Blaze Of Glory review: I blame this world for making a good man evil

Right, onto Blaze Of Glory. As I mentioned, I'm not sure how eloquently I'm going to be able to review this, as it's pretty different from the four BJ albums I've reviewd already, but I'll give it a shot ... anyways, I've got a mission to try to convince Alphavictim that the album ain't so bad

Also, I'll be updating this fairly sporadically over the next week or so, got quite a bit going on ... I'll do it whenever I get a chance though. Right, here we go ...

BLAZE OF GLORY (1990)

Overview:

In 1990, after spending a couple of months finishing up the almost year and a half long tour of New Jersey, the band were exhausted. As has been said, the five members got on five different planes, and went their separate ways. Bon Jovi, it seems, was finished.

Jon was approached by Emilio Estevez, star of the Young Guns film, an action packed western telling the story of Billy The Kid and the “Regulators”; in order to give permission for Wanted Dead Or Alive to be used in the forthcoming Young Guns sequel. Jon, however, didn’t feel the song was appropriate, and quickly wrote another song, which he called Blaze Of Glory. From this starting point came an entire albums worth of material based upon the film, and in particular the character of William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy The Kid; a character who, starting the film with a group of friends only to finish it a loner, Jon probably felt quite an affinity to at the time.

Indeed, Jon has said that he hid behind the character of Billy in order to write of some of the more personal issues he was working through at the time. The first two years of the 1990s are well known as being particularly difficult for Jon. It was during this period that he experienced what he calls the “Grey Summer”, and also considered jumping out of a moving car. Although most of this more likely took place in ’91, the demons would have been still building up in ’90, and as such the songs from this two year period are some of Jon’s most personally introspective. The Blaze Of Glory album has a very strong message of mortality: that no matter what a person does in their life, they must inevitably die. Other themes of the album include brotherhood and betrayal, religion and faith, philosophical musings and rejection of clichéd platitudes, the desire to leave a mark on the world, and learning to unapologetically accept who one really is, regardless of the consequences. All of it wrapped up in the imagery of the Old West and a vigilante antihero marked for death for his exploits.

Musically, there’s some pretty distinctive themes that can be seen in this album. The use of acoustic guitars, accordions, harmonicas, pianos and string arrangements and choral harmonies lend to the Old West feel; the keyboards add atmosphere; and the electric guitar adds to the rock. Broadly, the album seems rooted in two main styles: epic rock ballads on the one hand; and the bluesy hard rock reminiscent of music from the 1950s to 1970s period. Although in terms of instrumentation there’s a lot going on in these songs … indeed, most songs have an average of about 6-8 instruments playing on them at various points … the music for the most part seems to be more supplementary to Jon’s vocal delivery and lyrics. The fact that this is a solo album also allowed Jon to call in several guest stars to imbue the songs with their own character as well; most notably stars from a more classic age of rock n’ roll, such as Elton John, Jeff Beck, and Little Richard.

Vocally, this is quite stunning. Following the vocal problems he had at the end of the 90s, Jon had to restrain his voice somewhat; adopting a slightly lower register and cutting down considerably on the screaming. The result is that his vocals are a bit deeper, but also far more full and focused with it. His strength through this album vocally is his ability to vary his voice throughout in order to perfectly match the feeling of the music at that point: using a lower, huskier voice when he needs to; or really belting it out for climactic points. More importantly, he sings with 100% conviction, and it’s easy to see how much he’s feeling the words, even though they’re ostensibly not about him.

Lyrically there’s some pretty powerful stuff here. It’s worth noting that Jon wrote every single song on this album by himself, and his talent has always been with capturing a mood, and a feeling. Here he excels himself, managing to take it to the level of poetry as well. The only problem is, it can be rather heavy on the cowboy clichés; but this is almost forgivable, if you imagine this to be the sort of poetry an outlaw may have written at the end of the 19th century (assuming of course that he was able to write)

Although it’s difficult to say that Jon had completely free reign on this album; as he had to write in within the context of the film; it’s still pretty fair to say that it shows how he can take a concept and make it his own; breathing his own life into it. As an outlaw to the life he had built up since the beginning of the last decade, this album fits Jon like a worn leather glove. It’s certainly pretty different to Bon Jovi; but it seems to act as a stepping stone for the direction the band would take when they returned. A showcase for Jon it may be then, but it’s quite the showcase, and showed the world that Jon was an impressive enough writer and singer to function outside of Bon Jovi.

Very well written review.

Well put and completely agree.

Sante Fe remains one of my favorite ALL TIME Songs

Excellent review...this is one of my favorite Jovi albums.

This I think is the best part of your review. Even the latest album (which is not my favorite) has captured a mood and a feeling so that I don't find it as objectionable as I might normally.

I agree that Blaze is a bit heavy on the cowboy cliches - and they do get old in my opinion. If you can get past that though - it is one of my favorite albums of all times. The lyrics combined with Jon's gorgeous vocals make it outstanding. This album gets played a lot by me.

And yes - cowboys do write poetry. I have some old friends in California from years ago that really were cowboys and you never heard such tear jerking - bad poetry in your life LOL.

Kathleen

Yeah, he did kind of box himself in by making his first solo album the soundtrack to a very genre-specific film, although he does manage to write it into the context of the other themes I mentioned ... religion and betrayal and all the rest

Incidentally, it occured to me after writing that review that I never once used the word "mature", which strikes me as an appropriate word to use ... however, since I can't be bothered to amend it right now, you'll just have to come up with your own wordy comment on how this album showcases a lot more mature side to the man who only two to three years before wrote a song with the chorus line "Your love is like bad medicine, bad medicine is what I need"; and imagine that the comment was in the review. Yeah.

I should in theory have some spare time to start on the track reviews now, so hopefully they'll begin shortly

I like BOG.
But why the rag on Bad Medicine?
It wasn't written to be a "mature" song, it's a sleazy party song, and I happen to like it.
Sorry to go off topic.

Heh, it wasn't really a "rag", I was just kinda jokingly using it as an example ... whether it was meant to be a sleazy party song or not, there's not really any denying that those are far from the best lyrics ever written.

Seems a little odd to be continuing this when everyone's focused on Lost Highway (which I still haven't managed to pick up yet, grrrrr), but ah well, can't wait around for the buzz to die down forever ...

Billy Get Your Guns – Beginning with Billy’s “Yoohoo, I’ll make ya famous” line from the film, and, somehwhat inevitably, a gunshot; the opening song of the album sounds like what you’d get if you transported a 70s blues rock band into an Old West bar. The guitar riff that opens it and continues throughout is pure sleazy, swaggering, bluesy hard rock; and the drumming sounds like a constant handclap beat (and is actually replaced by handclaps during the breakdown), and there’s even some barely noticeable cowbell in there too to add to the cowboy vibe. The piano, played by none other than Elton John, seems to bridge together old style saloon music and more modern piano and guitar based rock n’ roll; in much the same way that his playing with Jon bridges the gap between different ages of rock music. The lyrics are like a prelude to a bar fight: as if at any minute the relative calm of the bar room will explode into a situation where anyone could die. A picture is painted here of both the world as Billy sees it (with typical imagery of bars, whores, and whisky bottles); and of Billy the way the world sees him: as an antihero, with lyrics such as “they christened you with whisky / and fire running through your veins” suggesting that he was born to be who he is, and it couldn’t have turned out any other way. However, the lyrics lack the depth of those elsewhere on the album, and the title line is repeated far too often. Jon’s fuller and more focused vocals are showcased here: sounding strong but perhaps remaining too constant throughout, although this does make his incredibly short reversion to his screaming voice at the end of the breakdown. Overall then this is a reasonable rock song, with a good attempt at establishing the atmosphere of a bar in the Old West … perhaps it’s best to think about it as a prelude to the epic introspection of most of the rest of the album, which it comparatively falls ever so slightly flat alongside.

3.5/5

Hello Walrus....This is Tom....From Canterbury! *waves*

On my way to a salsa lesson tonight, I listened to 'Sante Fe' and I still genuinely think it's one of the best songs ever written by (Jon) Bon Jovi.

Nice to see you continuing this Paul. Last night - having listened to far too much Lost Highway - I queued this up in my music player and listened to the whole damn thing. And I came away with the same opinion I have always had of it - it's the best thing Jon ever did by himself. Listening to this directly after Lost Highway makes you realize how far the vocals have deteriorated. I thought that these two albums would make a good combo with the country / cowboy theme but they don't. It's depressing to realize that there probably won't ever be anything new quite this good ever again from Jon

Kathleen