the early studio albums. But I did ask if we were also going to do DESTINATION ANYWHERE, and at that point, Mame, very thoughtfully, pointed out that if we were going to do both of Jon’s solo albums, then in the name of fairness, we should also do Richie’s solo albums.
In the name of fairness. For a retrospective we’ve set the rules for. For Bon Jovi, a band that is eponymous with its lead singer. Which means that sort of arguably by default a retrospective would include anything with his name on it, but nobody else, because while he and the band are interchangable, they are not inextricable.
The really funny thing is that I’d been thinking exactly the same thing. ::laughs::
So the 90s have taken nearly a month all by themselves, because we have lives and aren’t really managing an album EVERY SINGLE DAY, and between the solo albums and the band albums we’re talking seven albums, and we’ve also decided to watch the DESTINATION ANYWHERE movie, which I don’t believe I’d ever seen before.
I am prepared to consider the possiblity we’ve lost our minds, but it’s SO MUCH FUN. :D
BLAZE OF GLORY (Jon Bon Jovi, 1990)
Look. There’s no way around it: this is an utterly ridiculous album. It’s about rock & roll cowboys, for God’s sake, which is a very strong early Bon Jovi theme.
I love it unconditionally.
This is the album that my sister, having not yet heard it, read the lyrics from the liner notes (remember liner notes?), said, “This is your favorite song on this album,” about one of them, & was 100% correct. That song takes the top place, but the others…IDK, I’m gonna be leaning all the way into the ridiculousness, bc it’s frickin’ awesome.
My uncontested #1 on BLAZE OF GLORY:
- Bang A Drum, and everything else is in second place, but if I have to narrow it down…
- Miracle
- Santa Fe
Miracle‘s “Well, the angels left this nation / and salvation caught the last train out tonight” is up there with the Romeo & Juliet line for stone cold bangers, & I think it’s the violins in Santa Fe that make me weak, but there is genuinely not a song on this album that I don’t love wholeheartedly. Not one single song. I love all of them with my entire Bon-Jovi-adoring heart.
Mame didn’t seem to have as hard a time, saying, “Blaze of Glory is an excellent album start to finish. Top 3:
- Blaze of Glory
- Santa Fe
- Bang a Drum
with a followup of “Never Say Die weirds me out it starts like Thin Lizzy’s Boys are Back in Town and switches,” which honestly seems entirely fair although I never noticed it before. O.O
INTERLUDE: YOUNG GUNS II
My takeaway for this was mostly that I knew the Blaze of Glory album wasn’t the soundtrack for it, but I had never really appreciated how well the album accompanies the film. That was kind of cool, watching it with that in mind. Other than that, boy, there sure weren’t any speaking roles for women in this movie. I think all three were prostitutes. So charming.
Mame’s takeaway: That was fun! Zero actual JBJ in the movie but man really brought me back. Funny how all those guys were at the peak of their fame back then (I mean yeah Sutherland got 24 but those were the times) while Viggo wouldn’t blow up 4 another decade
Stranger in this Town (Richie Sambora, 1991) – Mame’s verdict and choices? “Good album, but a lot of songs feel like trunk with a few bangers, who when they bang, they bang. Better than JBJ’s blaze? Don’t think so.”
- Stranger in this Town
- Ballad of Youth
- Father Time
He’s SO MUCH kinder than I am. I thought this was fucking awful from start to finish. I thought it had a lot of “this wants to be a late 70s experimental rock album” sound to it, with songs that sounded like bad Billy Joel, bad Elton John, bad David Bowie, bad Queen, and, deeply weirdly, bad George Michael?!?
The one I thought sounded like a bad Bon Jovi song was, in fact, a Bon Jovi reject. :p I can’t even really choose the 3 least bad, but if I HAVE to:
- Mr Bluesman
- Father Time
- One Light Burning
Because the fun never stops with Keep the Faith (1992)
Mame: So many hits. Just so many hits.
- I Believe
- Dry County
- In These Arms
Just so many hits.
He was so much more decisive than I, because for me, the only sure thing on Keep The Faith is
- Dry County, which I could argue is their single best song, but I can get behind
- Keep The Faith, and chews knuckles
- In These Arms
I GUESS, but that’s not one of my faves >.<
(this is impossible! not that it’s MUCH easier to choose my actual FAVORITES off any of these albums, but trying to look at it critically as to what songs are ‘best’? that’s IMPOSSIBLE. Bed of Roses and Blame it On The Love of Rock & Roll and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead and Little Bit of Soul are all on this album, and… DO I REALLY THINK IN THESE ARMS IS BEST-TER THAN THOSE? I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMOOOOOORE)
Cross Road (1994)
This album is literally not what I thought it was; I’d confused it with One Wild Night. It’s just a greatest hits album, & it’s possible this was only the second time I’ve ever listened to it.
For a greatest hits album, I found it pretty blah. This may be because I was expecting the energy of the live One Wild Night album, which it totally failed to deliver, particularly in the rendition of Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night, which was just…blah. I was CONFUSED by the inclusion of ‘Always’ bc it hadn’t been on anything previous, which eventually made sense after I realized this was not the live album I thought it was but rather a greatest hits album (I may not have been at my most mentally acute while listening to it. I blame the sinus headache.), and yes, Catie, it was a new release for THE GREATEST HITS album. You dork.
For a greatest hits album, I found the top three way easier to choose than they should have been:
- Lay Your Hands On Me, like god damn that drum intro
- Prayer 94, an early callout to the This Left Feels Right album, &
- I’ll Be There For You, which is the only one I turned the volume up for
Mame, as it turned out, had the same problem: “Bit of the same here. I couldn’t remember crossroads and thought it was a live album too. Agreed with Catie; it is pretty meh. Nothing wrong with the songs but clearly meant to rack in a few bucks and keep fans busy. Living on a prayer and Lay your hands on me are still top two. Wanted Dead or Alive third. I think.”
(Talk about a weird letdown, right?)
These Days (1995) – this is widely considered Bon Jovi’s best album, so that was interesting information to go in with.
Mame opens with, “These Days was the last Bon Jovi I purchased. I felt like they were running out of steam, and I was developing an interest in hip hop that I hadn’t before. I kept track of their new stuff but not with the same passion as I used to. Listening to it again, I still feel like they were trying to find their place in the post metal, post hard rock still grungy scene that was ruling the airwaves at the time. That said:
- These Days – lived rent free in my head since the mid nineties so no surprise there.
- My Guitar Lies Bleeding in my Arms – I love these kind of songs, they’re about rock and roll and nothing but. Plus the way the tempo and the saturation pick up at the end is just magnificent. And finally,
- Something To Believe In. Man those lyrics, that hey hey hey, that woohoo. Felt like I was listening to the best of the Boss and the Gaslight Anthem. No wonder Springsteen’s imprint on NJ rock is immeasurable.
God I love this song.”
The truth is I can’t argue with a word of that, not the song choices, not the take on where they were as a band…buuuuuuuuut…
This was a VERY INTERESTING listen for me, bc it turned out…I don’t like this album very much. I like A LOT of it a song at a time, but as a whole? It felt like all the writers were getting divorced & taking it out in music instead of therapy.
My undeniable fave on the entire album is “Something For The Pain,” which is a go-to workout song for me, but we’re not just trying to call out faves here, we’re trying to call out the best songs on the album.
I’m going with:
- Lie to Me
- Something To Believe In
and 😬
- This Ain’t A Love Song
…and at the same time it’s more or less impossible to disagree with Mame’s choice of ‘These Days’ itself, and I also really love the…purity? Of ‘My Guitar’, for the reasons he talks about here. I like so much of this album…as long as I don’t have to listen to it all at once. So it was really interesting coming into ‘Something to Believe In’ after having the bulk of the album behind it. If you’d asked me before a re-listen, it would have been my #1 choice, but I found it suffered from…the whole album. I wasn’t as moved by it as I generally am.
And yet, man. And yet. That ‘hey hey hey hey’ just holds on & won’t let go.
I think the reason I choose ‘This Ain’t A Love Song’ over These Days is that I kinda think of it and ‘Lie To Me’ as a pair of Tommy & Gina songs, like, they’re going through a rough patch, but they make it thru. So, y’know, headcanon there. :D
Post-listen discussion, Mame [agrees with] “the whole divorce therapy theory. Wasn’t Richie breaking up with Heather Locklear at the time? Again? But yeah as a whole it’s all over place and a tedious listen but one on one most songs hold up which goes to show how much internal cohesion is important to an album.”
Me: Ok so it’s not just me that as a whole it’s a drag? Like by the back half of the album, which I listened to over 2 days so it wasn’t even all at once, I was going “can i skip this one?”
Mame: Pretty much man, I made it all the way to ‘Damned’ before boarding and I thought dude another six or seven to go and they’re all 6 minutes long?
Soooooo yeah, for an album regarded as their best… we did not enjoy it very much. I didn’t expect that!
Destination Anywhere (Jon Bon Jovi, 1997)
So this one Mame hadn’t heard at all, and I made him listen to it before I put my opinions down because I didn’t want to influence him. He began with a post that said “I’m one song in so far. Don’t even know what to expect from the album either. Not a fan this far,” and I was like OMG, Queen of New Orleans is one of my favorite songs ever, this is gonna be funny.”
And then it took him two weeks to finish it, and opened up his commentary with, “I’m sorry Catie. Sorry I took so long, but more to the point: sorry but… I hate this album. Was gonna watch the short film but no, no way. Perhaps he was trying to expiate something? I don’t know. It’s awful to me. I will play ball and say:
- Ugly
- Naked
- August something something
But I hate them too. I’ll never listen to this again. I tried and couldn’t even remember songs when they finished. Had to listen to most songs twice just to realize I hated them. I’m sorry. I hate it. I really really do.
It’s fucking awful is what I’m trying to say.”
Me, DYING with laughter: So… you didn’t like it, then :D
Mame: If the choice was travel back in time to either:
- Stop colonization.
- Kill Hitler.
- Never hook up with my ex.
Or - Stop JBJ from recording Destination Anywhere.
I’d be in New Jersey right now.
I am so delighted by this response I can’t even tell you. ::cries laughing:: I knew this would happen when Mame hated “Queen of New Orleans,” which is easily my favorite song on the album, and honestly I suspect his is a more, uh, accurate? perception than mine, as I’ve been listening to it for ahem Some Time, & am inured to the worst of it. SO! My opinions!
The truth is that I…am not actually that fond of this album either, tbh, although I’ve listened to it many times over the years. Most of it. I despise August 7, 4:15, even though musically it’s probably one of the best songs on the album. But I hate the subject matter and resent that any goddamn time I listen to it it gets stuck in my head (I was, in fact, going to ping Mame when he posted, to see if he’d finished the album yet so I could LISTEN TO ANOTHER ONE AND GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD).
As an album, it’s not disjointed, exactly; I think it fits the title. But it’s not cohesive, either, & having read the film synopsis (I have the impression the ‘film’ is more like an extended music video, maybe) I don’t think fitting the title makes it fit the film, either, but I’m not gonna watch to find out. So I think Mame’s choices for the best songs are solid ones, but I hate August 7, 4:15 so much that for what I think is the first time, we don’t have any top picks in common for this album. I’m taking:
- Queen of New Orleans
- Suitcase in My Hand, &
- Destination Anywhere
as my top 3, and then I’m just going to record our back-and-forth about it because it made me laugh and laugh and LAUGH:
Mame: In its defense. And that’s a miserable, burned out, public defender defense: Queen of New Orleans is the only song I can actually remember
Me: I will take the broken husk of a desperate defense. 😂 and BE GLAD because it’s a much less depressing song to have stuck in your head for weeks than August 7. I think you might have hated it more than I hated the first Richie album and I REALLY HATED that 😂😂😂😂😂
Mame: You know. I was gonna say that Sambora’s album was better, but I just couldn’t write another word about it. I’m gonna drown it out with some Napalm Death. Or some Katy Perry. Either or.
Me: I will die on the hill of the Sambora album not being better, but am also eager to drown it out, tbh. :)
So let’s move on!
To, oh god, another Richie album….
Undiscovered Soul (Richie Sambora, 1998)
Okay but I would have LOVED this album if I’d heard it on release. As things stand, I liked it a lot. Not enough to have any of the songs on repeat in my head, but enough to listen to it again, which is a huge relief after the disaster the first one was
An easy top three for me:
- Harlem Rain (by a country mile)
- Fallen From Graceland
- Made in America
I, who do not hear influence in music easily, could hear the Springsteen influence in this, which was no bad thing. (And also, like…Joshua Kadison? o.O)
Wiki claims this was ‘more experimental’ than Sambora’s first album, which I disagree wildly with. This had a unified sound and direction, whereas the first one sounded like a desperate attempt to seize the cultural zeitgeist of 1970s experimental rock fifteen years too late & utterly failing to do so. So, yeah, I was happy with this one, and relieved.
Mame, on the other hand… O.O
“I’m starting the thread halfway through this shitty album. Just heard two of the dumbest songs I’ve ever heard:
Fallen from Graceland. WTF does that even mean?
If God Was a Woman. Jesus effing Christ. (he’s fully right about this one -ed)
Sambora’s soul is a cheap pulp mystery wrapped in a used condom inside a dirty drain that would have been better left undiscovered.
Now:
- Made in America because why the fuck not?
- Harlem Rain because it does rain in Harlem sometimes?
- Who I am, not that I give a fuck who he is I just want him to stop
I apologize for the profanity but these kind of vanity projects that stand zero chance at getting signed if dude wasn’t Dick Sambora really annoy me.”
::cries laughing:: I love this response so much. So much. Further discussion on our parts:
Me: I agree that Fallen From Graceland doesn’t make any sense but I thought it was pretty good anyway. If God Was A Woman IS trash and I wondered if 1998 me would have noticed that or if I would have enjoyed it. I’m a little afraid of the latter. Also, I did sort of wonder if Jon and Richie had had a disagreement over how If I Was Your Mother should go and if If God Was A Woman was Richie’s version of it.
Mame: :D I was thinking the same but more cuz some of these harmonies sounded like young gun tracks that didn’t make the cut
So that was the 90s. A surprising amount of it was deemed awful by one or the other of us, and sometimes both. laughs We’re moving into the 2000s next, where Mame has to go first on all the albums because I’ve heard them before and I don’t want to influence his takes on them. :D Onward!