All of these are over-represented, true to Bon Jovi form. What this album is missing is more important. Crush has left every fan and critic asking the same question: Where are the mullets?! No metal album is complete without a crowded picture of mullets wilder than the crowd at a hockey game.
But the scraggly mop Jon is sporting on the cover of the record is a weak representation of every metal-listener's favorite combination of business in front party in back, and fans aren't happy. R.C. Collins of Chatsworth, CA, a self-professed "worshipper of the god Jovi," described the band's latest stunt as, "a fu**in' rip-off" and refused to buy the album, despite its "bitchin' guitar riffs." Other fans have expressed similar disgust at the betrayal of the mullet, calling the band "half-breeds," referring to the mix of the mullet and the newly-hip "bed-head" look.
But if one tracks the mulletary history of Bon Jovi, this denial of the double-decker shouldn't come as a surprise at all. Early in the band's career they rode the wave of mullet popularity, forcing their way to the top of the charts with wild mullets and classic hits like "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Bad Medicine." But as the mullet lost its popularity, so did the band. In an attempt to regain their pull, they targeted an easy scapegoat: the mullet. Each album since 1986 chronicles the de-mulletification of an American Band, and Crush, the first pop-metal chart-buster of the new millennium, is more proof that the rock star mullet didn't survive the nineties.
Lou Marino, Fashion Editor of the online heavy-metal magazine Ratt Poison blames the change in American Pop Icons on decay of the family and gays in the military. "You can't destroy America without destroying American Heroes. When that 'grunge' phase hit, it was all we could do to keep from starving in the metal industry. Even Metallica started cutting their hair like Kurt Cobain." This seems to be a consensus in the industry. Mel Johnson, former hair stylist of Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora concurs, "I think what they's done to those boys [Bon Jovi] is just plain un-American."
Members of the band have refused to comment on the issue, but the tension is easily observed in the band's lyrics. Jon wrote a tribute to his long-lost mullet in the form of the song "Neurotica":
Angel flying solo
Must have gone and sold your halo
She's accidental innocence
And white trash elegance (alright)
She's all mixed up
Lays in bed 'til 3
All messed up
She's eccentricity
Lay your love all over me
Come on, baby, go a little crazy on me
Every school boy's fantasy
The record company, however, had its own ideas about Jon's mullet. Weary of the American public's cold reception for mullets in recent years, Jon's ballad about a "mixed up" hair cut of "white trash elegance" was cut from the album. The band insisted on leaving it in the line-up, causing a standoff that wasn't broken until Richie Sambora came up with the idea of asking his girlfriend what to do. She suggested a compromise which the record company eventually accepted. The song was to be released, but only on the Japanese version of Crush. The band thought it might be a good way to spearhead a mullet comeback in the East, and record companies were unafraid of Asian fashion sensibilities. Finally the album was released, and every serious fan, American and Japanese alike, has heard Bon Jovi's sensitive tribute to the mullet.
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This sad story of the decline of an American favorite isn't without a silver lining. While Bon Jovi may be shifting away from their former mullet-grandeur, Jon and Richie seem to be holding on to their mullet roots, even if they are a little bit more current. Perhaps with the success of Crush Bon Jovi's next effort may be a return to the full-fledged plumage of the Ape Drape. Until then, we'll have to live with the half-breed, and the future of the mullet may still be living on a prayer.
For a complete photographic history of the Bon Jovi mullet visit bonjovi.com!