The ‘Big Mistake’ Jon Bon Jovi Made With The Album ‘7800° Fahrenheit’
Bon Jovi fans have been following the band’s hit music for decades. And while recent albums haven’t been the mainstream successes the group’s early work was, Bon Jovi — and its titular frontman — continues to get better with age. So fans might be shocked to hear that Bon Jovi himself thinks he made a key mistake with the band’s second album release, 7800° Fahrenheit.
How Bon Jovi avoided the sophomore slump on its second album
Bon Jovi released its self-titled debut in 1984. And the album gave the band a solid start in the music industry, thanks to hit songs like “Runaway” and “She Don’t Know Me.” But many bands burst onto the charts with a hit album, only to fade into obscurity as soon as their proverbial 15 minutes are up. Thankfully, Bon Jovi didn’t fall prey to the so-called “sophomore slump.”
Just a year after Bon Jovi released Bon Jovi, the band delivered its follow-up. And 7800° Fahrenheit didn’t disappoint fans. Bolstered by tracks such as “Only Lonely” and “In and Out of Love,” 7800° Fahrenheit matched its predecessor’s Platinum status and set the stage for Bon Jovi’s ground-breaking third album, Slippery When Wet, in 1986.
Bon Jovi’s ‘7800° Fahrenheit’ was a huge success despite this
Despite the success of 7800° Fahrenheit, lead singer Jon Bon Jovi believes he could have handled the album’s creation in a better way. As he told American Songwriter, Bon Jovi was perhaps a bit too protective of the music he and the band wrote for their second album.
“With [7800° Fahrenheit], I was a novice in the field. The first album takes your whole life to write. The second album, you’ve got six weeks. I read in a magazine how artists X,Y, and Z would shelter their tapes, lock them up in a closet so no one could hear them. So I said ‘that’s what you’re supposed to do.’ I never played the second album for anyone until it was done. Big mistake.”
In the end though, 7800° Fahrenheit did exactly what it needed to do. Bon Jovi continued the momentum it had begun with its first album and proved that they could be more than a one-album wonder. Still, fans might imagine whether Bon Jovi could have done even better.
Jon Bon Jovi could reunite with Richie Sambora soon
Bon Jovi hasn’t released an album since 2020’s aptly titled 2020. But there’s now talk of an exciting prospect for the band. Could longtime guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora return to Bon Jovi a decade after he left the band in 2013? There’s reason to think it might happen soon.
“We’re talking about [me] coming back. I don’t think there’s any reason not to at this point,” Sambora told Absolute Radio in 2023. “I mean, [Jon and I] we did something… there’s not a lot of bands that did what we did. […] We have to get out there and do it for the fans really.”
