My Eight Albums

In February 2021, as part of the on-going weekly project, I released my Eight Albums on the music website I started with life-long friend, the gig photographer, Matt Johnston. Matt and I have spent many hours listening to, recommending and discussing albums that mean something to us. Out of these discussions, Eight Albums was born.

Eight Albums is a place where people can share the stories behind the albums that are important to them, and why. The criteria is simple: Make a list of eight albums that are important to you and say why. That’s it. The albums don’t have to be your favourite of all time and there’s no restriction on how many albums are by the same band or artist.

I was Eight Albums #42. Below is an extract from the piece, first album I wrote about: Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi.

When I told my mate, Dave, I liked the Bon Jovi albums Slippery When Wet and New Jersey, he looked at me like I had just punched one of his kids in the face. ‘Bon Jovi?’ he said, his disgust filling the room. ‘You like Bon Jovi? Oh, Steve…’ The sentence faded to silence. I was left looking at Dave, his head shaking slowly.

I tried to defend myself. ‘Those albums are brilliant.’ And then, trying to turn it around, I asked, ‘Why do you hate Bon Jovi?’

Dave’s answer: ‘I find them incredibly mediocre yet people talk about them like they're very special. It’s pretend rock which attracts middle age women who don't like real rock (normally). They are the Sex and the City equivalent of a proper band and everything that is wrong with America. They remind me of Spurs or panda bears. Very overrated for no real reason.’

If I’m being brutally honest, I can’t disagree. When Jon Bon Jovi does his weird little half-jump half-dance thing it makes me cringe, a lot. To me, he doesn’t look like a rock star should look - his appearance is too polished, his smile too bright. If I’m watching him sing about pain, I don’t believe it.

And yet, no matter what all the Daves of the world say, I love Slippery When Wet. I’d not listened to it for a couple of years, but I put it on in preparation for writing this piece. I still know every word. Not just to the hits, but to every track. When I heard Social Disease, I could remember the younger me realising the he wasn’t really singing about love (spoiler - he was singing about sex).

For some reason, despite being born and raised in Manchester, England, I’m a sucker for stories from the towns of New Jersey. The kids in blue jeans and white t-shirts, drinking from a six-pack, listening to the radio on a warm summer night. The ones in the Springsteen and Gaslight Anthem songs. I’m a hopeless romantic for songs about Wendy and Maria, about Tommy and Gina, or the young couple in Never Say Goodbye who had a fight at the prom and then made up by slow dancing as the band played their favourite song. Despite Bon Jovi’s perfect teeth and polished looks, I love Slippery When Wet because it was the album that started a love affair with those types of songs, about those types of people, from those types of towns. And Dave will never change that.

To read the rest of my Eight Albums entry, or to enjoy some of the other fantastic writing about albums other people love or view as important to their lives, go to eightalbums.co.uk.

Cheers,

Steven