Stephen Bon Jovi labelled their fourth album by the pride of their home town, New Jersey, and though seems hard to defeat the victorious 30 million sales of "Slippery When Wet", this album carved another important record for being the only hard rock album in history that spawned five singles on the Top 10 of Billboard Hot 100.

Among those chart-conqueror singles, I don't like "Lay Your Hands On Me" as I found it's too boring and disposable, "I'll Be There For You" is a decent generic ballad, but "Bad Medicine" and "Born To Be My Baby" are essential upbeat rockers and the heart-throbbing backstreet ballad, "Living In Sin" is legendary and I consider it as one of their greatest piece ever penned.

After the previous "Wanted Dead or Alive", Bon Jovi had a big interest in a wild west cowboy theme reflected on tracks such as "Blood On Blood", "Ride Cowboy Ride", and "Stick To Your Guns". The list of great songs here goes on with the anthemic "Wild Is The Wind" and the acoustical outro of "Love For Sale".

"New Jersey" is a crucial part of Bon Jovi's growing phase and a huge nostalgic memory to many. Remember when hairs are long and the hysterical shout of "when you get drunk, I'll be the wine" with guitars on your lap and the neighbor girl fell in love secretly to you. Whether you like it or not, Bon Jovi plays an important role of dragging many new fans to the rock/metal community, and "New Jersey" is their one thing to blame.

Losimba New Jersey was my first contact with Bon Jovi, and I got the album shortly after its release. At the time it was certainly one of my favourite albums and it still one I enjoy. As I hadn't heard Slippery When Wet at the time and Runaway was the only other Bon Jovi song I knew, it's difficult to say the album gave me exactly what I expected from a Bon Jovi album in 1988. So I'll try a different approach.

Though I wouldn't consider all songs extraordinary, none of them is near or below average. Originally I had some problems with Ride Cowboy Ride until I finally realized that this wee mono piece is a prequel or intro to Stick To Your Guns which has always been one of the better songs of New Jersey. The other song I rate higher now than in 1988 is Lay Your Hands On Me. The reason is simply that I really love album opening sequences with pompous drums, bells or the like. On ther other hand, my rating of I'll Be There For You has dropped from a 6 star to a 4.5 star song. But the best song of the album is still Blood On Blood, and that is mainly because of the lyrics. Especially at the time it was so refreshing to have something else than love songs by someone else than Saga. The music of the song isn't bad either, and back in '88 the more than 6 minutes were definitely a bonus.

All in all New Jersey is my favourite band album by Bon Jovi. It is not absolutely perfect, so no 5 stars, but I have no hesitation to award four and a half.