It seems hard to believe that seminal Jersey hair rockers, Bon Jovi, are still around and releasing their tenth studio album. It seems harder to believe that anyone cares. Yet here we are, 23 years after the release of "Bon Jovi" and 21 years after "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Wanted Dead or Alive," and "Livin' on a Prayer."
However, instead of championing the return of hair metal, "Lost Highway" waves the Country & Western flag (at least that's what the marketing department wants you to believe). Clearly capitalizing on their oddball 2007 Grammy for "Best Country Collaboration," Bon Jovi has been pushed onto Island's Mercury Nashville imprint and re-packaged as an alt-country act. There's just one problem: they don't sound much like country.
There's plenty of slide guitars and talk about being on the road, but "Lost Highway" is pure adult contemporary schmaltz, with Jon Bon Jovi sounding about as country as he does glam. On "Summertime," he sings "It's like a beach blanket and a bottle of wine/something like summertime" over an ultra cheeseball guitar riff. Are beach blankets and wine really what they're into over in Nashville these days?
The pain continues with "Whole Lot of Leaving," "Seat Next to You" and "One Step Closer." Each horribly formulaic and obviously insincere track challenges the next in a battle for sappy country-esque ballad supremacy.
The final nail in the coffin of the band's former credibility comes on "Stranger" featuring LeAnn Rimes. The only song with an ounce of country credibility and the one that will probably bring the band another country collaboration Grammy, it's also enough to put anyone who rebelled by listening to Bon Jovi in the 80's on a suicide watch.
If ever the boys from Jersey had an edge, it's now utterly and completely gone, flushed down the toilet at the local truck stop. Here's hoping this highway never gets found.
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