Jon Bon Jovi: Artist in Residence My A$$

A newspaper headline should stop you in your tracks, like this one from today’s New York Times:

NBC Names Jon Bon Jovi ‘Artist in Residence’

Traditionally, the term “Artist in Residence” refers a creative writer, artist or musician living in a community or university where his or her basic needs for food, shelter and supplies are taken care of, thanks to the support of townspeople and patrons. With these burdens lifted, the artist is free to concentrate on bringing their creative gifts to fruition.

Ironically, NBC, a company that's supposed to be in the business of communicating clearly and truthfully, has completely bastardized the term in the hope of boosting their dwindling fall ratings.

As the Times article notes, “Mr. Bon Jovi is being called NBC’s ‘artist in residence’ for the two-month period — and that means he won’t be anywhere else. Mr. Bon Jovi, whose new album, ‘The Circle,’ will be released on Nov. 10, will be seen exclusively on shows on outlets owned by NBC Universal. These appearances will include the ‘Today’ show, ‘The Tonight Show,’ ‘The Jay Leno Show’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ — and even an interview on the ‘NBC Nightly News’ with Brian Williams. Mr. Bon Jovi also will appear on ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ (!!!) on the Bravo channel of NBC Universal.”

Unless Mr. Bon Jovi is crashing on Matt Lauer’s sofa, he’s not in residence. And as anyone who has heard “Bad Medicine” will attest, Jon Bon Jovi is no artist. Bu, with NBC allowing him to serve his muse, maybe JBJ will be able to build on the promise of lyrics like these:
I ain’t got a fever got a permanent disease
It’ll take more than a doctor to prescribe a remedy
I got lots of money but it isn’t what I need
Gonna take more than a shot to get this poison out of me
I got all the symptoms count ‘em 1,2,3


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As I’ve said here in the past, Jon Bon Jovi wants to be Bono more than anything, crisscrossing the globe (and the Jersey Turnpike) to hobnob with the world's button-pushers, and he wants Bon Jovi to walk with the same worldly stature as U2.

And while Bon Jovi do lots of admirable charity work and seem like nice, hard-working guys, on the musical talent scale they are maybe one notch above a bar band. The Times article says that Jon and his manager brought the “Artist in Residence” idea to NBC. I would bet anything he got the idea from U2’s weeklong residency on Letterman a few months back and said “Hey why can’t I do that?”

Instead of being NBC's "Artist in Residence," a more accurate term would have been "Exclusively Shiller of Product" or “Ubiquitous Peddler of Mediocrity” or “Deep-Pocketed Cross-Platform Promoter.”

My favorite Bon Jovi is when he turns his knuckleheaded hair-metal anthems into stately, world-weary meditations on the passing of time. Very Artist-in-Residency:


OK, that’s enough Bono-Jovi bashing. Let’s rock, Jersey style!