By virtue of it having been in a supporting spot on another artist’s fine song, the above clip is the closest thing I could find to a “good” performance by Bon Jovi. I’ve not come to bury Bon Jovi, however, but to celebrate what might be their unique mark of distinction. Beside that “I’ve seen a million faces/And I’ve rocked them all” line from “Dead or Alive” and the beginning of the chorus of “Living on a Prayer”, I couldn’t hum a measure of anything this band has done in its 25 years in existence. That’s right, 25 years of Bon Jovi’s unbroken streak of inconsequential mediocrity!
Unlike dozens of long-running bands we might agree on as being “mediocre” in an inconsequential way – Chicago comes to mind – Bon Jovi hasn’t produced a worthwhile song by mistake, have they? You’d think over 25 years they’d have a song that anyone who wasn’t a 14-year-old girl at some point in the ’80s would consider “memorable” in some way. Take Chicago: whether you like even one Chicago song or not, at least you pause to consider the opening riff and guitar tone of Terry Kath on “25 or 6 to 4” or their earlier “I’m a Man”? I think not. Bon Jovi has flown under the radar of both Suck and Good for 25 years and running. See, it’s not just that Bon Jovi has never done anything good; their music is so inconsequential that it’s hard to tell if any of it’s even bad. Has anyone come close to this streak of inconsequential mediocrity?
I look forward to your responses.
Yukk! that was terrible!
funny thing though, when Geldoff sang his first coupla lines, and I couldn’t see his face, I thought it was Barry Manilow!
Stones are pushing 25+ years of mediocrity now, aren’t they? Of course they had something of a track record prior to that. But if you mean bands that have never been other than mediocre…
Maybe it’s beacuse I live in Jersey, but I am amazed the push there is to put Bon Jovi on the same level (much lower though) as Springsteen. Especially with some of his newer songs – the with the video whre they build a house.
Now at least Jon Bon Jovi is a philly sports team owner and appears on WIP sports radio.
Right, Mwall, I mean bands that have NEVER transcended inconsequential mediocrity.
The way that I see it, as someone who grew up in central New Jersey, is that songs like “Runaway” and later “Livin’ on a Prayer” are like watered-down, hair/pop-metal versions of Springsteen songs, especially thematically, and I think for that reason as well as just the virtue of where they came from (two towns over from where I grew up, incidentally), they’re much more popular in NJ than they are are in the rest of the country. I mean they routinely sell out Giants Stadium there but don’t play venues anywhere near that large in other places, at least for the most part.
As for my own personal opinion, I like a few songs on Slippery When Wet, the sole album I own by them (hey it’s on vinyl and it was cheap; shut up), but if all I had was mp3s of “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Wanted Dead or Alive”, I’d be satisfied as I don’t much care for anything else they’ve done.
I did like them as a kid, though, and had a copy of New Jersey (the one with “Bad Medicine” on it; you people really don’t know these songs?) on cassette at one point. They were even the first band I went to see live , when I was 14 and still living in Louisiana. I just remember not people able to hear anything the next day.
Ah, you’ve mentioned the magic number, Berlyant: 14! I’ve heard songs by this band over the years but they’ve made absolutely no impression on me. I think they’re somehow designed as “stealth hits,” meant only to impress a certain demographic. Before the days of digital downloads it was probably an environmentally and economically sound marketing approach. But HOW DID THEY DO THAT? Again, what strikes me about Bon Jovi is that they’ve never accidentally produced a song that has made any impression on me, not even a song that I hate.
I think a definition of high rock mediocrity might be if there is a lyric generator on the web devoted to a specific band. I’m pretty sure there’s one for Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi does have some Fake Rockist tendencies or aspirations. He and Sambora love to take credit, deserved or not, for “inventing” the Unplugged idea. And they really try to sell the acoustic, slowed down “Livin’ On A Prayer” as their “Born To Run” instead of maybe aiming lower and accepting that it’s their “Jack and Diane.”
If you’re looking for reasons as to how they became as popular as they were while handcuffed by their mediocrity, I seem to recall they were also constantly in the lead in microphone-as-prop and flying-around-the-arena-on-a-harness technology innovations in the post-Roth era.
Good stuff, so far, Townspeople. I’m still trying to get my head around how they maintain this degree of inconsequential mediocrity and whether any other band has come close to their 25-years-and-counting string of records that fail to impress (or revile) on any critical level.
Bon Jovi were a triumph of marketing, seeking out unappreciated/unrecognized (by most) demographics: 14 yr olds, people who think/thought their senior year in high school is/was the high point of their lives, fans of Boss/Seger/Mellencamp, sports fans, etc.
I do, however, like Jon Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory”
Van Halen for me. None of it holds up over time, and it’s usually not barf inducing, but it’s never fantastic. The first album was fantastic for a little while, but it was like a Razzle. It’s not candy, but it’s not gum and as soon as you chew it it gets real small and insignificant.
Nice Razzle reference, 2K! Although I’m by no means a VH fan, I’d say that that they stumbled onto some good FM radio fodder now and then – AND they outright SUCKED in memorable ways more than once, wouldn’t you say? Good suggestion, though. They’re like a Tim Raines consecutive games played streak matched against Bon Jovi’s Cal Ripken-like standard.