“Lie to Me” tore me open for six straight months and if I am in a certain frame of mind it can do the same today. Still there’s nothing to hold onto but these days” I felt the primitive desperation of a broken heart and simultaneously the only hope I had. As he sang, “No one wants to be themselves these days. I simultaneously felt horrible and self-righteous in my anger. A desperate longing infiltrates the melodies as a dark red fire of hope burned underneath my depression. My big love had collided with the most melancholy Bon Jovi album, a match made in depressed hair metal heaven, and I felt comforted. Something about being mired in the darkness appealed to me. Undoubtedly acting dramatically, a high school kid with over sized emotions, it still felt real and I strangely didn’t seem to want out of it. My emotional upheaval continued to impact the entirety of my life and I was relatively catatonic. As I deepened my relationship with the album and realized Jon Bon Jovi was losing faith, I felt like I was screwed. JBJ is skilled at using the language of love (the international language) to describe and highlight his social commentary. By the time 1995 rolled around the music climate had dramatically shifted and America’s increasing social problems spiraled downward due to rising economic inequality.
That 1992 hair didn’t prevent JBJ from seeing change blowing in the wind back then but he asked us to Keep the Faith. It’s a mid tempo cross between ballad and “rocker” (as I used to describe them when I was 12) that explores the record’s central theme of disillusionment. “These Days”, the song, is an unheralded Jovi classic. Riding the cresting wave of Tico Torres’ thunder-cat drumming no band does power ballads like the boys from Jersey.
Sambora deftly offers his powerfully expansive tone and the crisp, satisfying harmonies of keyboardist David Bryan echo and soothe in classic form.
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When the band is able to successfully combine JBJ’s everyman impersonation with hooks to break your heart they hit full throttle form. Co-written by the band’s secret weapon, Desmond Child, this is a slow burning Jovi power ballad in full get-up, akin to “I’ll Be There for You” from New Jersey. The album’s only American hit, “This Ain’t a Love Song” is next. While Jon shouts his anger inside his trademark hooks, the band displays their underrated chops by diving into a Beatles-esque bridge before slamming back into the song’s massive, arena-ready chorus. “Something For the Pain” is a classic, melodic concoction that carries a sweet pain. Should you question the incongruence of a very rich man addressing poverty, I urge you to check out the charitable work of JBJ’s Soul Foundation. “What the hell is going on! Seems like all the good shit’s gone.
Opening with the snarling “Hey God”, JBJ and guitarist Richie Sambora immediately set a heavy tone by addressing economic inequality and poverty, not the stuff of hair metal legend. No longer burdened with the expectations of being the planet’s biggest band, Bon Jovi made arguably their best album. The band was grieving the loss on one of their oldest friends and sounded willing to express this despair musically.
The band’s first album following a less then amicable breakup with original bassist, Alex Jon Such, the disenchantment runs deep. These Days, while still carrying the mainstream heart of JBJ, is a different animal. I rode the steel horse’s massive reach on “Wanted Dead or Alive” and aligned with the naughty need for “Bad Medicine” as New Jersey took things to another level. Like every red blooded American tween I had been listening to Bon Jovi since their third album, Slippery When Wet, took the world by storm. Instead of the former Eagle, I listened to These Days. It was like Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence” was plastered inside my heart. I strayed from my friends that summer as my passion for baseball, my other childhood love, faded. It was a time of darkness and disillusionment in my life as I lay deep in the muck and depression of heartbreak. While Jon Bon Jovi could be credited with starting the Rachel from Friend’s hair before Jennifer Aniston on 1992’s Keep the Faith, as a songwriter he continued to dive deep into the combination of classic rock structure and area rock choruses for his band’s musical and emotional power.Īs I finished my junior year of high school the band released their sixth LP These Days. You could get away with it in Southeast Asia and Europe, but Pearl Jam and Nirvana had long since destroyed the caricatures of American hair metal and the biggest bands of the 80’s were struggling to reinvent themselves with shorter, darker hair, heavier riffs and barely any recorded music. Long before irony, in 1995, it was becoming seriously un-cool for an American teenager to like Bon Jovi.
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