Bon Jovi

Give it time for the scab to heal, and maybe we can talk about a Paul Oakenfold remix of "Bad Medicine".

Baby steps.

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/10/bon_jovi_opening_pay-what-you-.html
what a cool dude

From an article on Grantland:

The Winners' History of Rock and Roll, Part 3: Bon Jovi

In popular terms, Bon Jovi's stature in rock's current landscape is unassailable: In 2011, the last year Bon Jovi toured, the band ranked no. 2 on Forbes's list of the year's highest-paid musicians, ahead of Elton John and behind U2. In 2010, Bon Jovi played a total of four sold-out concerts at New Jersey's New Meadowlands Stadium, including three consecutive shows when the venue opened in May. Overall, the band grossed $200 million in 2010; even more momentous that year was the appointment of Jon Bon Jovi to President Obama's White House Council for Community Solutions, an acknowledgment of the singer's prodigious philanthropic efforts. Not only was Bon Jovi doing Bono-like business, he was rubbing Bono-like shoulders.

I have no insight into the goings-on of Jon Bon Jovi's headspace, but I like to imagine him having a "Once in a Lifetime" moment during the Springsteen duet: "This is not my classic-rock staple, this is not my classic-rock backing band. Well, how did I get here?" Maybe I'm projecting: In many people's minds (certainly many critics' minds), perceptions of Bon Jovi will forever be fixed in the late '80s, the band's most commercially successful period, when Slippery When Wet and 1988's New Jersey spun off seven top-10 singles — an unprecedented run for what's ostensibly a hard-rock band — including four no. 1's. "Blaze of Glory," the breakout song from Jon Bon Jovi's "solo" soundtrack for Young Guns II, also hit the top of the charts during this period.

Susan Orlean's 1987 profile of Bon Jovi for Rolling Stone was typical of how the press treated the band at the time. The piece begins with an extended, oddly reverential treatise on Jon Bon's "fourteen inches" of hair: "Its color is somewhere between chestnut and auburn, and the frosty streaks in it give it a sizzling golden sheen," Orlean writes. "Truth is, it would be safe to say that Jon Bon Jovi has the most wonderful hair in rock & roll today." Orlean describes Jon Bon's locks as an oedipal metaphor for rebellion against his dad, a hairdresser, though her poker face doesn't quite hold. She doesn't really take this guy seriously, and the implication is that we shouldn't either.

Where Rolling Stone handled Springsteen or Bono as it would a political leader or some other figure of great social importance, Bon Jovi was held at arm's length as Unserious Subject Matter, a passing fad the magazine could exploit for short-term sales without truly committing itself to. Inside, Orlean quotes the 25-year-old Jon Bon closely as he speaks grandly about his future. "I'm going to become a professor on the music business before this is over," he declares. "I'll never be satisfied. I'm not happy that we have the Number One album, single, CD, video, that I sold out every show and that I fly in my airplane and that I can buy a huge mansion if I want to. Next year I plan to be better. I want a bigger record. I want to do more shows. I want to be able to buy two houses instead of one."

Perhaps this was included in the story for ironic effect, or to illustrate the naive ramblings of a lightweight whose return flight to obscurity was booked shortly after he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. But everything Bon Jovi said he was going to do, he did and then some. What hasn't changed is Bon Jovi's critical reputation, but Jon Bon simply worked around that. Bon Jovi won the favor of Springsteen, Paul McCartney, even a president.

The author then goes on to make some interesting comments about Bon Jovi's female fan base (and women in rock in general) and how that, along with pandering videos, not only helped Bon Jovi become uber-huge even when compared to most of his peers, but managed to stay relatively relevant after all these years.

Although the article never mentions it, I really have to put the Jersey lug up there with Madonna: Both were supposed to be flashes in pans from genres that were among the most disposable (and we all kind of knew it even when those genres were at their most vital) yet both have managed to stay on long past their expiration date.