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For as long as rock has been synonymous with roll, this band has been considered, without question, the essential band to come out of the 1980's. Ask any 10 people to name what they remember about the music scene of the last twenty years, and they might say Michael Jackson or Madonna, but more often than not, Bon Jovi's name will come up. For they've been one of the most successful and longest surviving rock bands for the past two decades. They've sold nearly 100 million albums worldwide and played over 2,000 concerts in 47 countries before more than 31 million fans. Their best-selling disc, 1986's Slippery When Wet, sold more than 12 million copies in the US alone. In the three years between '86 and '89, their combined US record sales topped 20 million, and their songs topped the charts in 27 countries worldwide.
So how big is this band again? Back in the '80s, Bon Jovi were the kings of the 80's glam rock scene, and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi sported long brown locks that were moussed to the max and teased mercilessly. Fast forward ten years later; CNN even broadcasted his having a haircut as news. Multimillion selling albums Keep The Faith (1992) and Crossroads (1995) helped establish Bon Jovi as the most successful pop-metal rock bands of the 1990's as well. Anthems like Always, This Ain't A Love Song, Keep The Faith, and the more recent It's My Life still are played more frequently than Eminem on radio and music channels.
Born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. in Perth Amboy, New Jersey on March 2nd, 1962, the young boy spent much of his teenage years cutting classes to play guitar and sing in local rock bands. Bongiovi met future band mate David Bryan (keyboardist) at Sayreville High School, where they shared a mutual interest in rock music. They soon joined eight other musicians in the R&B cover band Atlantic City Expressway. When Bryan moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School of Music, Bongiovi followed. Jon (he dropped the "h" from his name around this time) had a music industry connection in cousin Tony who owned the Power Station, a well-known New York City recording studio. He was hired as a janitor, and later began recording demos at the studio, backed by members of the E Street Band, among others. Eventually he started to work with specific four or five musicians who would become the core of Bon Jovi. One of the demos made, Runaway, sparked radio and label attention, leading to a deal with Mercury in 1983. Changing his surname to Bon Jovi, he started to get his act together. Since the deal was just for Jon Bon Jovi, the rest of the band, keyboardist David Bryan, bassist Alex John Such, and drummer Tico Torres were hired as his employees. That made it easier for him to fire original guitarist David Sabo (later of Skid Row) from the line up after meeting Richie Sambora, who saw the band in a club shortly after the signing and talked his way into an audition.
The rest as they say, is music history. Spurred on by videos for Runaway and She Don't Know Me, their debut album cracked the top 50 and produced a national top 40 hit with the former tune. Jon Bon Jovi's looks attracted immediate attention for the band, and even he turned down the lucrative lead role in the dance movie Footloose in order to concentrate on his music. That film made Kevin Bacon a star, but Jon was wise enough to figure that playing a guy who can't give up dancing would not mesh with his hard rocker image. Following the success of Jon's debut, cousin Tony sued the band, insisting it was he who developed their sound. The case was eventually settled out of court. The group's second album, 1985's 7800 Degrees Fahrenheit went gold, but despite their moderate success, Jon and the boys hadn't reached the superstar status they'd set out to achieve. But all that would change with the release of their third album. With their blend of working class sensibilities and radio-friendly power-melodies, Slippery When Wet arrived in August 1986. The album produced two back-to-back US No. 1 singles - You Give Love A Bad Name and Livin' On A Prayer - as well as the No. 7 anthem, Wanted Dead Or Alive. The album initially topped the charts for a week in the fall; it returned to the summit early in '87 for another seven consecutive weeks (for a total of 94 weeks on the Billboard charts), knocking Bruce Springsteen's Live 1975-85 out of the pole position. The LP went on to sell over 12 million copies in the US alone, making it the biggest-selling rock album of the year, and established Bon Jovi as one of the most important rock acts of the decade.
You can read the rest of our retrospective on Bon Jovi in the November 2003 issue of The Record Music Magazine available at your local newsagent.
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