Crush

By David E. Thigpen

Picking up where it left off five years ago, Bon Jovi delivers a piece of vintage '90s pop-metal, as straightforward as a stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. The band's trove of clever hooks and jolly bombast once made it a cool alternative for kids suffering from heavy-metal fatigue. But pop taste, like a teen's attention span, never lasts. Crush tries to update itself with Older, a tune about honoring your roots, but what it really, really wants is to re-live the days when jeans were tight and hair was big. Fine, but haven't we been down this road before?

--By David E. Thigpen