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There’s a special, shrill level of scorn that critics reserve for Bon Jovi, and especially Jon himself. They see only the cartoon version. In the eyes of music snobs, he is forever fixed in the mid-80s as the steel horse-ridin’ arena-rocker with the Trevi Fountain hair and a smile that could cause snow blindness at 50 paces.
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There's a little more to it than that--the critics snub Bon Jovi because they committed the crime of getting as big as they did without them. To deflect from the fact that it was
they who missed the boat, they must trivialize Jon and devalue the talents of the rest of the band constantly in order to justify dismissing them as "cartoon characters."
For example, a keyboard magazine actually got hate mail for putting Dave Bryan on the cover--he allegedly didn't belong in the company of "serious" keyboard players. Had he been in the employ of Ozzy Osbourne or Axl Rose, I seriously doubt that would have happened. (To the magazine's credit, they not only put Dave on the cover a second time, they titled it
Like It Or Not, This Guy Can Play!)
Here's another example: a critic wrote of their Russian gig, "When Bon Jovi are this hot, they're smoking."
Well, either they WERE smoking hot that night, or they weren't. And if they were, why not simply write "Bon Jovi were smoking hot" -- would that paying them
too much of a compliment?
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In a recent interview (Jon) described his role as that of “a CEO of a major corporation who has been running a brand for 25 years”. This comes fairly high on the list of things musicians should never say...
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Can't argue with that, LOL!
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Certainly, there’s a strong case for “Livin’ On A Prayer” being one of the most perfect pop songs ever written...
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A "strong case?" A "pop" song?
Another example of a critic hedging his bets? Despite "outing" himself as being pro-Jovi, perhaps Lewis is still fearing the wrath of the music critic "hacks and snobs" if he were even to
suggest that
Livin’ On A Prayer is one of THE most perfectly-written ROCK songs EVER!!!