Lost Highway in Bloomington, MN

Serious
country
fans know that
"Lost Highway"
is a
Leon Payne
-written
Hank Williams
classic, but even though
Bon Jovi
's 2007 album shamelessly trades on iconographic
imagery in a bid for a genre-skipping crossover hit, it's designed for those
fans who don't much care about
Hank
's legend (never mind knowing anything about
).
Lost Highway
has little to do with any
prior to
Garth Brooks
, a move that makes sense since
Garth
was the gateway drug to
music for old
fans in the '90s. In that regard, it makes perfect sense for
to refashion themselves as a modern
act, because their heartland anthems are as thoroughly middle American as any
artist, and in 2007
was at the core of mainstream
pop
music; in other words, the band's fans already have made the crossover, so they wouldn't see this crossover move as crass, just as catching up. But when it comes right down to it,
's self-styled
album has little to do with
contemporary country
in 2007, either. Despite duets with
LeAnn Rimes
and
Big & Rich
, despite the occasional fiddle or steel guitar,
recalls nothing so much as a latter-day
record in how it balances fist-pumping arena anthems with heavy doses of sentiment. Not long after the buried fiddles on
fade from memory and enough time passes to excuse the bad
Toby Keith
knockoff
"Summertime,"
it's virtually impossible to distinguish this album anything after 1992's
Keep the Faith
. Which isn't necessarily bad, mind you --
has a flair for commercial craft, knowing how to hit the sweet spot between the mundane and melodic, and there are times on
where the group does so again. Ironically enough, what hurts is when they really try to fit into the conventions of
-- usually on the rockers, as on the aforementioned
"Summertime"
and the even-worse
duet
"We Got It Going On,"
which manages to cram in every sports-bar cliche into an unpalatable mess, a talent that also emphasizes
Jon Bon Jovi
's unfortunate tendency to rely on hackneyed imagery -- but when they're just being the smooth, efficient
crooners they are,
is as good as, and no different than, any
album since
. Which may not make it as adventurous as it appears, but it should still be satisfying all the same to those loyal fans. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine