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JERSEY JUNK

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“SLIPPERY WHEN WET.” Bon Jovi. Mercury. Bon Jovi is clearly determined to be an enormously successful rock band, and isn’t gonna let pride, artistic consistency--or anything else, for that matter--stand in its way. With last year’s “7800 Farenheit” LP, the New Jersey headbangers pursued a smoother, corporate-metal sound that worked well commercially.

On this, its third album, the quintet retains vestiges of that style while taking its shamelessly chameleonic approach to a laughable extreme. This time, singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi is trying to play up his Jersey heritage with stuff apparently intended to recall better known--and far more gifted--natives, like Bruce Springsteen, Little Steven and Southside Johnny.

“Livin’ on a Prayer” bangs out a baby-Bruce tale about the blue-collar struggles of an unemployed dock worker and his waitress girlfriend, while over the thumping “Social Disease,” Mr. Bon Jovi actually quotes a Boss line (“You can’t start a fire without a spark”) and adds horns reminiscent of Southside’s Jukes.

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This Jersey thing gets even more ludicrous on Side 2, where it suddenly sounds like J.B.J. attended the Little Steven School of Rock Singing--and certainly didn’t graduate with honors. On the wistful “Never Say Goodbye,” he sings “Remember when we lost the keys/And you lost more than that in my back seat.” If such lyrics aren’t offensive enough, hearing them with a Little Steven-esque delivery is absolutely repellent. Slippery, indeed.

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