Onto the songs:

RUNAWAY: Beginning with an iconic keyboard intro, to which slashing guitars and a pounding drum are soon added, musically this fast, hook laden, anthemic singalong is a taste of things to come for the rest of the album, despite not actually being a Bon Jovi song, but Jon and the All Star Review. Lyrically it’s a bit of a departure from the rest of the album, it’s theme of girls forced to work of prostitutes is the most distinctive and mature on this album, and it sits a little oddly as the first track, although that intro is instantly engaging, and I know that it had to be the opening track as it was the song that got the band signed. Nowadays it’s regarded by the band and majority of the fans alike as the only real classic song from this album, which I disagree with … while it is a great song with fantastic hooks (the intro, the short keyboard and drum break just after the first chorus, the break just before the guitar solo, the guitar solo itself, the outro with the wild guitar and Jon’s falsetto), I think the main reasons it’s still regarded as a classic is that a) it was their first song, and b) it’s the song that was most similar to where they’d go in 1986. But whether it deserves its pedestal or not, it’s still an electrifying opener.

4/5