Bon Jovi and Bluegrass?
In which Joe stumbles upon a classic hair metal anthem with an unexpected twist.
I would venture to say that the opening synths are iconic. The following bassline is as recognizable a riff as any other. In fact, the entire Livin’ on a Prayer is an iconic piece of music. Interestingly, it was uniquely engineered to be the case.
Every step in the creation of a modern pop song, especially one by a major label, is engineered down to the tiniest detail with the intention of crafting a superb listening experience. However, there are many unknowns. Have you ever noticed how lead singles often end up being the worst sounding tracks on the actual records? Sometimes the single backfires so badly that the label scraps the album and restarts the project. Just ask Chris Young. Why is this the case? Hasn’t the long history of the music industry taught them what sells?
In the film industry, there is a standard practice to have a prescreening of a prospective film before studio executives and other industry professionals. This is to ensure that the studio which bankrolls the film approves of the endeavor and have a sense of confidence in the success of the film. There are multiple screenings and often corrective measures such as rewrites and reshoots are taken because of these preview screenings. Nonetheless, 100-Million-dollar blockbusters fall flat on their faces all the time.
Bon Jovi was determined to make certain that this was not going to be the case. His solution? Targeted crowdsourcing. The band recorded 30 tracks for their third studio album and went around to local teenagers and played the demo tracks for them. The consensus top ten tracks were then assembled in descending order and the album was born. Jon Bon Jovi and his band had cracked the code. the commercialization of art has never had a finer moment. The album was a smash hit and Livin on a Prayer led the way.
The song is ubiquitous. I had never actually given a non-drugstore speakers background music listen until it ended up on an ’80s themed workout playlist that my gym group used. I was intrigued. The lyrics seemed surprisingly personal in the vein of a Bruce Springsteen working-class anthem. The sound was pure ‘80s “Glam” or “Hair” Metal, but the lyrics struck a chord with me. I was not happy with myself. I tend to appreciate authenticity in my music, and I found my head bobbing to the riffs and my brain seriously contemplating the lyrics of the hit track from possibly the least inspired album in music history. Evidently, teenagers from the 1980s were on to something.
As a rootsier inclined music consumer in the modern age, I naturally looked for an appropriate cover on my streaming service of choice. I feel this is an underlooked part of the modern music experience. Spotify has upwards of 50 million songs uploaded to their catalogue. A sizable amount of these are karaoke backing tracks and covers. As the streaming services increasingly multiply and simultaneously find themselves fighting for a share of a shrinking audience of unsubscribed consumers, any differentiating factor becomes important. One service cannot appear to have fewer songs than another for that would be calamitous to their bottom line. The result is an endless string of identical karaoke covers and oddball covers artificially boosting the size of the streaming catalogues. The positive benefit of this reality is if you are a fan of a niche crossover between genres, the odds are that you’ll find it. Looking for 1980’s rock country or roots covers certainly falls into the oddball covers category.
What I found in my search was quite entertaining. Sure enough, after scrolling through the aforementioned endless Karaoke covers, I discovered a band by the name of Hayseed Dixie (the name is a pun on the legendary hard rock group AC/DC) who in 2015 put out a bluegrass cover of Livin’ on a Prayer. It is a fun cut with plenty of traditional bluegrass instrumentation making up for the forgettable vocal experience.
The Nashville-based ‘80s rock bluegrass cover band (like I said, niche) had a bit of a moment in the early 2000s with moderate radio success and decent sales numbers but since that high point has not been much more than a live act. They have popularity in Europe, leading them to record an album of Norwegian songs in 2015. By all accounts an interesting, albeit eclectic group of guys.
Here is the odd thing. For as much as I view bluegrass instrumentation as a supremely authentic extension of American roots musical tradition, the cover felt less authentic than the slick commercialized crowdsourced hair metal of 1980s Bon Jovi. I haven’t yet fully absorbed what this means for my relationships with specific artists, but it makes me wonder. What defines authenticity? Does it matter? Why do we search for authenticity in our artists? Was it always this way or did a cultural paradigm shift create new expectations for our entertainment choices? I have unfinished thoughts on these ideas that will hopefully crystalize themselves into another post at another time.
Joe