The struggle is real. Rock dinosaurs Bon Jovi are persistent even though their career is not as shiny as it was in the 80s and 90s. I can freely say that it’s been decades since they had a memorable single or made an album that is more than average. The only time I saw them in the headlines is when Richie Sambore left the band.
When you have these types of problems, it is obvious you need to change more than just constellation of your band, so Bon Jovi have tried to return to the road of old fame by offering hard rock songs. They have decided to go after a little bit darker sound and that is how we got Burning Bridges. It is a classic Bon Jovi album with an epicenter in the 80s and an earthquake in a modern production. Pimped sound gives an impression like the band wants to be a part of the elite again. Unfortunately, younger kids will only label them as old rockers and their long term fans are going to be pretty indifferent, even though there are few tracks that could become radio hits.
We Don’t Run is suffering from the above mentioned pimped sound disease, while Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning could easily be mistaken for some of their songs from the decade when they were still relevant. These two were lead singles. The rest of the album will never get to the radio.
In the past, they were kicking ass with ballades but nowadays, their ballades sound weak, lame and stereotypical. The best example for it is Blind Love. The album makes some sense thanks to the closing track Burning Bridges in which they are singing about the experience with record label Mercury who just threw them away after their contract expired. It is probably the best song they wrote in a long time.
I hope their upcoming tour This House Is Not For Sale is going to be more superior than this album. As long as there is Jon Bon Jovi, there is hope.
