Keep the Faith

I chanced upon a music video on television one late afternoon a long time ago. Only eight or nine years old at the time, I didn’t understand a word of the lyrics, but the tune was forever imprinted in my mind. Though I never saw the video ever again nor heard the song until much later, I could always recall the tune in my head. It was my first and all time favorite song.

Fast forward to 1992 , I was at a departmental store in Seremban when I heard the song again on the PA system. This time I definitely had to ask. Though they were already playing a different song by the time I got to the DJ station, the music was unmistakably from the same band. The DJ showed me the album they were promoting, Keep the Faith, the then-latest fifth studio album by rock band Bon Jovi. Before that I’d never even heard of the band. Everybody in school was transitioning from Guns N’ Roses to Nirvana. I took one look at the audio cassette, decided that cover art was quite cool for a rock album, and bought a copy right away.

Keep the Faith is my very first music album purchase, and I bought it based solely on a vague memory of a song I didn’t even know the name of. Nevertheless, it is an awesome album that remains till this day my favorite and the only music album I know the words of all of its songs. The old audio cassette carries fourteen tracks but CDs sold today lack the songs Save a Prayer and Starting All Over Again.

It didn’t take long before I bought all of Bon Jovi’s previous albums including the 1986 Slippery When Wet that contains the song that started it all – Livin’ on a Prayer, and I’ve been buying all of their albums since, including the 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong box set.

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During undergraduate a popular professor told us that the 2000 hit song It’s My Life was evil. I wondered if anybody took him seriously.