Review Summary: Hopefully not
I’m not a Bon Jovi hater. If you’ve got zero good things to say about
Slippery When Wet I can immediately peg you as a joyless snob and leave you to pontificate on Christopher Nolan and Autechre to whatever poor woman is too polite to walk away from you for the rest of the party. And I did go into this with at least the mildest curiosity, and a willingness to admit that maybe even the likes of Bon Jovi might have something worth digging into decades after they last released a single you remember your wine-drunk mom belting out on the patio. The wisdom and introspection of age is something I could at least hope for from this band, who, while not exactly deep, once had an undeniable knack for a decent narrative and a solid hook, and yeah, a certain working-class poignancy and verve. And alright, the album hasn’t generated much in the way of buzz thus far, but who wouldn’t love a good late-career reflection from a stadium rock icon, right?
And damn. That’s my perennial optimism leaking out of my ear canals there.
"Legendary" as an opener is an oatmeal dribble of trite stadium-country tropes all over the bib of miserable lyrical cliche, and I hesitatingly call it country only because it’s too quaggy and rheumy-eyed to be called “rock” proper. Imagine you took Bruce Springsteen or, hell, his Tractor-Supply brand bastard son Eric Church, and took a wood planer to the top of his skull until “Raise my hands up to the sky/ Don’t need more to tell me I’m alive” starts to smell like freshly laid Van Zandt to him. And the album just runs with that theme from there, geriatric shuffle-stepping from skunked-Heineken country to Natty-Lite stadium rock for almost an hour. It takes the slightly less forgettable We Made It Look Easy to at least carry a little genuine poignancy that Bon Jovi seems to want to make the running theme of this album. And there’s that sense here and there that Jovie and co. are actually starting to touch on the older, wiser image they’re so clearly reaching for.
But the way the general theme of this album plays out ends up being a stitched-together collection of hackneyed, banal platitudes laid over tongue-bitingly asinine hooks, all so mewling and flabby there’s little to grasp beyond feeble stabs at nostalgia. It’s little surprise that the peak of
Forever is when they dust off the damn voice-box effect from "Living On A Prayer"! And when they do, it borderline sucks! Add to the flaccid songwriting the geriatric Wish brand Tom Petty imitation that Jomi’s pushing through the speakers and you’ve got the full recipe, which is to say, Bon Joli as a musical act is cooked.
The turgid plod of “Waves” (can we talk about how the drummer is playing through a codeine overdose the entire album?) isn’t leavened even slightly by the grudging drool-stream of distortion over the guitar, the only spice in this gruel besides a guitar solo that manages to somehow transmit the farts Phil X is furiously inhaling into his guitar tone. "Kiss The Bride" is easily the most cynical piece of washed-up cornball-first-wedding-dance fodder I’ve ever heard, which is like finding out the marianas trench actually has several secret sublevels for maintenance equipment, levels in which Jon Bob Jonie has been frequently masturbating. Jong wailing out that he’s in love with his first guitar sounds less sentimental and more like the dementia-addled oversharing of a paraphilia origin story, coronated with the proverbial crown of shit in the form of a tinkling piano break as Boni waxes nostalgic about listening to KISS as a kid; a bit of musical trivia that tracks with what a miserable, soulless dick-flattening this album is, but neglects the fact that, unlike KISS, Bod Jobi actually have something of a legacy to burn. "The Hollow Man" is the most apt title on this whole slagheap, as Jog takes an introspective look inside and finally realizes that anyone who would slap together this many hackneyed lines into one song has clearly had his body cavity hollowed out and refilled with Hallmark cards and cat shit. “I’m much too vain to masturbate” is the lyrical version of the gunk I scrape from my teeth when I eat too much candy and by far the most touching part of this wretched power ballad is that Bong Joggy is quite possibly mis-referencing the one poem he remembers ever existing.
So, “What do you do when the song’s been sung?” Apparently, keep trying to cash ever-cheaper paychecks until enough of your fans finally drop the “well, it’s pretty good for how old they are” charade. Forever is how this album feels, 2-dimensional stadium pap stretched over 48 minutes as tightly as Jobi’s plasticine face is stretched over his skull. Kerrang gave this a 4 out of 5 and if that doesn’t prompt you to eject this album from the contents of your mind like your dog ejecting the litter of rabbits it found from its stomach all over your living room floor, then I don’t know what will. “Hell, Dad,” you might say, “this isn’t even that bad, it’s competent, there’s a jam or two in there, a nice anthem, what’s the big deal?” But you look at this thing, past the lines Boney, quite possibly in all good faith, put down to be recorded for eternity, at the rewarmed piss jar of ClearChannel grool residue that makes up the sound and substance of this album and you’ll see a total, blank-eyed absence of those elements that made
Slippery When Wet memorable: great hooks, infectious energy and at least half a heart.
