Yahoo! Music Review

Released on 11/06/07
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Jon Bon Jovi has always been the archetypal suburban blue-collar boy dreaming of the big skies, sunsets and straight talkin' of the open west. A fan of cowboy boots, bust-up denim and ten-gallon hats, Jon Bon Jovi not only had a walk-on role in 1990 movie "Young Guns II", but also wrote a credible, spaghetti western soundtrack to the Emilio Estevez-starring cowboy caper.

It's surprising, then, that many Bon Jovi fans have expressed shock and outrage at the number of twanging, old time songs on latest (inevitably) bucket-selling tenth studio album "Lost Highway". These fans should surely have been more offended by the dire, housewife-targeted acoustic re-workings of the hits featured on Bon Jovi's second greatest hits package back in 2003. For musically, this is pretty much business-as-usual mature rock swagger, grease-box tracks built from hi-end riffing and sturdy rhythms, enhanced here and there by slide guitar and, on "Till We Aren't Strangers Anymore", Leann Rimes.

In a genre where super annulated rockers all-too-often stick to rehashing their former glories with diminishing (not to mention deeply embarrassing) returns, it's pleasing to note that throughout "Lost Highway", Bon Jovi are at their best when delivering the country-tinged ballads. The only absolute howler here present is party anthem "We Got It Going On", which attempts a return to their hedonistic, big-haired rock days, but huffs and puffs like a mid-life crisis. Plus lines like "Is there anyone out there looking for a party? / Smoke it if you got it", are a little unfortunate given guitarist Richie Sambora's recent trip to a rehab facility.

The rest of "Lost Highway" is, funnily enough, not a musical version of the David Lynch movie, with mean looking midgets and oodles of psychologically peculiar fornication. Instead there are broken / imminently broken / imminently swooning hearts, and tales of ordinary folk in ordinary towns where "The cop on the corner knows everybody's name / The kid with a dream is singing for some loose change."

It's actually rather refreshing to hear this down-home view of the US. So often we associate picket fence and big sky America solely with seething racists, harrumphing right wing Christians, or people who get overly friendly with their chickens; left-leaning philanthropist Jon Bon offers a welcome, different perspective. Love it or hate it, "Lost Highway" will be joining supersize 7-11 sodas and loud bumper stickers as the accessory of choice for drivers across America this summer.

    by Luke Turner