{"id":42704,"date":"2014-07-14T06:42:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=42704"},"modified":"2014-07-14T06:43:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:43:18","slug":"let-it-rock-the-making-of-bon-jovis-slippery-when-wet-by-neil-daniels-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/let-it-rock-the-making-of-bon-jovis-slippery-when-wet-by-neil-daniels-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Daniels | Let It Rock: The Making of Bon Jovi\u2019s Slippery When Wet<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Mrozowska<\/span>
\n– Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"SlipperyYou can love them or hate them \u2013 and it\u2019s probably an equal number of rock fans on both sides of the spectrum \u2013 but one thing you have to admit is that Bon Jovi is a pop culture phenomenon. They made it to the top of the rock n\u2019 roll pantheon with the success of their third album Slippery When Wet<\/em> back in 1986, and they\u2019ve also occupied it ever since, still loathed by music critics but nevertheless continuously able to fill the huge stadiums and arenas. Neil Daniels, the rock writer and journalist recently interviewed for Hardrock Haven, decided to see into this phenomenon from perspective of Bon Jovi\u2019s breakthrough and most popular album Slippery When Wet. The result of this is a book: Let It Rock: The Making of Bon Jovi\u2019s Slippery When Wet<\/em> published by Soundcheckbooks. The book\u2019s an attempt at answering the question what\u2019s made over 28 million people worldwide buy a copy of Slippery When Wet<\/em>, making rock giants out of the second-league Jersey band.<\/p>\n

Surprising is that you don\u2019t really have to be a die-hard Jovi aficionado to enjoy this book. In fact, it\u2019s aimed at much wider group of readers than just a specific bunch of people who used to wallpaper their bedroom walls with Bon Jovi foldout posters from Kerrang! or Circus and who watched their VHS copy of Access All Areas: A Rock & Roll Odyssey so many times it\u2019s eventually worn out. Not as much a biography as a portrayal of a cultural phenomenon the Slippery When Wet<\/em> album obviously was, the book captures a moment of radical shift in rock music and a change within rock audience. That is, the moment when rock started to appeal not exclusively to the young, rebellious outcasts, but also to the squealing female fans \u2013 and this change was something the five guys from Jersey largely contributed to. It\u2019s also a rags-to-riches tale of how the album\u2019s success launched relatively unknown band into global stardom \u2013 and an American Dream-themed story of how hard work, talent and luck all combined let them make it rather than break it. This tale being told against the background of the advent of MTV and visual culture, there\u2019s much more to this book than just a history of the band you can personally love or hate.<\/p>\n

Speaking of history, another fantastic aspect of the book is its complexity. Although the title suggests its focus on the process of making Slippery When Wet and the aftermath of its release, the book is in fact divided into four parts. The first starts with the young John Bongiovi recording a four track demo \u2013 the breakthrough song \u201cRunaway\u201d included \u2013 back in 1982, and the third ends with the infamous departure of Richie Sambora during their 2013 Because We Can Tour, giving a relatively detailed account of the entire Bon Jovi\u2019s career. It\u2019s the second part that focuses solely on Slippery When Wet<\/em>, giving details about all the circumstances behind writing material for the album, the process of recording and releasing it and its enormous success. For the rock chroniclers, there\u2019s also a detailed Bon Jovi discography, videography and filmography included \u2013 as well as the entire set of tour dates of the band\u2019s 1986-1987 tour, dubbed The Never Ending Tour not without a reason. <\/p>\n

Let It Rock is preceded by foreword by the former Kerrang! journalist Paul Suter and finishes with an afterword by Derek Shulman, who signed Jon Bon Jovi (and his band) back in 1983 as an A&R representative at PolyGram Records. Yet, an equally huge asset to the book\u2019s content are the further comments and reminiscences on the album, the subsequent tour and the band itself, provided by the cream of rock journalists and writers and notable musicians of the 1980s era, from Krokus\u2019 Marc Storace to the former guitarist of KISS, Bruce Kulick. The highlight is perhaps the straight-in-your-face (and intentionally comical at times) entry written by Classic Rock Revisited\u2019s Jeb Wright, whose alleged \u201callergy\u201d to Bon Jovi leads him to express a few surprisingly apt and objective observations on the subject. <\/p>\n

Told in straightforward language and amazingly concise as for the time span it covers, Let It Rock: The Making of Bon Jovi\u2019s Slippery When Wet<\/em> is a fine, solid work. Although the die-hard Bon Jovi fans probably already know the majority of facts described in the book \u2013 and such issues as \u201cPizza Parlour Jury,\u201d the characters of Tommy and Gina or the history of the Slippery When Wet cover sleeve are much familiar to them – it\u2019s always good to refresh your memory. The same goes for the track-by-track review of Slippery When Wet included in the book \u2013 while it seems there\u2019s nothing new to say about this record after countless reviews and analyses being done, it can remind you what you loved (or hated) it for in the first place. It can also prompt you to take your worn-out vinyl copy of Slippery When Wet<\/em> out of the shelf and dust off your turntable \u2013 what I\u2019d be happy to do now, after the enjoyable reading of Let It Rock<\/em>. This I recommend not only to Bon Jovi fans, who\u2019s going to treasure it anyway, but to anyone interested in the history of rock music, especially in the aspect of its uneasy relationship with mainstream pop culture. It\u2019s certainly worth reading.<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9780957144286<\/p>\n

Publisher: Soundcheckbooks<\/p>\n

Website:
\nhttp:\/\/www.neildanielsbooks.com\/
\nhttp:\/\/www.soundcheckbooks.co.uk\/letitrock\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alexandra Mrozowska – Columnist — You can love them or hate them \u2013 and it\u2019s probably an equal number of rock fans on both sides of the spectrum \u2013 but one thing you have […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10848],"tags":[8719,9543,9542,9597],"class_list":{"0":"post-42704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2014","8":"tag-book-review","9":"tag-let-it-rock-the-making-of-bon-jovis-slippery-when-wet","10":"tag-neil-daniels","11":"tag-soundcheckbooks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}