Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~49 minutes
Release: 10 June 2024
This week Neil and Chris park the motorbike, escape the rain and head straight back to the late eighties, cracking open Bon Jovi's New Jersey with the kind of affection that only comes from growing up with it. Between greenhouse gardening that does not wreck your back and memories of Chicago Rock Cafe Thursdays, they unpack why this album still feels like a standard issue item if you were a rock kid of a certain age.
They set New Jersey alongside Skid Row, Def Leppard and the rest of the big hair brigade, but keep circling back to how much more coherent and grown up it feels than the earlier Bon Jovi records. You will hear how a battered car tape, an older cousin's hand me downs and a hunt through Loughborough record shops turned slippery when wet into an obsession, and how New Jersey then arrived as the album of pure song craft that quietly rewired teenage ideas about riffs, hooks and what a stadium band could be.
Neil and Chris zero in on the way Lay Your Hands on Me, Bad Medicine and Blood on Blood open the record with sheer energy, from jet engine intros to Tico Torres' gloriously confusing drum fills. They pull apart Richie Sambora's solos on songs like 99 in the Shade, pointing out the tap delay, calculated twiddly bits and whammy bar squeals that somehow stay melodic instead of showing off for the sake of it.
The conversation keeps returning to the so called second tier tracks, the little songlets like Ride Cowboy Ride and Love for Sale that stitch the sequencing together, and the cowboy stories that connect back to Wanted Dead or Alive and Blaze of Glory. They balance fan vote stats with their own instincts, arguing that Blood on Blood and the deep cuts tell you as much about Bon Jovi's craft as the huge radio singles, and that New Jersey's combination of piano ballads, stacked harmonies and big open chords is what makes it such a satisfying front to back listen.
New Jersey sits at a crossroads where hair metal excess meets proper songwriting, and Neil and Chris make the case that it is more than just Slippery When Wet part two. By walking through sales numbers, session gear lists and dynamic range scores they show how this record captures a band at full commercial power but still willing to leave space, light and shade in the arrangements.
Hearing it again through the ears of two lifelong fans, now older and juggling families, glasses and dodgy backs, turns it into a story about how albums become part of your personal history. This episode is as much about identity, ageing voices and what you do when your musical superpower changes as it is about big choruses and talk box squeals.
Perfect for: Anyone who grew up screaming Bon Jovi lyrics in rock clubs, guitarists obsessed with tasteful eighties solos and tone, or curious listeners who want to understand why New Jersey still feels like required reading for pop rock fans.