Bon Jovi

Bon Jovi is an American hard rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Fronted by lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi, the group originally achieved large-scale success in the 1980s. Over the past 25 years, Bon Jovi has sold over 120 million albums worldwide, including 36 million in the United States alone.

Bon Jovi formed in 1983 with lead singer John Francis Bongiovi Jr. aka Jon Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, bassist Alec John Such, and drummer Tico Torres. Other than the departure of Alec John Such in 1994 (which pared the lineup down to a quartet), the lineup has remained the same for the past 25 years. After two moderately successful albums in 1984 and 1985, the band scored big with Slippery When Wet (1986) and New Jersey (1988), which sold a combined 19 million copies in the U.S. alone, charted eight Top Ten hits (including four number one hits), and launched the band into global super stardom.

After non-stop touring, the band went on hiatus after the New Jersey Tour in 1990, during which time Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora both released successful solo albums. In 1992, the band returned with the double platinum Keep the Faith and has since created a string of platinum albums throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Tropes include:
"I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back I play for keeps, 'cause I might not make it back"
 * Audience Participation Song: Livin' on a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name
 * Call Back: "It's My Life" explicitly refers to Tommy and Gina from "Livin' on a Prayer".
 * Dark Is Not Evil: "Good Guys Don't Always Wear White"
 * Egocentric Team Naming: named after Jon Bon Jovi.
 * Epic Rocking: "Dry County" is nearly 10 minutes long.
 * Hair Metal: Until the Important Haircut
 * High School Sweethearts: Jon and his wife Dorothea. They got married in 1989 and are still together.
 * Important Haircut: Jon cut his long hair short when Keep the Faith was released.
 * The Last of His Kind: "Last Man Standing" ("His kind" in this case referring to "real" musicians as opposed to pop/hip-hop/etc performers.)
 * Love Is a Drug: "Bad Medicine"
 * Me Love You Long Time: One of the two videos for "This Ain't a Love Song" centers on two Star-Crossed Lovers (an American Intrepid Reporter and a Vietnamese girl) during The Vietnam War.
 * Memetic Mutation: An in-universe example. The smiley face in the music video for "Have a Nice Day".
 * Mondegreen: Jon's pronunciation of "like Frankie said, I did it my way" in "It's My Life" has been misheard by some fans as "like Frank and Sid, I did it my way". This would have been a Double Meaning (since The Sex Pistols recorded a cover of Sinatra's "My Way" with Sid Vicious "singing"), except Jon has gone on record clarifying that it really is "like Frankie said".
 * My Horse Is a Motorbike: "Wanted Dead or Alive"
 * Past in The Rearview Mirror: "Lost Highway"
 * Power Ballad: Quite a few of them - "I'll Be There For You," "Bed of Roses," "(You Want To) Make a Memory," "This Ain't A Love Song," "Always," "Wanted Dead Or Alive," etc.
 * Pretty Boy: The entire band has aged very gracefully.
 * Rhyming with Itself: "Wanted Dead Or Alive" does this:

""My heart is like an open highway / Like Frankie said, I did it my way.""
 * Rockstar Song: "Wanted Dead Or Alive."
 * Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: On December 19, 2011, rumors spread on the internet that Jon Bon Jovi had died. It got so widespread that news sites had to post articles confirming that he was not dead.
 * Scatting: The "na na na" chorus at the beginning and end of "Born to Be My Baby".
 * Shout-Out: From "It's My Life":


 * Take That: "Last Man Standing" to music other than rock and roll.