Well at least they gave me something

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

26/08/90 : Blaze Of Glory/Young Guns II - Jon Bon Jovi

This nearly got rejected as "just" a film soundtrack, but some research suggests that's not an entirely accurate summation of the situation - and it's also all original tracks, so it gets a go.  I can't say I'm particularly looking forward to it though (and no, we never owned it - 5/19).

Hmmm - if you want to listen to an album of Jon pretending he's some kind of Wild West cowboy/troubadour, then I think this is pretty much up your street.  If however, like me, you have better things to do with your life then you might find this somewhat pretentious and extremely dull - I'm not sure this was the album that Bon Jovi fans were clamouring for.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on his second week of a surprisingly lengthy 23 week run, with it having debuted at #2.  The rest of the top five were Prince (a new entry), The Three Tenors (a new entry, about to start a 57 week run), Elton John and Michael Bolton and we have one more new entry in the top ten for Duran Duran (#8 - and it's a nice coincidence they had a new entry in this week's chart as well).

Wikipedia tells us that Emilio Estevez wanted "Dead Or Alive" for the film's soundtrack but Jon went "you don't want that, you want some new songs I'll write for you" - history does not record Emilio's response, but that was what he got anyway.  It also tells me it's not really a film soundtrack because only two of the tracks made it into the film, both of which were played over the end credits - but "Blaze Of Glory" got to #1 in the US so I guess everyone was happy enough with that situation.  Jon got a few of his famous mates involved in the album - Jeff Beck, Elton John, Randy Jackson and Little Richard were all involved along with some other people I don't know by name but they've played with a bunch of famous people.  There's no word on critical response but it did well commercially, particularly in the US where it got to #3 and sold two million copies.

"Customers also listened to" Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard and Van Halen - all in all, not my sort of thing.  As is also true for Bon Jovi, but at least their stuff is generally a bit of fun - this album is just so earnestly dull that I don't see why anyone would subject themselves to it.

19/08/90 - An enjoyable revisit
02/09/90 - Somewhat lacking lyrically

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