This is A Post For The Broken Hearted

I’m an extremist when it comes to music. I run very hot or very cold. My intensity is lessening as I get older but the pilot light is still running on jet fuel. When I’m in the mood for a certain type of music I want to listen to the artists who are the “most” of their genre. That’s why I own a bunch of Jay-Z and Slayer and no Kanye West or Poison. However, as time goes on more and more stuff that I had written off as crap when it came out twenty years ago is making me smile when I hear it today. I’m sure it has to do with taking me back to high school and the most exciting time of my life. The group that’s chipping away at my music snobbery armor the most is Bon Jovi. It’s just a matter of time before their greatest hits are taking up space on my iPod. In high school the sound of their music made me violently angry. They sucked in ways and magnitude that I didn’t think were possible. Everything they did was contrived and cheesy. They were one of the first bands that tailored themselves for MTV and were successful. They derived the glam rock formula that lead to Nelson, Skid Row, Winger, and other wastes of skin and hair spray that helped validate Nietzsche. I never understood the fascination. Why would anyone listen to these losers when they could be listening to Zeppelin, Sabbath, Priest, or Maiden? How could Bon Jovi fans not want more: more intensity, more technical precision, more intelligence, more music, and less image? But if I hear them on the radio now I turn it up and sing. I rock out with my cock out. It’s a good thing I drive a van. Their music takes me back to driving down Roosevelt Boulevard in a 1977 Volvo Sedan at midnight on my way to a party, hoping there were going to be more girls than guys and that we weren’t the only ones with alcohol. I’m already forgetting Disney last week, but I can see, hear, and smell the Volvo like I just got out of it. We were cowboys. On steel horses we rode.