← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade: The You Give Rock a Bad Name Edition
01:09:49
Over the objections of critics, Bon Jovi entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this month. What is the band’s legacy? Like it or not, they do have one.
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- [00:00]
Chris Berube
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
- [00:12]
Chris Melanthe
Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one? Series on today's show. This month in Cleveland, the Rock and Roll hall of Fame will add more than a half dozen artists to its permanent roster. This year's class of inductees includes such luminaries as Sister Rosetta Tharp, the Moody Blues, Nina Simone, Dire Straits and the Cars. But one act on the roster, the most controversial of this year's nominees, let alone inductees, has outgrossed all of these other acts, maybe even combined when you include their live tour grosses. They are beloved by rock fans the world over and have scored number one hits on the they are living legends who have influenced generations of Chris Perube. Just play these jerks already shot through.
- [01:14]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
The heart and you're too late darling. You Give love bad name.
- [01:23]
Chris Melanthe
That, God help me, is you give love a bad name, the 1986 number one hit by those hair metal prom kings, Bon Jovi Folks, Full disclosure, this podcast does not solely reflect the tastes of your humble host. However, this is our 12th episode of Hit Parade. Happy first birthday to us. By the way, and up to now, I have been fond of virtually all of the music we've covered. Yes, even stuff as goofy as UB40's red red wine or as schlocky as Do They Know It's Christmas? Or as decadent as MC Hammer's yous Can't Touch this. And artists like the Beatles, Donna Summer, George Michael, Tom Petty, Prince and Madonna are all beloved legends as far as I'm concerned. That is certainly not the case with Bon Jovi. I am publicly on record loathing this band. In 2012, in a Village Voice series called First Worsts, I wrote an article chronicling my three decade history of hating Bon Jovi, particularly its smug, self satisfied band, self titling lead singer Jon Bon Jovi. I bemoaned how his band's pushy captain of the football team music helped nudge the new wave pop I loved all off the US charts and one last self absorbed detail. Since 2015 I have been a balloted voter for the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. I am honored to be among the roughly thousand musicians, producers, industry figures, journalists and critics invited to vote on hall inductees each year. And it will come as no surprise, dear listener, that when Bon Jovi's name appeared on the Rock hall ballot last fall. I did not check that box. I offer all this preamble as a disclaimer and a self puncturing Bon Jovi are now permanently enshrined in Cleveland, and clearly my opinions are about as influential as a bucket of warm spit as they have been since 1986. Much to my chagrin, Bon Jovi have been running roughshod over the Billboard charts for most of the last 332 years. Even when it looked like changing tastes in the 1990s might finally leave them behind, they have proved resilient, irrepressible, unkillable. Here's the thing about Bon Jovi. Though hateful and insipid as they may be, they might well belong in the Rock and Roll hall of Fame if influence is a criterion for hall induction, even malign influence, that works in their favor. Because Bon Jovi are influential. They hold a unique place in the history of hard rock, heavy metal and the pop charts, and they are musically influential in ways that might not even be fully appreciated by Jon Bon Jovi's own F& good God, what is it with you people? Why are you encouraging him. So today, Hit Parade takes on its ultimate mounting a defense, or at least an explanation of the phenomenon that is Bon Jovi. We will consider what made them innovative in the middle of the 1980s. And when I am not feeling queasy using words like innovative and Bon Jovi in the same sentence, I will try to give due deference to this band that, critics be damned, is deep into its fourth decade as a Billboard chart topper. In fact, however dubious, Bon Jovi scored their latest chart topping album under shady circumstances just weeks ago. This house is not for. But let's hold that thought about how exactly Bon Jovi are still topping charts in 2018. Let's go back to the root of their success, the single that marked a sea change in how metal adjacent rock was received on the charts and on the radio. The song we played at the top of the show.
- [06:09]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
No one can save me, the damage is done.
- [06:13]
Chris Melanthe
That is where your hit parade marches today, the week ending November 29, 1986, when you give love a bad name by Bon Jovi hit number one on the Hot 100. It spent only one week there, but it was a monster hit. And it most certainly wasn't Bon Jovi's last chart topper. Funnily enough, this is the second Hit Parade episode in just a couple of months where we've zoomed in on a big hit from late 1985. A couple of episodes ago, we talked about Run DMC's cover of Aerosmith's Walk this Way, a number four hit in September of 86 and a key moment for rap on the pop charts. As I noted in that episode, Walk this Way sounded hard edged compared with its competition at the time, schlocky hits from the likes of Huey Lewis and Lionel Richie. But that's not all that was succeeding on the charts that year. With 2020 hindsight, 1986 was the last major chart year for 80s New Wave. The British led American fueled synth heavy phenomenon that dominated MTV's first five years. When we think of the Reagan decade, this sound and this style is what we picture. Have you ever thrown an 80s party or attended an 80s dance? Ever dressed for Halloween in Flock of Seagulls hair. Since MTV launched in 1981, so called New romantic and New wave music had had a good run on the US Charts. And as late as the spring, summer and fall of 1986, British acts with strong new wave and sophista pop affiliations were were still topping the Hot 100. From the pet Shop Boys to Peter Gabriel, the Human League to Banana Ramble, Bon Jovi represented a break from all that when you give love a bad name topped the Hot 100 that fall. It was a sign that pop in the back half of the 80s would shift in a more guitar oriented direction, not unlike what Walk this Way signified for rap. Bon Jovi's breakthrough single sounds like such an inevitable hit now, it's easy to forget how surprising its success was at the time. That's because for most of the prior two decades, hard rock and heavy metal had not been considered pop chart music.
- [08:58]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Sometimes I wonder what I'm gonna do lo There ain't no king cheer for the summertime blue.
- [09:06]
Chris Melanthe
That's Bay Area psychedelic rockers. Blue Cheer, with the first hit, generally agreed to qualify as heavy metal. Their turned up to 11 cover of the classic 50s Eddie Cochran song Summertime Blues peaked at number 14 on the Hot 100 in May of 1968. Before we go any further, now would be a good time for a bit of nomenclature. Not so much a definition as an admission of futility. The term metal and its boundaries are more zealously policed than almost any genre in popular music. Artists once considered essential to metal are downgraded to terms ranging from hard rock to arena rock to glam. Songs once considered almost satanic might now be playable on classic rock or even adult contemporary radio. In a bit we will discuss the development of the pop friendly subgenre hair metal about which there is less debate. But in the unlikely event that you listener are a metalhead, first of all, welcome to Hit Parade. And second, I acknowledge you might not consider much of the music we discuss in this episode to be actual metal. Especially after 30 years of such subgenres as death metal, speed metal, black metal and grindcore, let's simply agree that metal's goalposts are ever shifting. In fact, what we are chronicling in this episode about Bon Jovi and their 80s peers was how much a so called metal song could be softened and still be considered metal. I bring up this definitional quandary because even before the 80s, it's debatable whether anything you could call metal had ever topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart in the 70s. Generally, you could only reach the top of the chart if you mixed your hard rock with small dollops of pop, boogie rock and white funk like Grand Funk Railroad. Or the edgar winter group. Both of these songs, We're An American Band and Frankenstein, topped America's flagship chart in 1973. But neither song is metal, even by the softer definition prevalent in the 70s. Back then, heavy metal's leading avatars were bands that couldn't get near the top 40, let alone the number one slot, such as the Ozzy Osbourne fronted Black Sabbath, both Iron man and Paranoid, their only Hot 100 hits, peaked below the top 50. And Led Zeppelin, the top hard rock act of the decade, were not a big singles band, although they would release 45s occasionally. As we noted in past episodes of Hit Parade, almost all of their small handful of hits peaked somewhere in the middle of the Hot 100, and their only top 10 hit came early in their career when Whole Lotta Love peaked in early 1970 at number four. Number four was also the high water mark for the formative early metal single Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, which reached its Peak in 1973. By the late 70s, even bands that did mix pop with their metal had to soften themselves considerably to get on top 40 radio. Seminal costumed glam metal band Kiss managed to crack the lower rungs of the top 40 with singles like Shout It Out Loud and the immortal Rock and Roll All Night. But Kiss only managed to crack the chart's top 10 when they let their drummer, Peter Chris sing a very soft ballad built around a piano and strings with scarcely any electric instruments at all. Beth Kiss's biggest pop hit was one of the earliest power ballads, peaking at number seven in the fall of 76. It was a sign of things to come. A foreshadowing that hard rock bands would do best on the charts when they turned down the guitars.
- [14:03]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Beth, I hear you calling but I can't come home right now Me and the boys are playing and we just can't find the sound.
- [14:20]
Chris Melanthe
If Kiss were one sign of where glam metal was headed in the next decade, one year after Beth fell off the Hot 100 came an even more pivotal moment, as we noted in our Donna Summer episode about the song I Feel love, which in 1977 kicked off such 80s styles as electro dance and techno pop. The hair metal 80s kicked off in earnest in 1978 with this album by a four man band from Pasadena, California. And their new sound came in with a brontosaurus stomp. Van Halen would be a formative text for not only Bon Jovi, but all of 80s rock in more ways than one. Like the Future band from New Jersey, this California foursome was named after its leader, Eddie Van Halen and his drummer brother Alex Van Halen. Except unlike John Bon Jovi, Eddie wasn't a singer. He was the band's lead guitarist and one of the most groundbreaking in rock history. An entire genre of post blues hammer on fleet fingered pyrotechnic metal was essentially invented by Eddie Van Halen on the band's self titled debut album, now commonly referred to as Van Halen1. One little remembered factoid about that first Van Halen album was that it actually generated a top 40 hit relatively quickly. Its leadoff single was already on the Hot 100 about a month and a half before the album, and it broke into the top 40 in March of 78, the same week the eponymous Van Halen album debuted on the Billboard album chart. The single, a remake of the Kinks rock classic you really got me, a no. 7 hit in 1964, and it was a spotlight for the band's fearless showman, the ingratiating, mischievous vocalist Diamond David Lee. Rol.
- [16:51]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
You really got me now you got me so I guess girl you really got me now you got me so I don't know where I'm going yeah, oh yeah, you really got me.
- [17:07]
Chris Melanthe
As impressive as this fast start was for Van Halen, the band hit the same ceiling all hard rock hit in the 1970s. In fact, compared with Kiss or Led Zeppelin, their ceiling was even lower. You really Got Me peaked at number 36 in March of 78, and it was in and out of the top 40 in just three weeks. Even at the start of the 1980s, this same roadblock Applied to virtually all metallic hard rock, no matter how catchy and accessible the song. Consider this classic ditty. Formed in Australia by a pair of Scotland born brothers, AC DC are one of the best selling acts period in rock history, let alone hard rock. The band, led by Angus Young and his late brother Malcolm are Certified for roughly 200 million in sales worldwide, about a third of that in the US alone. And none of their albums is a better seller than 1980's Back in Black. Recorded as the band mourned the early 1980 death of singer Bon Scott, Back in Black marked the debut of screeching vocalist Brian Johnson and it served as the band's pop coming out. It generated ACDC's first ever American Top 40 hits, 1980's yous Shook Me All Night Long and 1981's proto breakbeat classic Back in Black.
- [18:44]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Back in Black.
- [18:57]
Chris Melanthe
As legendary as these two hits from Back in Black remain to this day, neither was a big pop hit. You Shook Me All Night Long peaked at number 35 in November 1980 and the album's title track reached number 37 in February 1981. At a time when disco was only starting to fade and the Hot 100 was being topped by the likes of Barbra Streisand and Kenny Rogers, screeching metal like AC DC was still disadvantaged on the pop charts. AC DC's album did considerably better, reaching number four just before Christmas 1980. Perhaps the most vital talent on the Back In Black album wasn't new singer Brian Johnson or guitar hero Angus Young. It was the album's producer, a German South African man born in Zambia named Robert John Lang. Nicknamed Mutt since childhood, Robert John Mutt Lange emerged as one of the most successful and meticulous producers in rock history. Even when working with a down and dirty act like AC dc, Mutt built albums painstakingly achieving a radio friendly sound marked by flashy soaring choruses and shimmering walls of guitars. Back in Black was actually Lange's second album with acdc. He had already turned the band into platinum sellers with 1979's highway to Hell. But Back in Black established Mutts bonafides in hard rock once and for all, which led to work with other pop metal acts who would chart even higher.
- [20:43]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
All right.
- [20:47]
Chris Melanthe
I got something to say. Starting in 1981, just a few months after Back in Black, Mutt Lang began working with Sheffield England metal band Def Leppard. And he turned them into multi platinum superstars. The biggest selling band of a lot. Late 70s early 80s movement that was then called the new wave of British heavy metal. By the way, if you've ever wondered why so much of Def Leppard's merchandise features variations on the UK's Union Jack flag, it's a vestige of that movement, encompassing such metal bands as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Mutt began working with Leopard on 1981's High and Dry, but it was his second album with the group, their third overall, 1983's Pyromania, that transformed the Sheffield band into MTV celebrities. The album's leadoff single, the pop metal classic Photograph, reached number 12 on the Hot 100 in May of 83, and the Pyromania album reached a simultaneous peak of number two on the Billboard album chart. If not for Michael Jackson's mega blockbuster Thriller, Def Leppard would have topped the album chart. None of Pyromania's three singles, Photograph Rock of Ages or Foolin managed to crack the Hot 100's top 10, but by 1984 the album was sextuple platinum him one can imagine an alternate history in which it was Def Leppard teamed with Mutt Lang, who turned hair metal into permanent pop royalty. But Leppard would be absent from the top 40 for about four years, missing the genre's pop chart breakthrough. Actually before 1983 was even over. Leopard helped set the stage for an American band whose album had the word metal from right in the title, and they would chart even better in Billboard. Quiet Riot, a Southern California band that formed in the mid-70s, did not really want to record a cover of Slade's 1973 UK no.1 hit Come On Feel the Noise. But the producer of their third album, Spencer Proffer, was insistent, and the band's shrieking cover of the song reached number five on the Hot 100 in mid November 1983. One week later, Quiet Riot's album Metal Health became a giant killer, knocking the Police's synchronicity out of the no. 1 spot on the album chart after a 17 week run and holding off both Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson for a single week, that made Metal Health the first official heavy metal album to top the American charts again. If Def Leppard's Pyromania had gone just one spot higher six months earlier, they would have held that distinction. Metal was now officially emerging as a fixture on both Top 40 playlists and MTV's airwaves heading into 1984. That year, by the way, would be the title of an album that would take metal the last mile on the charts, giving it a number One single. Opening with a monster synthesizer hook. Jump was the lead single from Van Halen's 1984 album 1984, or MCMLXXXIV as it was styled in roman numerals on the album's cover. The band had yet to crack the US top 10, but they were poised for a breakthrough in late 1982. Eddie contributed a searing guitar solo to Michael Jackson's R and B rock hybrid Beat It, a song that reached number one on both the Hot 100 and Hot Black Singles charts in the spring of 83, Beat it primed pop radio for Van Halen to score a chart topper of their own. At the turn of 84, both MTV and Top 40 radio were at peak. Synthesizer and leading off the next Van Halen album with a song that emphasized synths over guitar was a savvy move. Jump took just two weeks to crack the top 40 and only seven to reach number one. It spent five weeks on top. The same month. Jump was commanding the hunter. Hot 100. A comedy film premiered on US movie screens called this is Spinal Tap. Directed by Rob Reiner and starring Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, this is Spinal Tap helped pioneer the so called mockumentary format as it offered a straight faced but hilarious chronicle of fictional British metal band Spinal Tap. The movie was only a modest box office performer in the spring, but it is now enshrined in the Library of Congress and widely cited on lists of the best comedies of all time. In one segment of the film, Reiner's faux documentarian Marty DeBurghy interviews McKean's David St. Hubbins and guests Nigel Tufnell about the band's testosterone heavy fan base.
- [27:15]
David St. Hubbins (Character from Spinal Tap)
One thing that puzzles me is the makeup of your audience seems to be predominantly young boys. Well, it's a sexual thing really. Aside from the identifying that the boys do with us, there's also like a reaction to the female, of the female, to our music.
- [27:35]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Really.
- [27:35]
David St. Hubbins (Character from Spinal Tap)
They're quite fearful. Yeah, that was my theory. They see us on stage with tight trousers. We've got, you know, armadillos and our trousers. I mean, it's really quite frightening, the size.
- [27:46]
Chris Melanthe
Yeah.
- [27:46]
David St. Hubbins (Character from Spinal Tap)
And they ran screaming.
- [27:49]
Chris Melanthe
Like so many moments in this movie, this witty scene satirized an essential heavy metal truth. Up to now, the appeal of metal had been largely confined to young men. While a core of women certainly enjoyed metal dating back to Led Zeppelin in the 70s, the music was by and large not directly marketed to them. Jump helped change that. It would not have gone to no one had it not been, at its core, a rocking synth pop song, Van Halen had already codified hair metal as far back as their 78 debut. But Jump established hair metal as, in essence, hard rock for everybody. The problem was little else on Van Halen's 1984 album emulated this approach. None of its three follow up singles cracked the pop top ten. In fact, for the rest of 1984, no metal single managed to follow Jump into the top 10. Van Halen's breakthrough hit had essentially no coattails, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Billboard reported that metal songs were beginning to crack pop radio playlists and earn requests from female listeners. And why not? The songs were sturdy and catchy, sporting strong pop hooks. Regardless of where the bands hailed from, whether from German rockers the Scorpions, Sunset strip band rat round and round. Long island scaremongering band Twisted Sister.
- [29:51]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Or.
- [29:51]
Chris Melanthe
A five man band from Sayreville, New Jersey, named after their history. Hirsute lead singer when they cracked the top 40 one week in April 1984, Casey Kasem counted it down, although he had a little trouble back then pronouncing Richie Sambora's last name.
- [30:10]
Chris Berube
American Top 40 at 40 originates in Hollywood. Five songs debut in this week's countdown. Here's one by a rock group named for their lead singer, Jon Bon Jovi. The others in the band are David Washbaum, Alec John Such, Tico Torres and Richie Sombaro. Here they are with Runaway. Bon Jovi.
- [30:33]
Chris Melanthe
Runaway took about 18 months to become a hit. Jon Bon Jovi first recorded it in 1982 with a completely different lineup of musicians, a band that didn't have an official name. He called the crew the All Star Review. In the early 80s, young John got his first exposure to both rock stars and the recording studio, courtesy of his cousin Tony Bongiovi, co owner of New York City's Power Station recording studio. The teenage John Bongiovi would sweep studio floors and sit in occasionally on tracking sessions for members of Bruce's E Street Band, among others, on the strength of a New York top 40 station that was playing Runaway as a single. In 1983, Mercury Records signed John to a major label contract. He moved quickly to build a band. Band manager Don McGee recommended naming the new group Van Halen Style after its leader, whose Italian last name, Bongiovi became the band name Bon Jovi. The self titled Bon Jovi album debuted on the Billboard album chart in February 1984, and its slow emerging leadoff single finally reached the top 40 in April. But Casey Kasem wouldn't have to learn how to pronounce the band members names right away. Bon Jovi's debut single was in and out of the national top 40 in just one week and the band wouldn't crack the upper reaches of the Hot 100 for another two and a half years. When we come back we'll talk about this two year period on the population charts and what finally broke Bon Jovi and all of Hair Metal. This two year period on the pop charts from mid-1984 to late 1986 would be an odd interzone for hard rock and heavy metal. On mtv, Metal Videos, with their flashy guitar solos, leather clad performers and scantily clad women would dominate multiple hours of the broadcast day. But at radio the songs were only medium sized hits, no matter how catchy or power rotated by music television. On their third album, 1985's Theater of Pain, Louisiana band Motley Cruelty came loaded for bear with an undeniable pop friendly cover of The Brownsville station 19743 hit smoking in the Boys Room. However, the crew couldn't replicate Brownsville station's top five or even top 10 peak, maxing out on the Hot 100 at number 16 in September of 85. Not bad for a Sunset Strip band who'd never come close to the top 40 before and better than Bon Jovi was doing. Indeed, by 85 Bon Jovi were already onto their second album and none of its singles were connecting at top 40 radio. The album 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit. By the way, that temperature is the supposed melting point for rock. These guys can't even do nerd stuff right anyway. The album's first single, Only Lonely peaked at number 54 in the spring of 85. At a time when the pop charts were awash in Madonna, Wham and Tears for Fears. Radio programmers weren't all that interested in the Jovi. By late 1985, if you asked a regular teenage watcher of MTV what metal song was a big chart topping hit, they wouldn't have picked anything by Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, or even the On Hiatus Van Halen. They would have picked this song, Arguably the ultimate power ballad of the 1980s. So famous that a quarter century later the Gen X nostalgia movie Hot Tub Time Machine would close with a hilarious homage to it. Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue was basically the biggest video on MTV for much of 1985 and 86. It consistently generated the most requests on Dial MTV, the channel's daily call in request show for months on end. And yet on the Hot 100, Home Sweet Home peaked at a mystifying number 89. And it was off the chart in a month and a half. Even on album rock radio, Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home peaked at a modest number 38. The power ballad was too soft for rock fans and and two declassee for pop fans. All of this backdrop is essential to understanding why Bon Jovi's eventual breakthrough came as such a shock. Before late 1986, even the poppiest sounding metal songs were supposed to appeal primarily to boys, peak somewhere in the lower rungs of the Billboard charts, spur some album sales, and that's it. In the entire first half of the 1980s, Van Halen's jump was the anomaly, the only metal no. 1 hit of any kind through 1985 and 1H86. You you could get through your day as a pop fan encountering relatively little hard rock. What finally pushed hair metal to the top of the Pops was a song that rewrote the rules by rethinking what anthemic pop could sound like. It's been said here in the 2010s the era of Spotify, that hit songs now can't waste any time getting to the chorus on streaming services, hit records deploy the catchiest part of the song right up front. Well, let's give Bon Jovi their due. They figured this out three decades ago and their breakthrough hit, which I'm sorry folks, I'm going to have to foist upon you again, didn't waste a second of your time waiting for the hook.
- [37:44]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Shot through the heart and you're too blade darling you give love bad name.
- [37:53]
Chris Melanthe
The secret sauce Bon Jovi spread all over their third album was a man named Desmond Child. Calling him just a songwriter is too simple. Like Phil Spector before him, Diane Warren contemporaneous with him and Max Martin after him, Child was a song doctor innately plugged in to what made a pop hit with work. And that's what you Give Love A Bad Name was a ruthlessly effective radio smash. Child had actually performed this magic for a hair metal band before. Way back in 1979 at the height of disco, he co wrote I Was Made for Lovin youn a crossover disco rock hit for glam metal hall of famer's Kiss. It peaked at number 11 in the year of disco Demolition night and branded Kiss as sellouts to their dude rock fan base. Desmond Chop would go on to write and produce hard rock anthems for such 80s stars as Aerosmith, Joan Jett and Cher in the late 90s, he would even co write Ricky Martin's English language breakthrough Live in La Vida Loca. But back in 86, Bon Jovi's third album was a huge breakthrough, not just for him, but for his jugular grabbing pop metal sound. Child was all over Slippery When Wet, whose final 10 song lineup was determined after surveying New York area teens about which songs they liked best from a pool of dozens. In a final touch, the band abandoned the album's original cover art, a photo of a buxom woman wearing a wet yellow T shirt, for a more anodyne photo of the album's title. Written with a finger on a wet black garbage bag, Slippery When Wet first topped the album chart In October of 1986, just a couple of weeks before you Give Love A Bad Name topped the Hot 100. Just two weeks after Bad Name fell out of the number one spot, Bon Jovi were back on the Hot 100 with another Desmond Child composition, the Springsteen light blue collar anthem Livin on a Pray. Again. Child and co writers Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were taking the old and making it new again. The Talk box was an effect Peter Frampton made famous back in 1976, powering his blockbuster chart topping live album Frampton Comes Alive. Bon Jovi revived the Talk Box sound for the 80s on living on a Prayer, which opens with what is now probably the most famous talk box hook in pop history. Prayer reached number one on the Hot 100 in February 1987, and unlike Bad Name, it stayed on top for four weeks. By early 87, Bon Jovi and the Desmond Child sound had opened up pop radio playlists to other hard rockers with piles of moussed hair, double necked guitars and spandex. One immediate beneficiary of Bon Jovi's breakthrough had been lying in wait all of the prior year. Europe were a Swedish metal band already on their third album when they issued the absurdly catchy the Final Countdown in The spring of 86, months before Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, MTV played Europe's video in low rotation for months all summer and fall. But radio stations on either side of the Atlantic wouldn't touch their brand of of moosed Scandinavian pop metal. But after Bon Jovi the Final Countdown, whose deathless keyboard riff is probably playing at a stadium or as someone's ringtone as I speak, debuted on the Hot 100 and wound up in the top 10 by the spring of 87 in England, Europe's hit went all the way to number one, the first metal song to top the UK charts ever. Europe's album wound up triple platinum in America. This was the key difference. Unlike Van Halen's 84 hit jump, what distinguished Bon Jovi's 8687 breakthrough was it had coattails. Top 40 radio now wanted more Jovi, but also more pop metal in general. For example, a band from the West Philadelphia suburbs, Cinderella had the good fortune to be touring with Bon Jovi when Bad Name and Prayer topped the charts. The result? Cinderella's album Night Songs flew into the album chart top three and their singles began scaling the hot. Or consider Poison a glam metal band so heavily made up they made Boy George look austere. Their album look what the Cat Dragged in had been riding the bottom half of the album chart since the middle of 1986 without connecting it Radio after the Bon Jovi breakthrough in early 87, their irresistible power pop hit Talk Dirty to Me shot into the pop top 10 and the cat Dragged in album went triple platinum. Motley Crue also benefited from the changed climate for metal. They dropped their fourth album, Girls Girls, Girls in the spring of 87 and it exploded onto the charts, debuting in Billboard all the way up at number four, an unusually high entry for the pre SoundScan era. The week in June 87, the Cruise album slammed onto the charts. Five of the top six albums in America were metal. If it hadn't been for U2's the Joshua Tree at number one, the entire album chart top five would have been metal. From Bon Jovi to Ozzy Osbourne, Poison to the crew there Stripper Celebrating Leadoff single and title track reached number 12 in the summer of 87, far better than Home Sweet Home had done less than two years earlier.
- [45:28]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Girls, girls, girls Dancing down on the.
- [45:33]
Chris Melanthe
Sunset Strip Girls, Girls But Europe, Cinderella and the crew were whippersnappers compared with some of the rockers that waltzed through the door Jon Bon Jovi kicked open in the summer of 87, David Coverdale, 36 year old frontman for the hard rock band Whitesnake, revived a song he and his guitarist had written five years earlier. The soaring power ballad Here I Go Again re recorded with keyboards and friendlier guitar hooks for Whitesnake's self titled seventh album, Here I Go Again reached number one on the Hot 100 by October of 87. By 1988 and 89, the pop metal explosion generated some of the highest charting hits ever for such 40 something rockers as Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Plant, Kiss, and even Alice Cooper. And what was Jon Bon Jovi doing while all of these bands were profiting from his profile? He was pretending to be a cowboy.
- [47:03]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Cowboy on a steel horse I ride I wanna.
- [47:16]
Chris Melanthe
That is when he wasn't crooning about what he did to his high school girlfriend in the backseat of a car. Bon Jovi's music had redefined the middle of the road by the end of 87. It would also redefine the sound of pop. When former Go Go singer Belinda Carlisle issued the lead off single to her second solo album, Heaven on Earth, you could be forgiven for thinking Desmond Child and Jon Bon Jovi had something to do it, Reaching number one one year almost to the week after you give love a bad name. Carlisle's Heaven Is a Place on Earth is structurally practically a carbon copy of Bon Jovi's hit the Melody Is Different. Nothing has actually been pilfered by veteran songwriter rick Knowles, but Carlisle's chart topper could only have come out in the second half of the 80s. The pop metal formula is all over this slice of sun kissed big 80s pop, especially its exploding opening chorus. Some of this same power ballad metallic pop drama started rubbing off on other pure pop of the period, whether from Cher. Or even dance diva Taylor Dane. By the start of 1988, Billboard revealed that Slippery When Wet had been the top album of 1987, a year, by the way, that saw new releases from Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. Slippery beat them all and was certified octuple platinum by the end of 87. By the mid-90s, Slippery was certified for US sales of $12 million for Bon Jovi in 1988. The trick was how to follow it up. Although given their status as culture shifting rock stars, virtually anything they issued in the wake of Slippery would be guaranteed instant success. And that's pretty much what happened New Jersey. Bon Jovi's fourth album reached number one on the charts in its second week of release and spun off five top ten hits. But the state of the art in hard rock had not remained static. While Bon Jovi were between albums in the summer of 87, two albums landed that over the next two years would redefine both ends of the hair metal spectrum. The first was the debut studio album by LA metal band Guns N Roses, Appetite for Destruction. It would take nearly a year to break on the charts and begin spinning off radio hits, but the band, fronted by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash, would move the goalposts of accessible metal deeper into heavy shredding territory.
- [50:56]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Welcome to the Jungle we got fun and games. We got everything you got.
- [51:05]
Chris Melanthe
Meanwhile, on the poppier end of the spectrum, arriving in August 1987 and also taking the better part of a year to break big, was hysteria, Def Leppard's long awaited follow up to 1983's Pyromania. The British band had been to hell and back in their four years out of the spotlight, most especially when drummer Rick Allen was lost his arm in a car accident on New Year's 1984. This delayed the recording and release of their fourth album. Constructed over three years of meticulous sessions with producer Mutt Lang, Hysteria would go on to spawn six Top 40 hits and sell more than 12 million copies in the U.S. al. Both acts handily outsold New Jersey by mid-1989, and the commercial breakthrough that year of yet another pummeling band threatened to make Bon Jovi look even fluffier.
- [52:21]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Nothing is real but pain now hold my breath As I wish for Dare.
- [52:28]
Chris Berube
Oh Please God Wake Me.
- [52:35]
Chris Melanthe
LA thrash metal band Metallica had been issuing albums since 1983 and had seen its share of tragedy. Original bassist Cliff Burton died on tour in a bus accident in 1986. The band soldiered on without him, and their next album, 1988's and justice for All, proved their commercial breakthrough. The downbeat, uncompromising single one even cracked the pop top 40, peaking at number 35 in the spring of 1989.
- [53:11]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
May I hold my breath As I.
- [53:14]
Chris Berube
Wish for Dear oh Please God wake Me.
- [53:22]
Chris Melanthe
Metallica were the leading edge of a second wave of hair metal that, alongside Guns N Roses, pushed the limits of how hard a commercially successful act could be. If a band as tough minded as Metallica could become multi platinum, radio embraced stars, and it meant even the poppier metal bands could go harder. Later, in 1989, another New Jersey band, Skid Row, managed to score a pair of top 10 hits that were more aggressive than anything from the 8687 wave of hair metal, Compared with 18 in life and one. Songs like Bon Jovi's I'll Be There for your might as well have been easy listening, but the song topped the Hot 100 in the spring of 89.
- [54:18]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Anyway.
- [54:30]
Chris Melanthe
One year later, still riding his imperial high point, Jon Bon Jovi issued his first ever solo album, Taking a Page from Prince and his single artist Batman soundtrack. John Bon recorded a full album devoted to the western movie sequel Young Guns 2. The album's title track, Blaze of Glory, topped the Hot 100 in the summer of 1990 and was even nominated for an Oscar. But even as Jonbond was riding high, the emergence of edgier bands like Guns and Metallica also made it easier for critics to embrace Method Medal and to dismiss Bon Jovi. Jon Bon Jovi could afford to ignore these critical brickbats, especially when the New Jersey album was certified quintuple platinum by the middle of 1989. To slow old John Bond's role, the public, not the critics, were going to have to determine on their own that hair metal was terminally uncool. And then, well, you probably know what comes next in this story. Here's the thing about the 25 year old argument that Kurt Cobain and grunge killed hair metal at the turn of the 90s. It's both too simple to be true and too persuasive to ignore. When Nirvana's Nevermind album became a chart topping hit at the end of 1991, it was indeed an unprecedented moment for punk and indie derived rock. On the other hand, metal bands had long attested to their admiration for and influence by punk from proto punkers like the MC5 to peak 70s punk like the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. Moreover, many first wave grunge bands, especially Soundgarden, owed as much of their sound to early metal like Black Sabbath as they did to punk. As for the charts, metal bands were not wiped off the face of the earth or the radio instantly. When Nirvana showed up within weeks of Nevermind topping the charts in the spring of 1992, glam metal band Mr. Big scored a number one hit with the soft rock ditty To Be with you. Mr. Big were joined later that year by hits from Ugly Kid Joe and Saigon Kick. And in the summer of 1992, even now veterans Guns N Roses were hitting the top 10 with hits like November Rain.
- [57:55]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Nothing Lasts Forever Even though November Rain.
- [58:04]
Chris Melanthe
Metal bands that could sound either sufficiently mellow or sufficiently badass would continue to have careers. The only question is what grunge would do to the avatars of pop metal like Bon Jovi.
- [58:19]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
Lo We've Got a Keep the Baby.
- [58:25]
Chris Melanthe
It took until the fall of 1992 for Bon Jovi to test their commercial prowess in this new post Cobain rock universe. It did not go well. Keep the Faith was the title track of Bon Jovi's fifth album and the song peaked on the Hot 100 at number 29. The album, their follow up to New Jersey, debuted and peaked on the album chart at number five. Respectable, but a big comedown from the chart topping success of Bon Jovi's last two Albums, by the way, touching on something we discussed in last month's Hit Parade episode about Madonna. The same month she broke her streak of no. 1 albums with her underperformer Erotica, Bon Jovi were crashing and burning with Keep the Faith. It was a rough month for 80s megastars trying to keep up with. With the 90s. Say this for Bon Jovi, they didn't lose faith in their ability to adapt. While snide critics and haters like me were poking fun at their flop single, John and the boys were regrouping and charging at the charts again. And as Mr. Big reinforced, nothing works better on pop radio than a power ballad. By March of 1993, Bon Jovi had managed to sneak back into the top 10 with the gushy love song Bed of Roses. Though it would take two years, the Keep the Faith album did eventually go double platinum. Again, not unlike Madonna in the first place. First half of the 90s, Bon Jovi stayed afloat by focusing on ballads. As late as 1994, they were scoring the longest lasting hit of their careers with the yowling mega ballad Always. The song peaked at number four on the Hot 100 in January of 1995, a time when every other 80s metal band had cycled off the radio. Always, Bon Jovi's last top five hit, spent a stunning 32 weeks on the Hot 100, longer than any of their 80s hits. They had actually lasted long enough on the charts and that even a cartoon metalhead teenager named Beavis was defending them to his friend.
- [61:11]
Chris Berube
What did you say, Beavis? Oh, no, I'm just saying, you know. You know, I kind of like this one part of the song, you know, where. Go give me something for the pain. Cut it out, bunghole. I'm doing it for your own good.
- [61:27]
Chris Melanthe
Beaver.
- [61:27]
Chris Berube
You're starting to like this bong. Well, no, I mean, I still think Bon Jovi sucks, but I just kind of think this song, you know, it's kind of he. There's just this one part they kind of like.
- [61:40]
Chris Melanthe
Bon Jovi never reached the top 10 on the singles charts again. But they never really went away. In the 25 years after Keep the Faith, Bon Jovi have scored nine more top 10 albums. Their last four discs have all actually debuted on the charts at number one. But that's not the only way you can still see the Jovi fingerprints on the charts. Not much hard rock in the new millennium sounds all that much like vintage Bon Jovi. But pop music, that's a different story.
- [62:14]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
It's tearing up my heart when I'm with you but when we are apart.
- [62:28]
Chris Melanthe
The pop renaissance of the late 90s and early aughts, which we've discussed in past episodes of Hit Parade, has subtle but unmistakable connections to 80s pop metal like Bon Jovi. And most of those connections flow through one man, Swedish pop mastermind Max Martin, whose sound has dominated the radio for the last 20 years. A little remarked fact about Max Martin was that long before he was discovered as a songwriter in Stockholm, he was in an 80s hair metal band. The sound of peak pop metal courses through Max Martin's veins, and it emerges in many of his productions the way his boy band hits explode out of the speakers. Just like youe Give Love A Bad Name has not gone unnoticed by savvy pop fans. In fact, in the early 2000s, one Clevver fan even mashed up a pair of hits from Max Martin with unmistakable structural similarities. The Backstreet Boys 1999 hit Larger Than Life and Bon Jovi's 2000 hit It's My Life. Oh yeah, and did I mention Bon Jovi actually recorded with Max Martin at the turn of the millennium? Though it only peaked on the Hot 100 at number 33, it's my life has proven a long lasting hit for Bon Jovi, regularly making their live set lists and ranking as the group's most viewed hit of the YouTube era. The song even features Richie Sambora playing the talk box in homage to Bonjour Jovi's earlier smash Livin on Horror. As for Scandinavian hair metal fan Max Martin, he has not stopped scoring hits in the 2010s. He also isn't above reanimating the old Desmond Child trick of the song opening exploding pop chorus. As recently as 2015, Martin was using the tactic to generate hits for Taylor Swift.
- [65:15]
Various Singers (e.g., Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Motley Crue)
You know it used to be mad love so take a look what you've done Cause baby now we got bad.
- [65:22]
Chris Melanthe
Blood hey and Bon Jovi. As I mentioned at the top of the show, they had a number one album as recently as, no kidding, one month ago. It's a bit confusing to explain, but follow me here. Bon Jovi's 2016 album this House Is not for Sale made a re debut at number one on the album chart in 2018. How that ol Sly dog Mr. Jovi all launched another wave of the band's latest tour, and he offered the 2016 album as a free download to fans purchasing concert tickets. Those fans who redeem the offer for the free album have their downloads counted toward the Billboard charts in early March as the tour leg kicked off more than 120,000 Bon Jovi fans elected to redeem their free album coupon and on the street strength of those downloads, this House Is Not For Sale re entered the Billboard 200 album chart at number one, a shady but perfectly legal tactic for scoring a chart topping album in the late 10? S. Now, as we wrap up this episode of Hit Parade, this is normally the moment where I offer a triumphant live performance by the subject of our episode, an inspiring reminder that the spirit of classic pop never dies. But this is still my show. I still can't stand Bon Jovi even as I acknowledge their influence, and I will be damned if I'm going to let them take a victory lap at the end of my podcast. So how about some Def Leppard? Look, if their drummer hadn't had that horrible accident in 1984 and hysteria had come out in 1986 as originally planned, who knows, maybe Pour Some Sugar on Me or Love Bites or Armageddon it or would have been the song to break hair metal on pop radio. Maybe Bon Jovi would have been riding leopard's coattails. Def Leppard are having a pretty great 2018. Over the winter, the band reissued all of their classic albums on streaming services, which prompted several of those albums to reappear on the Billboard charts. And they too are touring this summer in a double bill with Journey. Their producer, Mutt Lang is at least as influential on the sound of modern pop as Max Martin is having produced everyone from Shania Twain to Maroon 5 to Lady Gaga. And if any of my fellow Rock and Roll hall of Fame voters are listening to this podcast, especially you nominating Committee members. Come on guys, if the Jovi are in, it's high time we let in the weapon. Despite it all, I do hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. My producer is Chris Berube and we had help this episode from Danielle Hewitt and Dan Berube. Sorry guys. The managing producer of Slate Podcasts is June Thomas, our senior producer is TJ Raphael, and the Executive Producer is Steve Lichta. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Gabfest feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way and never playing Bon Jovi again. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanthe.