Bon Jovi at their best! (Crossroad: The Best Of Bon Jovi - Bon Jovi)

Member Name: dippykitty

Product:	Crossroad: The Best Of Bon Jovi - Bon Jovi
Date:	02/06/09 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Most of the big hits are on here

Disadvantages: It only goes up until around 1994, not keen on some of the tracks later in the tracklisting

This album brings together most of Bon Jovi's big hits in a greatest hits style collection, although the tracklisting only goes up to the release of Always and doesn't seem to include anything from after that time in their career. There are a couple of 'new' tracks included that weren't big hits. For the purpose of this review, I'm going to pick out some of my favourite tracks from the album to discuss.

***Livin' On a Prayer***
The opening track of the album has backing that builds up slowly for almost thirty seconds and the main vocals come in after around 45 seconds. This song is a real sing-along affair, especially in the chorus.

***Keep The Faith***
This is another of the more up-tempo tracks and is probably closest to Livin' On A Prayer for style and tempo.

***Someday I'll be Saturday Night***
This is a mid-tempo track but it still retains a light rock feel due to the tone of the vocals.

***Always***
This is one of the ballads on the album. For the most part, the verses are quite soft and it really gets going in the chorus. Whereas most of the tracks contain quite heavy guitar backing, this has some piano-type backing throughout, although having said that the backing does gets a lot heavier after the second chorus while still retaining the piano in the background.

***You Give Love A Bad Name***
This is another of the up-tempo tracks with some quite heavy guitar backing.

***Bed Of Roses***
This is one of the slower tracks and is in a similar vein to Always. For the most part, the backing is not particularly heavy so the gritty vocals can really come through.

***Blaze of Glory***
The backing starts off light, gets heavier and then almost cuts off altogether when the vocals start. The strong rock vocals are once again evident on this track and there is a bit of a 'cowboy'feel, especially in the lyrics.

***In These Arms***
This is quite upbeat in the chorus but the verses are slower. The backing tends to be quite heavy throughout.

***Other Tracks***
Other tracks on the album are Wanted Dead Or Alive, Lay Your Hands On Me, Bad Medicine, I'll Be There For You, In And Out Of Love, Never Say Goodbye and Runaway (the debut single).

***Overall Thoughts***
If you are a fan of Bon Jovi's music up until 1994 and don't already own their albums, this is a good option for you as it brings together the biggest hits in one place. There was a fair bit of criticism for releasing this when the band hadn't split and weren't planning to but I personally don't see the problem. A lot of the up-tempo tracks are just made for singing along to, while the slower tracks demonstrate a different side. I'm not so keen on the tracks that I was less familiar with and for this reason I am giving the album four stars instead of five.

Summary: Great for singing along to!