JERSEY JUNK

“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.

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.