Bon Jovi – Keep The Faith (1992) Review

Few things from the late ’80s managed to stay cool in the early ’90s.

I think we can all agree that Jon Bon Jovi’s ability to adapt his hairstyle was one of them, as was his skill for writing chorus-heavy rock music, and his pronunciation of the word “thayngs” (that’s “things” to you and I).

All of these attributes are out in force on Bon Jovi’s enormous fifth record, Keep The Faith.

Changing Times

In 1992, Bon Jovi had a real problem.

It wasn’t a shortage of hits, but instead that the rock landscape was shifting beneath their feat. The emergence of the grunge scene meant that the old rules were being torn up, and “big” bands were suddenly being treated like yesterday’s news

So when Mercury Records announced their return after a three year hiatus, the response was… muted.

Not hatred, but worse: indifference.

Fifth record Keep The Faith is the sound of a band refusing to accept what many believed to be a pre-determined fate. The US rockers learned how to sharpen their guitars, ditch some (but not all) of the cheesy ‘80s gloss, and took aim at something tougher and more adult orientated — without abandoning the stadium-sized guitar hooks that made them so popular in the first place.

Commercially, the pivot worked; Keep The Faith hit No. 1 in the UK and racked up an impressive 78 weeks on the chart in total. It also spawned a whopping six singles, all of which landed in the top 40.

This success helped elevate the seasoned New Jerseyans into an elite tier of rock artists — alongside the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Metallica — who were seemingly unaffected by the grunge wave that was laying waste to their peers.

Highlight After Highlight

At 66 minutes, Keep The Faith is Bon Jovi’s longest album to date.

And, impressively, it’s not padded with filler — indeed, the tracklist’s early run is loaded with huge statements that would go on to become staples of the band’s live setlist for years to come.

Bed Of Roses is the kind of power ballad most bands spend their entire career chasing. In These Arms is a nailed-on classic: pure romantic melodrama, delivered with absolute conviction. And stompalong single I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead drives forward like it’s trying to outrun the rest of the decade.

Elsewhere, the title track produces one of Bon Jovi’s most ridiculous chorus payoffs — arguably their best since Livin’ On A Prayer — and it’s no surprise the song became a major hit.

Stick To Your Guns

While the singles do the heavy lifting, the deeper cuts offer real progress.

Storming opener I Believe is audible proof of a band attempting to sound bigger and more serious at the same time — and, crucially, pulling it off.

Musically, the track could be considered another direct, radio-friendly rocker to add to their ever-growing catalogue. Yet it carries a lyrical tone that defies their old “party rock” reputation, with the frontman firing several barbs in the direction of his hard rock peers, whom he believed were “selling their souls” in an attempt to cash in on the short-lived grunge trend, while also crafting a message on mental health that felt years ahead of its time.

This is Bon Jovi reaching for something more socially aware. It’s not always subtle, but it’s something genuinely aimed at adulthood rather than adolescence — and there’s a clear line of trajectory from here to the eventual creation of It’s My Life.

"Don't look up to your movie screens, your records or your magazines, close your eyes and you will see, that you are all you really need."
I Believe

All Grown Up

The clearest sign of Keep The Faith’s ambition is Dry County.

Structurally restless, ten minutes long, and completely uninterested in playing it safe, this is Bon Jovi at their most expansive.

It’s also the song where Richie Sambora, in particular, earns his keep — the longer runtime affords him significantly more room to build, vary the tension, and then unleash a guitar solo that feels like a career peak rather than a routine flex.

On Top Of The World

For a band of this size, the heartwrenching power ballad Bed Of Roses proves to be unusually personal.

With solid groundwork laid by David Bryan’s delicate piano arrangement and Sambora’s subtle hooks, Jon Bon Jovi laments the inner-conflict which saw his personal life leak into the media shortly before the band reunited.

The track revolves around a broken promise to his wife that he was “done being a rock star” upon completion of the exhaustive New Jersey world tour in early 1990, with the frontman apologising profusely for packing up his bags and hitting the road once again after finding the lure of the other woman in his life — the stage — too difficult to resist.

"As you close your eyes, know that I'm thinkin' about you, while my mistress she calls me, to stand in her spotlight again."
Bed Of Roses

Quality Throughout

In the album’s deeper waters lies the venomous Fear.

Written as a cynical sequel to Livin’ On A Prayer (“Take my hand, I know we’ll make it!”), the band mercilessly delete the hope of their ’80s anthem — replacing it with a bleak story of shattered dreams that sounds like it could’ve been written on the rain-drenched streets of Gotham City.

The New Jersey giants are louder than ever here, and it’s shortly followed by a terrific vocal performance on hidden bonus track Save A Prayer, that was worthy of a spot on the main record.

Still Shedding Their Skin

Not everything lands, of course.

Because despite the progress they have made, this is clearly a band still in transition.

Ultra-heavy midtempo rocker If I Was Your Mother fails to make the most of its monstrous guitar riff thanks to some poorly conceived lyrics, and deeper cuts like Woman In Love and I Want You — both tracks which would’ve fared better had they been released five years earlier — struggle under the weight of Bob Rock’s crunching production.

This jarring combination of backwards and forwards is what makes Keep The Faith such an unusual record; on one hand, you’ve got longer songs, heavier themes, and a push towards maturity. But on the other, they still haven’t fully shaken off their ’80s bombast.

This leads to several moments where Jon Bon Jovi’s expanding sonic ambitions seem to clash with his inability to save himself from himself — when he’s not delivering socially conscious lyrics and ten-minute epics, he’s informing us that “Seven days of Saturday is all that I need!” (I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead), and declaring his undying lust for all of womankind (Woman In Love).

"I could get so close to you it's true, if I was your mother."
If I Was Your Mother

Bon Jovi – Keep The Faith

All things considered, Keep The Faith is a resounding success.

Not because it chased the grunge scene, but because it updated the band’s palette without ripping out the engine that had served them so well in the past.

Louder, harder, and more ambitious than anything they’d done before, this is the sound of a band trying to muscle their way through a lanscape that was shifting beneath their feet, while still delivering what they knew their longtime fans wanted to hear.

It is arguably the final time in Bon Jovi’s career that they sounded both hungry and in control.

But despite all of these positives, the record received a frosty critical reception upon initial release. In retrospect, we can blame this on a combination of poor timing and even worse journalism (i.e. once-heralded UK publications Kerrang! and Raw both delivered snarky reviews for it “not being Nirvana enough”).

So allow us to right that wrong today: not only does Keep The Faith stand tall as one of Bon Jovi’s best records, it deserves recognition as one of the best albums of the nineties, period.