Who's in first: Def Leppard vs. Bon Jovi, Round 5

Nevermind the puffy eyes, bloody noses and wobbly walks, it's on to Round 5 of the death match between Def Leppard's "Adrenalize" and Bon Jovi's "New Jersey" - winner earns a spot first in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Def Leppard, "White Lightning"

G.E. Smith: There's no mulligans in rock 'n' roll. Ask this band, this guy or even this f*ck-up.

The Ledge. Badass.

But if there was ever an OK-to-crap-the-bed moment, this would be it - one whole track to unload your sadness, pain, guilt, anger and whatever other feelings you're having as a band over the death of long-time guitarist and friend Steve Clark, who had died only a year earlier, in 1991, at the age of 30. He was found dead on his couch with codeine, Vicodin and morphine in his blood along with a blood-alcohol level of .30, three times the legal limit. Authorities deemed it "accidental." No disrespect intended and in all seriousness, this is complete bullshit. Clark, Ledger, Winehouse, Michael Jackson, etc. - don't sugarcoat it. It is what it is.

Are you like me? Do you think this guy should be locked up?

Anyway, if this song really sucked, it'd be just a-OK. Metallica hadn't paved the way with the hire-a-band-shrink thing, so Lep didn't know it was an option to do this or even use it as a shroud to stage a faux documentary in yet one more feeble attempt to resurrect a career that you drove straight into the gutter with one piece of shit record after another after another. (apparently, the therapy didn't work. they still blow.)

But guess what? "White Lightning" (a reference to Clark, who always wore white) ain't that bad. Guitarist Phil Collen pays tribute to the slick axe man with an opening solo that Clark (who plays on half of the songs on the album, but obviously not this one, duh) might have come up with himself. The song isn't "Wish You Were Here," but it's got a decent enough swagger that builds to some moments of real emotion.

Criticisms: Kind of long at 6:46, and as such cliche-meister "Mutt" Lange has room to get in there and throw out some of his favorite hackneyed rock lyrics. Verse 2 (cliches in bold):

Got both ends burnin' like a moth to a flame
You're goin' off the rails like a runaway train
It's a no-win situation there's no way out
And no one will ever hear you scream and shout

Even if this sucked out loud, I couldn't rate it below a 5. A fitting tribute.

Rating: 5.9

Michael Anthony: When I heard this for the first time in almost 20 years, it really did suck out loud. The intro goes on way too long without the appearance of a single riff or original idea, and the whispered verse vocals - while screaming "Take me seriously!" - are a cornball joke. Sorry, Joe.

And at SEVEN MINUTES, you'd expect a hook in there somewhere, but sadly there's nothing. Come on, these guys wrote "Photograph" and "Foolin'"! Can something please happen in this song?

And the lyrics lyrics. The LYRICS! Here are the only words in "White Lightning", and I'm being completely serious here, that aren't cliched dreck:

When you come down here
You're already

White lightnin'

You
You
You'll
You
You
You
You'll

You
You're
You're...

You get the idea.

On the other hand, there are some solid solos to be found here, much better than what Richie Sambuca was cooking up on New Jersey or the even more putrid Keep The Faith. And, because what you're about to hear below is so bad, I give "White Lightning" and the Def Lep boys a 4.0 by default.

Rating: 4.069

Bon Jovi, "Blood on Blood"

G.E. Smith: There are some Bon Jovi fans who believe songwriters Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora and the band could pull down their pants in the studio, press record and produce an album of them taking a crap and it would sound amazing.

Nobody f*cks with the Boz.

Well, they did just that right here, and guess what? It sounds like warthogs being neutered. It sounds like Jerry Sandusky's future cell in prison. It sounds like the script to "Blackout," aka "Midnight Heat," starring Brian Bosworth.

It's apparent Jon and Richie handled the music - it's a pop-metal-lite take on Bruce - and that Dez Child wrote the bulk of the lyrics. More horseshit "we were young" and "we were crazy" and "we can do it" and "we'll prove 'em wrong" and "I'll be there for you" and then some crap about his dad.

But they're reaaaal proud of themselves. They've written themselves a timeless anthem here. They're legit artists. They're not just beefcake dunces who teenage girls put on their walls and dream about at night.

Watch the video below and you'll hate this vomit cake on the sidewalk even more.

Hey, there's one thing you can always believe in, and that's dreams. So tonight, a dedication. "Blood on Blood."

Michael Anthony: Alright, things are getting interesting!

I have to disagree with G.E. here.

Yes, this is a lite-rock, brain-dead version of "Bobby Jean", chugging along briskly (and dangerously wimpily) with its tales of dudes duding out just for dudes' sake. But hey - it's kinda decent for what it is!

There's no rhythm to speak of, nothing memorable sonically, and the lyrics are terrible - but really, it's not half-bad!

The other, more, well, "special" Bruce.

I like its limp vibe and pointless lyrics about loyalty and camaraderie, despite the fact that it falls apart after a decent guitar intro, not to mention the Bruce comparison I made earlier is totally unfair (to Bruce, of course), and, honestly, a better sounds-like would be something along the lines of Soul Asylum-meets-Bruce Hornsby. Didn't think you'd ever see that sentence here, or anywhere? Let me explain...

See, "Blood On Blood" takes the low-rent, gray jangle of the B-teamers of punk rock and melds it with half-baked singer-songwriter nonsense akin to the worst "rock" music the 80's had to offer, stirs it all up in a pot of semi-audible guitars and tinny-sounding drums, and sets it all to PUKE.

But I like it. A little.

Rating: 3.69

Who's in next: Def Leppard vs. Bon Jovi - Round 3

Popeye to Joe Elliott: I smell what you're cooking.

The battle rages on: Def Leppard's "Adrenalize" takes on Bon Jovi's "New Jersey" in a winner-gets-in-the-Rock-Hall death match. This is Round 3, Track 3: "Make Love Like A Man" vs. "Born To Be My Baby."

"Make Love Like A Man":


G.E. Smith: "Make love like a man. I'm a man. That's what I am." These are the Popeye-esque words that propel the chorus of the third track on the follow-up to one of the biggest albums of all time. This is kind of a problem, because the third slot tends to be a pretty prominent spot on an album, not just because IT'S THE THIRD SONG ON AN ALBUM but because there's a precedent that's been set: On Led Zeppelin's "IV," it was the kind-of-silly but kind-of-epic "Battle of Evermore." On The Doors' classic self-titled debut, it was "The Crystal Ship," weak-ass by Doors' standards but transcendent compared to, say, Muse. Then there's "Come As You Are" ("Nevermind"), "Life In The Fast Lane" ("Hotel California") and so on.

Here, however, the Leps have put a real toilet-clogger right up in the front of the pile. It would be like the horrid 1987 Chicago Cubs moving part-time starter Ed Lynch (2-9, 5.38 ERA) to the top of their rotation ahead of ace Rick Sutcliffe (18-10, 3.68 ERA). Actually, it'd be like putting Harry Caray's corpse ahead of Sutcliffe.

"MLLAM": the Ed Lynch of "Adrenalize."

I've avoided talking about the actual song here, but that's because doing so is like taking a stick and looking underneath a dead bird that's been sitting around for 12 days. You got your cowbell, you've got your mentions of gigolos, you've got your pointless midsections where Joe Elliott begs, "Gimme some rock and roll! A little bit of rock and roll!" and you find this request sincere, because there is zero rock and roll going on here.

Truly four minutes and 13 seconds of the worst music ever conceived and recorded.

RATING: .01 out of 10.

Michael Anthony: Sigh, I guess it wouldn't be right to just skip this one.

Being a Lep Lover, this is like seeing my dad go up against Mike Tyson circa 1986. It's like Glass Joe against Little Mac, with the once-mighty pop-metal singles machine Def Leppard playing the role of the undermatched, light-hitting, glass-jawed dope who gets knocked out with one punch to a 110-pound child.

Seriously, what happened to these guys? Once capable of hammering out quality meatheaded buttrock riffola (everything from this to this to this would fit the bill) - solidly written, even somewhat complex tunes, complete with their own wit, personality, and sexist charm - this is what they've been reduced to?

"Make Love Like A Man"? More like "Make Songs Like A PIECE OF SHIT", am I right?

To blame: Phil Collins or Phil Collen?

People like to give Nirvana credit for ushering in serious, introspective (and bad) alt-rock and forcing all the lame, unserious arena-rockers out of the public consciousness, but I blame this horrible song and video (also, any Van Halen video released in the 90's).

Hey, "Make Love Like A Man" - thanks for ruining pop music forever!

0.F (out of 10)

"Born To Be My Baby"

G.E. Smith: Man, I sure hope you aren't serving up some home cooking for your fellow Garden State boys. But whether the hometown pride is there or not, this tune is definitely worthy of Goodwill or the Salvation Army and not the outright dump like the rest of this landfill of music. The na-na-na's are cool but definitely hackneyed, and it seems like a cheap trick for a maestro like Desmond Child to yank out of his pants.

I always thought the video for the tune, where they show the boys working hard behind the scenes, and isolate the vocal tracks, was kind of cool. But look at it now:

Still, there are some puke-worthy moments here. It totally rips the underneath harmony from the verse of "You Give Love A Bad Name," and lyrically the story goes right back to the same kind of story where Tommy's working on the docks and Gina working at the diner all day in "Livin' On A Prayer." And then the pre-chorus seems to be in a totally different key than the verse, and then the chorus is ok again. It's almost as if they couldn't come up with something, reached into a batch of tape and threw something in there to create a bridge. Why ruin a song that's only slightly odorous and spray it with a scent that crosses skunk with burnt hair?

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Mystery solved: Here's what Dez looks like.

Michael Anthony: This is the sound of Hall-worthy* hired gun Desmond Child running out of steam. It's still better than most songwriters can manage on their best day, but the formula is starting to show its age. Could be why there's that awkward, forced key change that G.E. mentioned earlier. It's kind of cool that he was trying something somewhat unique, and I suppose in a way it makes the song more memorable, but it's not very subtle, and again - do we want creativity and artistic leaps in a Bon Jovi song? No, we want the balls-out hairband pop of "Living On A Prayer" and "You Give Love A Bad Name". Clearly these guys had a hard time living up to the pressure of those mammoth hits, and wilted into generic balladeers and eventually even adult contemporary country "stars". Yikes!

Still, it's got more style and melody than what we've heard so far off the limp "New Jersey," and it kicks the crap out of a putrid offering from Def Leppard. Hand another one to the Jersey Boys.

5.69 (out of 10)

* Turns out Child is in this Hall.