1988. A Very Good Year: Bad Medicine

I was reminiscing about my past significant childhood musical moments.

Around the time I was 12 years old I'd first heard Bon Jovi's Bad Medicine. It was December 1988, summer in the Southern Hemisphere where I grew up.

That year, the band where living the rock 'n roll dream: on stadium tours with cool guitars, spandex, hairspray, beer and loose chicks.

Bon Jovi, in 1988/89, were the pinnacle of 80's commercial Metal...the culmination of the best of all other Hard Rock bands that went before them...reaching a 'climax' about a year later when 80's rock, as we know it, started to disappear.

In fact, not even Bon Jovi themselves could top themselves after this. Their follow-up offerings took the band in a different direction, away from the hedonistic, heavy drinking, fast-playing '80s rock scene. And I guess, that's where I lost interest.

Bad Medicine (and indeed the entire New Jersey album) was one of the most incredibly sounding songs I'd heard in my entire life up till that point. You may mock, but let me explain...

Firstly, it was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, the legendary Canadian producer who also produced some of the 'Who's Who' of Rock Royalty (Aerosmith, AC/DC) and it was mixed by Bob Rock.

With their incredibly busy touring schedule and the need to capitalise on the previous album's success, New Jersey had to be recorded quickly. If that's true, it suggests how many quality songs Bon Jovi were writing on tour and in such a short time. A feat that only certain artists at the pinnacle of their creativity can achieve.

Here's to Bad Medicine *snorts a line and opens his beer on his girlfriend ass* Cheers!