Artist: Bon Jovi
Label: Mercury Records
Release: 1985
Runtime: 47.00
Rating: 3/5
With 7800 Fahrenheit, impotence and general immaturity remain the guiding lights of every limp Bon Jovi attempt at cooking up some real rock muscle. Signs that the old boys drew any useful lessons from the debut are not exactly thick on the ground here. Still, the unpleasant, drawn-out process of shedding those pubescent symptoms wasn’t entirely in vain. Bon Jovi finally show a certain amount of progress in the more clearly divided roles of the individual band members. Sure, Jon’s contribution undoubtedly remains the main source of inspiration, and the guy dutifully doubles as a kind of main valve or sieve that every last move by the other four musketeers, however conventional, has to pass through. Only the slowly awakening Richie Sambora grabs a more noticeable share of privileges, but that’s still far too little to turn Bon Jovi’s bow toward any gradual maturing. The trouble with 7800 Fahrenheit lies in the inefficient tapping of the band’s potential, as well as in stylistic indecision. Thanks to both, even the welcome discovery of the creative synergy of that duo simply doesn’t have the right effect.
With 7800 Fahrenheit, Bon Jovi stubbornly stay anchored in the waters of creative barrenness. Today it might even seem at first glance that by monotonously squandering most of the debut’s already unenviable pile of capital the guys missed a big opportunity, but a more careful analysis sooner or later leads to the conclusion that, if he wanted to take on the challenges brought by the musical evolution of the mid-’80s more seriously, Jon Bon Jovi should have led his flock through a thorough stylistic molt with the second album. Sadly, 7800 Fahrenheit brings nothing of the sort, quite the opposite. Following the debut’s example, the album serves up a muddled sonic picture, with no clearer guidelines on which a new, bolder and more incisive musical identity could be built. The start is promising, but, as it turns out later, shamelessly misleading. In And Out Of Love proudly introduces itself as a competent bearer of the title of steel-hard Bon Jovi classic. The huge potential of the hot relationship between Jon’s vocals and Sambora’s sharp guitar work is obvious here. The duo carries most of the album’s songwriting burden, and their coexistence forms a solid platform, a sort of proving ground for hardening both their hidden talents. Still, it seems Jon profited most from the bubbling relationship. On Tokyo Road and Silent Night the kid finally delivers vocally, with crumbs of the energy and charm of the future Slippery When Wet and New Jersey triumphs. Right on their heels comes King Of The Mountain, a half-successful experiment in flirting with harder, at times even heavy metal-leaning moves, which are also the main reason Always Run To You runs so wild. So are we witnessing the birth of that signature Bon Jovi magic at this point? Sadly, no! The tasteless trio of Only Lonely, Hardest Part Is The Night and Price Of Love, just like the debut, drinks from the well of forced dabbling in pop and sugar-coated rock, which by some strange, incomprehensible formula still keeps trying to please. And the peak of Bon Jovi hypocrisy comes with the bizarre electric pop faked by To The Fire.
In terms of quality, 7800 Fahrenheit sits right around the level of the Bon Jovi debut, but since the album is stripped of a big hit compared to its predecessor, realistically it lands a notch lower still. Early on, Bon Jovi simply lacked real ideas, as well as the sense to develop them. Without capable, inventive production, the continuation of the New Jersey cowboys’ story simply couldn’t win the attention of a bigger audience. From the standpoint of the band’s evolution, a span of barely a year was simply too short for Bon Jovi to flawlessly purge all the harmful genes that came from the suffocating clutter of idealessness in which the album was made.
Lineup
Jon Bon Jovi: vocals
Richie Sambora: guitar, backing vocals
David Bryan: keyboards, backing vocals
Alec John Such: bass, backing vocals
Tico Torres: drums, backing vocals
Production
Lance Quinn
Tracklist
1. In And Out Of Love
2. Price Of Love
3. Only Lonely
4. King Of The Mountain
5. Silent Night
6. Tokyo Road
7. Hardest Part Is The Night
8. Always Run To You
9. To The Fire
10. Secret Dreams
