Bon Jovi - New Jersey: C/D?

So balls's repping for "Born to Be My Baby" got me to pull this out (listen to a YT stream tbh) again. Intriguingly, ILM voted it as BJ's best in 2007:
Poll : Best Bon Jovi Album ?

despite the sentiments in this thread from this year:

Every huge artist has their "New Jersey" - a huge event album that ultimately feels a bit hollow & signals a career decline

This was my first favourite album, which surely says more about the fact that I was 9 when it came out than it does about anything else. (Memorized everything about it down to the liner notes. Did an air band to "Blood on Blood".) Still, it was sounding pretty solid this morning. In some ways, I think it could be as good as or better than Slippery When Wet. They stretched out a bit more here, with some hard blues-rock on "Homebound Train" and going pretty much full-on country on side 2, even throwing in a lo-fi imitation field recording of "Ride Cowboy Ride". The "Wild Is the Wind"/"Stick to Your Guns"/"I'll Be There for You" stretch consists of really strong songwriting as far as bombastic pop/country/rock ballads go. Sambora gets to flex his chops a little. As rock anthems go, "Bad Medicine" and "Born to Be My Baby" are probably as good as anything on Slippery, give or take "Livin' on a Prayer".

jon bon jovi once said that one of the first times his wife realized he was a pretty good songwriter was when elvis costello covered "bad medicine."

he then said one of the first times he got jealous was when she then said she liked Elvis's version better.

Then Play Long reaches the world of New Jersey via Bon Jovi, but not before noticing that there's a ton of rock elsewhere: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bon-jovi-new-jersey.html

I'll get to the nested reviews of indie albums soon enough but the NJ review is pretty cool.

Had to listen to it this morning.

Anyone else remember these beach towels?

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/42/71/f84271510a62808a05b27b33a0837717.jpg