I grew up in the salad days of hard rock and heavy metal in the \u201980s. And, if we\u2019re completely honest with ourselves, a lot of the music didn\u2019t exactly deal with deep, thought-provoking subjects. Oh, sure, there were exceptions to that rule\u2014show me any band other than Iron Maiden that could get you to read \u201cRime Of The Ancient Mariner.\u201d But, for the most part, the music we were listening to was fairly light-weight, something to get your feet tapping, fists pumping, and energy level raised.<\/p>\n
So, anyone walking into 7800\u00b0 Fahrenheit<\/i>, the sophomore release from Bon Jovi, expecting something thought-provoking songs was gonna have a bad time. Then again, most of us who picked up a Bon Jovi album any time before 1990 weren\u2019t looking for a morality or history lesson. Where their self-titled release was really the way the five members of the band could gel together as songwriters and performers, this release is a step forward in maturity in both categories, but still suggests the band hadn\u2019t hit their peak yet.<\/p>\n
Song-writing wise, this is a step in the right direction. One might argue still about the lighter-weight subject matter lyrically, but as long as Jon Bon Jovi and crew kept moving in the direction of songs like \u201cOnly Lonely,\u201d \u201cAlways Run To You\u201d and \u201cTo The Fire,\u201d this was in my book a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n
What also helps matters is the talents of Richie Sambora. He proves his skills on the guitar often\u2014just not as often as one might like. It still feels like Bon Jovi was relying on David Bryan\u2019s keyboards to drive the tracks\u2014and while his contributions do help more often than not, there sometimes feels like the heavy lifting should have been left to the guitars. Both \u201cSilent Night\u201d and \u201cSecret Dreams\u201d illustrate those points.<\/p>\n
Still, there is more to like on 7800\u00b0 Fahrenheit<\/i> than there is to be critical of. The lead-off track \u201cIn And Out Of Love\u201d not only captures the growth the band had experienced, but also fairly accurately captures the hard rock scene in the mid-\u201980s (even if I was still a young sprout, not even old enough to drink). The lead-out commentary by Bon Jovi is enough of a cautionary tale about thinking with the wrong head, so to speak.<\/p>\n
Is 7800\u00b0 Fahrenheit <\/i>an album I often go back to? Honestly, no… but when I do pull it down from the racks, it reminds me of how far Bon Jovi had come in just two total albums. Their greatest days (at least in terms of fame) were still to come, but this was a solid step forward for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8140],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-47050","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bon-jovi","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47050"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}