NEW JERSEY (198


The band were exhausted after the long tour for the hugely successful Slippery When Wet, but they didn't lay down to enjoy the fortunes they'd gained; to the surprise of many they took only a six week break and began working on album number four. The band were afraid of how they could repeat the phenomenal success of Slippery. Few artists ever could repeat that kind of commercial success again, so it was natural that they were nervous about the follow-up. The band felt that they had a momentum they needed to grab and they felt confident enough to go back to the studio right away. Why fix what isn't broken was the philosophy when they returned to Vancouver with Bruce Fairbairn again as producer.
Jon and Richie were rather prolific in writing the new songs, in fact so prolific that the first idea was to release a double album. The double album concept was dumped by the record company with the sales in mind - double albums don't sell as much as normal albums do. To this day, all but two songs of those many written and recorded during the sessions for New Jersey (and initially planned for the double album) that didn't make the cut for the album have remained unreleased. To many fans' great delight some demo tapes for the album were stolen from the studios and a bunch of demos for officially still unreleased songs were released on bootlegs.
The album, entitled New Jersey (whose original name idea was "Sons Of Beaches"), was released in October 1988. It was another big commercial success, hitting no. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic and producing two US no. 1 singles out of its five single releases. The music on the album is to some extent much like that of Slippery, only more polished, well-written and smarter. New Jersey and the long tour that followed it closed the 1980s for the band and marked the end of the first era of Bon Jovi.



Lay Your Hands On Me

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Fourth single from the album released in July 1989, peaked at #7 in the US, at #18 in the UK

A drum beat fades in from silence. It strengthens, soon to become a loud, thunderous force. A crowd of mighty "heys" accompany it, and then we hear Jon's voice: "They say to free your body / you've got to free your mind...". Make no mistake, the introduction to Lay Your Hands On Me is very powerful. Then organ harmonies take over, and the song bursts into an excellent piece of rock'n'roll. Lay Your Hands On Me, which opens the New Jersey album, isn't quite your average rock'n'roll track. It is average in the sense that it's pretty plain and simple and the lyrics are what they are (or actually, although in many songs - not just by Bon Jovi - there are lyrics just to accompany the "rock" in it, the lyrics of Hands are actually good to this sort of thing; although they make no sense they're easy, fun and good to sing along to). But it's definitely not average because it's just so damn good. The big things, the "trademarks" of the song are the mighty drum beat and the organs. The drum beat is one of those that kind of were always there (a bit like We Will Rock You), just waiting to be picked up. The organs give exceptional solemnity to the song and when played live encouraged Jon to invite the audience into "the church of rock'n'roll".
It goes without saying that Lay Your Hands On Me used to be a massive live song. On the tours for New Jersey in 1988-90 it was used as the concert opener (as well as in 1996), but in my opinion the heyday of this song was in 1995 when they played a giant 10 minute version of it. It shook stadiums up with the drum & organ intro played by Tico and David, Jon's playing with the audience and an extra solo they added to the song. No doubt that at that time it was one of the numerous concert highlights.
Lay Your Hands On Me is excellent. It's a truly gripping rock song and your classic Bon Jovi rocker.

Rating: ****


Bad Medicine

Written by: JBJ, RS, DC
Status: First single from the album released in September 1988, peaked at #1 in the US, at #17 in the UK

This is the ultimate Bon Jovi rock'n'roll song. Bad Medicine, which was the first single from the album and another no. 1 hit, is no short of a Bon Jovi classic.
Bad Medicine begins and throughout the song is dominated with David's simple, heavy and catchy keyboard riff. The song has excellent guitar work by Richie, pounding drums and big choruses. The lyrics, which are a humorous story of a guy who is addicted to a woman, are definitely fun. The song has it all: it's melodic and fun, it has the irresistible big, loud and catchy choruses, it's lyrically very innocent but the song is still very heavy - it's no wonder the song was a hit. Bad Medicine is another integral Bon Jovi song. It's also a song that was always played live and had its live heyday in the 90s, when it was used as the closing song of the main set.
As said, Bad Medicine is a Bon Jovi classic. And what comes to those pure, fun rock'n'roll songs by the band, Bad Medicine is perhaps the very best one.

Rating: *****


Born To Be My Baby

Written by: JBJ, RS, DC
Status: Second single from the album released in November 1988, peaked at #3 in the US, at #22 in the UK

The fast paced Born To Be My Baby is probably one of the most famous and liked Bon Jovi songs. The speedy song just accelerates as it goes and it never stops, the fast beat keeps driving until the song eventually fades away. The song was another hit, and with the lovelorn lyrics so many teenage girls are known to be fascinated about, the catchy na-na-na's and the fast beat, it's hardly a wonder. And no doubt, you can't help but tap your feet to the beat of this song.
Born To Be My Baby is a very popular song among many Bon Jovi fans. It's that perhaps because it's such a characteristic Bon Jovi song, a song that encompasses a lot of this band: it's a rock song with a gripping beat and chorus, lyrics about love, and with such a neat covering of commercialism as it has it's a very likeable song, a song hard to resist. Live the song was never as good as on the album, and although it was great to hear it live when it was a fresh song, it was good that the band realised to drop the song off the set after 1993. Picking the song again up and playing it live in the 2000s was a really awful decision from the band as they couldn't do the song any justice anymore and it seems that they picked it up again only to destroy all dignity the song once had. But on the album the energetic song does still sound good. I like Born To Be My Baby. But, I used to like it more in the past. It's basically just too likeable song to be liked that much, perhaps too much of a "hit" in a negative sense, and the band's poor decision to play the song in the 2000s didn't help me to like it more. It's a good song, though. But on this album there are many better tracks.

Rating: ***


Living In Sin

Written by: JBJ
Status: Fifth single from the album released in November 1989, peaked at #9 in the US, at #35 in the UK

The only song on the album written solely by Jon is a decent piece of writing from him. The lyrics of Living In Sin are about two lovers whose love isn't accepted by the people around them. Supposedly the lovers have a strong religious background and therefore they're "living in sin" because they aren't married or something. I've always thought that the lyrics could just as well be about two homosexuals. I guess the strict religious background is the case here but the lyrics do fit very well for a common situation of a gay couple too (at least in such a conservative country that the USA is). But anyway, Jon did write good lyrics. And the song is great. It's another fine example of the band's talent, pretty much impeccable both lyrically and musically. It's soft like honey, silky, polished and spongy. It's a bit sad though that after the New Jersey tour the song became a very rare treat live and was played hardly ever during the 1990s. Also, although the song was a single and did chart well, I guess it would also be one of those fan's favourite songs. A great piece all around.

Rating: ****


Blood On Blood

Written by: JBJ, RS, DC
Status: Album track

For me and many others, this is the song of the album. A fan favourite if there ever is one, Blood On Blood is a powerful and rousing celebration of friendship and brotherhood. The lyrics are a walk down the memory lane of the speaker; Danny, Bobby and the speaker are the characters in this romantic tale of youth, and the themes of innocence of childhood and growing up are wonderfully presented in the song. Although more or less the same themes were explored in both Never Say Goodbye and Wild In The Streets, these openly romantic lyrics about adolescence are fairly good. But what's much more impressive about the song than the heart-warming, almost naive lyrics is the fact that the song is so powerful. It is the song's sheer power that astonishes you when you hear the song. And also because it's instrumentally so great, it's especially the dazzling drumming and the piano that shine like a gem, not to mention Richie's typically strong guitar work too. This was an essential live song as well, a song they always loved to play live and did play on all tours. The song was one of the band's own favourites, as well as being a big fan favourite. This powerful and beautiful song is for me the highlight of the album.

Rating: *****

Homebound Train

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to I'll Be There For You)

Like the first two tracks on the album, this is a number for the headbangers among us. Homebound Train is a very simple rock song. With an aim to wake the sleeping headbanger and air guitarist in all of us, the band proceeds to rock as if there's no tomorrow in this deliriously brash song. It's a wicked and heavy number with lyrics that don't crave to be too artistic. The song is nicely loose and the organs, train effects and Jon's screaming add a great touch. It's a very good, fun and honest rocker, but as good a wicked rock song as Homebound Train is, sometimes it sounds a little too brainless and boring song. And when listening to New Jersey, this is the song that tends to get skipped the most. So it's a good rocker, but still probably the weakest song on the album.

Rating: ***


Wild Is The Wind

Written by: JBJ, RS, DC, Diane Warren
Status: Album track

The lyrics of Wild Is The Wind concentrate around the common themes of heartache and break-up. The lyrics tell about a man who felt that he couldn't be good enough for his woman, and therefore left her. He did his best and tried to be the man for her, but perhaps lost his self-confidence or something, and that drove him away from her. Wild Is The Wind is one of those songs that are good, but not really great. It's a little lukewarm song, colourless perhaps. There's a nice intro and nice passionate vocals from Jon and nice everything, but yet the song is in the end slightly grey - it's clearly not up there with the best material on this album. And besides the regular guest Desmond Child the song has another non-Jovi person giving their input to the lyrics: Diane Warren. And since I have this thing with authenticity - that I think that all bands (at least truly credible ones) should write all their songs 100% themselves - that bothers me a little. I'm never that happy about even Desmond Child's presence on any Jovi song because I would like the band to always strive for authenticity. Sure, Jon and Richie are no Lennon & McCartney but they can write songs, so they should strive to write all songs on the band's albums by themselves then. But the song is still good.

Rating: ***


Ride Cowboy Ride

Written by: Captain Kidd, King of Swing (JBJ & RS)
Status: Album track

Now, this is something. This song, with its length of less than a minute and a half, is Bon Jovi's shortest, and perhaps strangest song. That's because it's recorded in mono and presented on the album in strikingly unprofessional soundquality. Why it is done like that, is I think anybody's guess. This is a little acoustic number (written by Jon and Richie under the names of Captain Kidd and King of Swing) about cowboys. In all honesty, they could have recorded this properly and made it longer, but this song really is a lot of fun and being done like this has never bothered anybody. And why would it? The song is great.

Rating: ***


Stick To Your Guns

Written by: JBJ, RS, Holly Knight
Status: Album track

The cowboy image was clearly intriguing for the band in the 1980s. The idea of a rock band coming to town, stealing the money and the girls and leaving was the inspiration for Wanted Dead Or Alive, and although writing several songs about cowboys may seem a little naive to some people, at least songs about cowboys are not the most common thing you hear on the radio and they were perfectly appropriate for the band in the 1980s when they were young and were hardly doing overly serious music. Stick To Your Guns is the big cowboy song of this album. There's a nice contrast of heavier beginning and calm acoustic riffs that follow it, and altogether the song is a solid performance. Pulpy and succulent, while not one of the most impressive songs on the album, Stick To Your Guns is an alright cowboy song. A bit sad though, that there's again another writer contributing in the track, this time Holly Knight.

Rating: ***


I'll Be There For You

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Third single from the album released in April 1989, peaked at #1 in the US, at #18 in the UK

Bon Jovi never wrote lyrics like R.E.M., rocked as hard as Guns N' Roses or were as critically accepted as U2, but they sure wrote good songs for teenage girls. I'll Be There For You was the first real, big Bon Jovi power ballad. This song, that was also a no. 1 hit in the US, was the big bang of the Bon Jovi ballad and marked way for many more that would be written in the future. I'll Be There For You provided a well-working formula that the band didn't hesitate to use again later. Gripping, larger than life rock ballads that are sung with hair flowing in the wind and choruses screaming about eternal love for that special girl do well in the charts, as well as in the hearts of those average consumers of Bon Jovi. The band have written the same song many times, sometimes with good results (for example Always), sometimes with results that could have been left unreleased (for example I Want You). But this band have certainly excelled in the rock ballads field, the ballads are what everybody knows about Bon Jovi, and, I guess you could say that doing them was at the same time the band's biggest strength and weakness.
I'll Be There For You is lyrically exactly that so clichéd but oh, so wonderfully lovable love & heartache stuff: a man who has been dumped vows his eternal love for the woman who left him. I'll Be There For You is a textbook example of a great rock ballad. It isn't overly sugary but it's gripping and heavy enough, has effective choruses and good guitars. The song used to be a great live number as well, and on more than one occasion was used to close the concerts in the 1990s. The first one is usually always the best one, and this song is indeed one of the best Bon Jovi ballads. If not only for being the first in a series of songs written from the same well-tried recipe, but because the song is rocking, gripping and memorable, and shows at the same time what was so good and bad about Bon Jovi.

Rating: ****


99 In The Shade

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to Bad Medicine)

99 In The Shade is another excellent feel-good rock'n'roll song. It's a definite party song and a big summer song - the best and most fitting occasion to crank this one up is on a beach of endless sand, blue sea and hot sun without a worry on your mind. Great for headbanging and sing-along, 99 In The Shade rocks impressively and deliciously. It's fantastic, smooth rock'n'roll with big choruses and sweet guitars. Vivacious and frenzied, driving but not aggressive, light but not forgettable, this is one of my favourite songs on the album.

Rating: ****


Love For Sale

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to Born To Be My Baby)

The album ends with a bluesy jam that brings Bon Jovi a long way from Runaway. Love For Sale is a good acoustic number that shows the band's virtuosity as acoustic performers for the first time on an album. The song has rather funny lyrics by Jon and Richie, and a nice, relaxed mood to it. What comes to acoustic songs in general, there are very few of those on Bon Jovi albums, unfortunately. Although the band are fluent acoustic performers - especially Jon and Richie - and have done acoustic shows countless times over the years, there are only three acoustic songs on Bon Jovi albums, and they all originate back to New Jersey. It's a bit shame, since these kinds of things are fun and great things to have on an album. Love For Sale is a good song, a wonderful, frisky and fun jam and a fine closure to the album.

Rating: ****

THE BEST SONG: Blood On Blood is the best one. It's a powerful and instrumentally impressive ode to friendship, a highlight of the album for many fans. A good second would be Bad Medicine, the ultimate Bon Jovi rock'n'roll song; it's very heavy and yet melodic, and fun lyrically. Out of several great songs a few songs that also deserve a mention are I'll Be There For You, Lay Your Hands On Me and Living In Sin.

OVERALL: New Jersey is a really great album. It's a very complete record with many absolutely terrific songs and hardly any bad songs. It's up to that point the band's best-written album and altogether a great rock record. When compared to its phenomenally selling predecessor Slippery When Wet, New Jersey is a much better album. It's much more complete record than Slippery, it has generally better lyrics and musicianship, better structure, and it has, mainly, better songs.

The tracklisting of New Jersey is solid and pretty much flawless. Besides the best song, powerful and memorable Blood On Blood, the album has some fantastic old-school rock'n'roll in Lay Your Hands On Me, Bad Medicine and 99 In The Shade. The big and bombastic rock ballad I'll Be There For You is great, as is for example the neatly written Living In Sin too. The two acoustic songs Love For Sale and Ride Cowboy Ride are nice - and it's great that there indeed are two acoustic songs on the album. The more mediocre songs of this album such as Born To Be My Baby and Stick To Your Guns are very good quality and better than the mediocre songs on practically all other Bon Jovi albums. The standard quality of the album is high and there are very few - if any at all - actually weak songs.

Lyrically New Jersey is better than the three albums before it. There's evident progress from the lyrics of Slippery When Wet, and although a lot of the lyrics aren't about much and big part of the lyrics concentrate around the cushy themes of love and friendship (and there are the cowboy songs too) and the quality of the lyrics would get significantly greater in the 1990s, there's no mistaking that the album wouldn't be well written.

One really great thing about New Jersey is how well the album plays together. The songs fit very well with each other which is a great thing, and a thing that neither Slippery When Wet nor Keep The Faith could accomplish. The album isn't just a bunch of singles or individual songs, but it has different, various types of songs and they all fit very well in exactly that order, together forming a good and well-working entity.

What comes to its flaws, there's few to find, save for the obvious layer of slight but unquestionable commercialism. Perhaps some songs aren't really mature or lyrically as good as the songs were to be in the 1990s, but those are only minor imperfections considering the high overall quality. However, it is a bit sad that there are additional writers contributing in the writing of five songs in total. Unfortunately it's a bit sad record, and in fact the worst of all credible Bon Jovi albums. Jon and Richie are no Lennon & McCartney, or even Jagger & Richards, but perhaps they should have had more confidence in their own writing and kept the pen in their own hands a little more.

But anyway, New Jersey is great. It's the best pure 100% rock album the band ever did, and perhaps one of the best rock records I have heard. Compared to other music, in my opinion New Jersey holds up relatively well. It's by no means a masterpiece, but it's this great, melodic and fun rock'n'roll, and as such, matched by few other rock albums of the same kind. I would say that it would be among some ten or so of the best rock albums of the 1980s. But more importantly - as there is very little point in comparing Bon Jovi music to other music - it is the second-best Bon Jovi album. And that's something.


OVERALL SCORE: 18 OUT OF 20

[Last_Man_Standing]

Good review.


Don't like 99 In The Shade much myself, and for me Wild is The Wind is the best song the band ever released though!

[(Don't)Lie_to_me]

wild is the wind is amazingly good - better than most songs on NJ .

However.....Richie is soooo good on Blood on Blood and the lyrics are so 'right'

(Danny knewthis white trash girl,
we each threw in a ten.
She took us to this cheap motel and turned us into men)

that it has to be the best song on NJ and the best song Bon Jovi have recorder in MPO

[Mr Bluesman]

Originally Posted by (Don't)Lie_to_me

However.....Richie is soooo good on Blood on Blood and the lyrics are so 'right'

(Danny knewthis white trash girl,
we each threw in a ten.
She took us to this cheap motel and turned us into men)

that it has to be the best song on NJ and the best song Bon Jovi have recorder in MPO

I agree.

Good review Baikonur.