Just Who Is Bon Jovi Anyway?

Are you ready to LET IT ROCK? Are you ready to LET IT ROLL?

If you have decided to answer "YES" to both of those questions and raise your hands at the same time, then you are ready to partake in the Bon Jovi experience. So grab a bottle of Dos Equis, point to a random spot on a map of New Jersey, and make out with your sister's cute friend... because it is time we gave love a bad name.

Bon Jovi is one of those bands that is so awesome that you either love them or you hate them. And if you hate them then everyone else wonders why you hate them. Take my wife for example. She can't stand Bon Jovi. That doesn't make her a bad person, it just makes her wrong. Bon Jovi could provide the soundtrack to our lives. They help us keep the faith. Or something like that.

Sometimes it isn't very cool to like Bon Jovi. This was mostly true between 1995 and 2001. But we'll get to that in a bit. Just remember, that when someone sees your Bon Jovi t-shirt and says "Jon Bon is a Fag!" you have every legal right to kick his/her ass. 

There Are Really Two Incarnations of Bon Jovi
It's true! Bon Jovi released their first album in 1984 and rocked hard through albums such as "Slippery When Wet", "Keep The Fait", and the perfect "New Jersey" well until 1994 when their Greatest Hits compilation (Crossroad) came out. They totally rocked too. You could party to their music. You could get drunk and make out with your Aunt and it would still be okay because you were listening to Bon Jovi. Chances are, if you were a teenager between '84 and '94 then you even wore your Bon Jovi t-shirt in the shower.

After their Greatest Hits album came out though, the music world changed. And Bon Jovi was just too good to change with it. Vinyl had already been replaced by Cassette Tapes, and those tapes were doomed to be replaced by CDs, and nobody even knew what an mp3 was at this point. Bon Jovi just took one good look at the world and decided they were needed elsewhere.

Yes. Bon Jovi piloted a spaceship to the outer regions of Siuqesod 2 where they have been rocking and getting people to raise their hands for fifteen years. The song "Always" was actually a poetic 'good-bye' of sorts to our planet.

But Jon Bon wasn't an idiot. He knew that if Bon Jovi left the planet without a replacement then there would be mass hysteria and destruction. So he cloned the band, and then cloned himself again for good measure before saying so long to us all. The problem with this is that clones aren't perfect. Did you ever copy your favorite Bon Jovi tape for a friend, but that dubbed tape you made didn't sound just right? That's because it was an imperfect duplicate. Kinda like Bizarro in the Superman comics (which is a neat analogy because Jon Bon has a Superman tattoo on his arm) or that wonderfully awful movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton (whom was never a card-carrying member of the great Bon Jovi).

This new Bon Jovi tried to rock on their 1995 "These Days" album, and there were moments of greatness there, but ultimately the teens of the 90s just didn't care. So "Bon Jovi" (the clones) disappeared for a while and returned in 2001, which was just long enough for everyone to forget about the real Bon Jovi.  The new band, which I will call Clone Jovi (or maybe Bon Clovi, you can pick which you like best) cranked out hits like, "It's My Life", "Have A Nice Day", and "You Want To Make a Memory".  These fucking clones even recorded a country album in the name of Bon Jovi.  The new kids really liked it, and they raised their hands.  But we all knew better.  The real Bon Jovi was conquering the world of outer space rock n' roll.

C'mon, I couldn't make this shit up. 

Jon Bon, The Actor
That second Jon Bon clone I mentioned earlier is the dude who does all the acting. If you've seen that National Lampoon movie "Pucked" then you can tell that isn't the real Jon Bon, but an imposter. A clone. 

...What The Hell Is Heavy Metal?
In the 80s Bon Jovi was considered heavy metal.

You might think that's fucked up, but heavy metal has really changed over the years. Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith were heavy metal once. When you look at today's "heavy metal" versus the classic stuff you can see that heavy metal has just gotten heavier. It's louder and more distorted. There's more screaming than singing. Maybe I'm getting old. It's not that I don't like the new stuff, I'm just pointing out the differences. 

And Their Best Album Is...
I've been arguing this for years. Most people consider "Slippery When Wet" to be the definitive Bon Jovi album. I'm here to tell them that they're wrong. So let's do a Top 5 list. 

Top 5 Bon Jovi Albums
1. New Jersey
2. Slippery When Wet (hey, it came in second place!)
3. Bon Jovi
4. Keep The Faith
5. These Days

And for good measure, here's a list of their best songs. 

Top 11 Bon Jovi Songs
1. Raise Your Hands
2. Runaway
3. Bad Medicine
4. Lay Your Hands On Me
5. In & Out Of Love
6. I Believe
7. Born To Be My Baby
8. She Don't Know Me
9. In These Arms
10. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
11. Any other song that came out before or during the "Crossroads" Greatest Hits album.

So in the long run, Bon Jovi is just plain incredible. It took me over an hour to write this blog because I felt the need to keep one hand raised the entire time in honor of their music. Now that I think about it though, why did Bon Jovi tell us to raise our hands, and then write a song called "Lay Your Hands On Me"?

With the band living in outer space, I guess we'll never know.

Thanks for reading!
- ryan