I was prepared to really dislike this album, being a prime example of Eighties hair metal, and it is full of the kind of highly produced wall of wailing sound and “woah-oh” vocals that work well on MTV and in big stadiums. But, you know what? Some of it was pretty good.
A lot of that is thanks to Richie Sambora who does some nice guitar solos that take the riff and build on it with variety and emotion – not the twenty minute specials of the Seventies, but also not just super-fast triads at the top end of the fretboard either. It’s Sambora who does the characteristic talk-box part of Living On A Prayer as well.
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with Wanted Dead Or Alive because I felt sure that this was used in a Young Guns film – in fact, Emilio Estevez wanted to use it for Young Guns II but in the end Jon Bon Jovi wrote Blaze Of Glory for it instead (and got a cameo). A hair metal song in a Brat Pack movie makes Young Guns II in the running for the most Eighties film ever, but I still give that accolade to Top Gun.
Raise Your Hands feels like it was written with audience participation in mind, I’d Die For You is a typically histrionic hair metal track with Bon Jovi giving it his best earnest tortured performance. Overall the album still carries that general Eighties naffness about it, but at least for the most part it’s a fun and entertaining naffness.
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