4 November 1994
One of my hopes when setting out on this exercise was that I’d be pleasantly surprised by a number one hit that at the time I may have dismissed too hastily or ignored unfairly – or at least find it not as bad as I had remembered. In this case, I’d heard enough sporadic bits of Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’ on radio or TV to piece together the impression that it was a terrible record. So, listening to it in full, from start to finish and of my own free will, will I be retracting that judgement? I will not.
American soft rock power ballads, plus some Irish ones by U2, have always been topping our charts. They’ve been reliably cheesy, corny, syrupy and whatever other unflattering food metaphors you care to add. For the ’90s Bryan Adams added a bit extra of the hoarse rock-isms but essentially kept the formula the same. What Jon Bon Jovi brings is his unwavering belief that he’s a Springsteen-esque authentic blue-collar rocker, and there’s no faker notion in music than ‘authentic’. Anyway, millionaire corporate entertainment franchise Jon Bon Jovi here veers between maudlin self-flagellation in the verses (“This Romeo is bleeding / But you can’t see his blood”) and trite, tired cliches in the chorus (including being there “forever and a day”) plus a mid-section that rhymes “would” with “could”. At least Bon Jovi’s ’80s hair metal hits occasionally had some kitschy fun; deep within us all lies the urge to shout out “Shot through the heart! / And you’re to blame!” ‘Always’, though, is utterly cold and joyless, which makes me less forgiving of it also being deeply cynical and contrived like all their ’90s soft rock hits. You give music a bad name.
