NJ Star-Ledger review
 

Bon Jovi boxed set for diehard fans only
Tuesday, November 16, 2004


BY JAY LUSTIG Star-Ledger Staff
In the liner notes to "100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong," a new collection of previously unreleased tracks and rarities, Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi describes the atmosphere surrounding two songs, "Taking It Back" and "Starting All Over Again." They were recorded in the early '90s, when grunge-rock was on the rise, and Bon Jovi's brand of pop-metal had gone out of fashion.

"We knew it was gonna be us against the machine ... (the songs) were sung from the point of view of that chip's back on my shoulder," he writes.

Apparently, it's still there. The title of the four-CD, one-DVD boxed set -- derived from Elvis Presley's 1960 album, "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong: Elvis' Golden Records, Vol. 2" -- refers to the fact that this Jersey-based band has, over the last 20 years, sold 100 million albums. Can it be the band members still feel they have something to prove? Or are they just flaunting their success?

At the very least, the assertion made in the title is open to debate, and Bon Jovi knows it. He starts off the liner notes by writing, "100,000,000 fans can't be wrong. Can they? Go on, insert a snide remark (here) ..."

That would be too easy. Let's stay focus on the boxed set, a 50-track collection that is being released today, with a list price of $59.98.

It's rare that a band can find more than a few gems in its vaults. Even the Beatles' three two-CD "Anthology" sets added little to their legacy. While there are some songs here that wouldn't sound out of place on a Bon Jovi album, many are obviously flawed, with corny lyrics or bland melodies. It's hard to imagine this set pushing the band's total sales figure very far past 100 million.

The best thing about the album is that it offers glimpses of a looser, less self-conscious side than the band typically shows. There is a punk-like energy to songs like "Good Guys Don't Always Wear White" (previously heard on the soundtrack to the movie, "The Cowboy Way"), "Sympathy" and "Taking It Back." "Love Ain't Nothing But a Four Letter Word" is lively bar-band rock, in the Southside Johnny tradition.

"Temptation," which has been used as a B-side outside the United States, is a quirky little pop-noir song that substitutes subtlety for the band's usual bombast. Guitarist Richie Sambora sings lead on the impressively raw blues-rock tune, "If I Can't Have Your Love."

A few songs are here in their original demo form. The most interesting is "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night," with darker lyrics, including "This world ain't so cut and dried, black and white, wrong or right/I ain't here to justify what I gotta do to survive."

Low points include "Only In My Dreams," sung in an unlistenable croak by drummer Tico Torres, and "Thief Of Hearts," a classic example of a song that starts with an intriguing character -- a mythically powerful Thief of Hearts -- and then goes nowhere with it.

"These Arms Are Open All Night" is built around the title phrase, quite possibly the worst pickup line ever. And "Maybe Someday" is the most generic power ballad imaginable: "I'd lie, beg, steal and borrow to hear you whisper my name/Tonight there ain't no miracles washing up on this beach/The angels left here long ago, but I still believe/That maybe, someday I will hold your hand/And maybe, some way, we'll chase our footsteps in the sand," croons Bon Jovi.

"Last Man Standing" is a well-intentioned meditation on the lack of "real" music in today's pop landscape, but Bon Jovi sounds like a cranky old man, sneering, "Keep your pseudo-punk hip-hop pop-rock junk and your digital downloads" over a plodding mid-tempo beat.

Another ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful song is "Lonely At the Top," written about Kurt Cobain, after his suicide. It takes the form of a letter from the late Cobain to his daughter and, inevitably, is too simplistic to be satisfying.

"I'm sorry I left and never said goodbye/Didn't mean to leave you all alone, but then the music died/Though the song remains the same, I couldn't live that lie," sings Bon Jovi.

The DVD that is part of this boxed set includes footage from various phases of the band's career, and shows them backstage and in dressing rooms, talking business and rocking out, from Japan to Rio de Janeiro. But most of it is devoted to new interviews with band members, discussing the songs on the album and various other topics.

Some of the comments are reprinted in the set's 60-page booklet, along with adulatory quotes from more than 150 of the band's fans. "Bon Jovi is like the ocean. Always moving, sparkling in the sun. Hidden treasures at the bottom. The farther I enter it, the deeper it gets," writes Keiko K, of Japan.

The liner notes are sketchy -- many songs are not discussed at all, and recording dates are rarely specified -- but do offer some insight as to why songs were left off certain albums. For instance, though the band liked "Why Aren't You Dead?" (a hard-rock number whose key phrase is, "You couldn't live without me, so why aren't you dead?"), its tongue-in-cheek tone wasn't suitable for the soul-searching 1992 "Keep The Faith" album, Jon Bon Jovi explains.

A recurring theme, in his remarks in the DVD and the liner notes, is his dissatisfaction with the music industry. Imagine how angry he would have been if his band hadn't sold 100 million records.



:roll: guess he wasnt thrilled......

I have to admit I thought this was kinda funny tho:
"A recurring theme, in his remarks in the DVD and the liner notes, is his dissatisfaction with the music industry. Imagine how angry he would have been if his band hadn't sold 100 million records. "