Photo: C. A. Bridges |
I was at a Jon Bon Jovi concert in New Jersey with my wife a month ago and he was talking about the next Bon Jovi album. The last one, “Lost Highway,” had a decided country tinge to it, but the new one was going to be back to basics.
“I’m tellin ya, you gotta trust me on this one,” he said. “You wanted a riff rock record,
you got a riff rock record. They wouldn’t let me back into Nashville so I had
to turn up the loud electric guitars on this one.” And the crowd of devoted fans went nuts.
One slight problem, of course, was that we didn’t know what “riff rock” meant. But we cheered along with the rest and planned to go home and look it up later. I could take a guess. I know what a riff is, and I assume a “riff rock” song would be one with a lot of riffs shoved in it. But the way he said it made it sound like it had an identity. Was it a specific genre, a school, a trend, a group name, a musical theory, what?
No problem! Interweb to the rescue! There were probably hundreds of sites devoted to answering this very question. The Internet knows everything!
Except, apparently, for this. Wikipedia has no “riff rock” entry, not at all. There’s a “riff rock” tag at Last.fm, but no explanation. Riffrock.com seems to think I should know already or I wouldn’t be there. Google listed plenty of pages and Amazon had several reviews where “riff rock” was being used descriptively, but none of them included a single definition. Ask.com said it didn’t know, dot com.
This staggered me. It has been years, literally years, since I casually reached out for information on the Web and came up dry. Had I walked outside, dropped a can, and watched it fall upward, I could not have been more surprised.
And that brought home how quickly the Internet has become our collective conscious.
It holds our memories, our
knowledge, our facts. “Google” became a verb almost overnight for a reason. I’m honestly surprised we even still make kids
memorize anything. Does anyone need to know the date of the Battle of
Hastings unless you plan to hit up Jeopardy some day? As long as there
are people out there with a) an intense passion for something, b) free
time, and c) a Web site, our pursuit of trivia will be rewarded. We’re
not quite up to building a hive mind yet, Twitter notwithstanding, but
we are building the hive mind’s long-term memory, and we’re doing it
awfully quickly.
Quickly enough to surprise me when I find a gap, anyway.
Our
music reviewer, Rick DeYampert, told me what “riff rock” was: a song
composed mostly (or completely) of one distinct, repetitive riff, a la the Rolling Stones’ “I
Can’t Get No (Satisfaction).”. So now I know.
Maybe I’ll start a Wikipedia page about
it.
I’m 46 and never heard of riff rock and I bet there are numerous others that never heard of it either. After reading the article and Jon Bon Jovi’s comment, I now know what it means. Thank you Jon.
What a great article! Just goes to show there are some terms the great world wide web just hasn’t caught up with yet! Thank you for an informative and amusing article!
Thank you for the lovely and educational article…I enjoyed it so much!
I was at the concert too( btw -what a dream come true!) and I didn’t know about the riff rock term either…any rock fan would know what riffs are however….LOL
Can’t wait for the new album in a few months!!!!!!!!
Thanx T for the great photo…
I’m older than 46 and I have never heard of riff rock. Thanks!
Great article and very informative. I too wondered about the term “riff rock” like you said I know what a riff is and I know what rock is but the two together may have meant something more. I figured I would understand better when I finally got to listen to the new album, the more I think about it I’m sure it will help. By the way your wife said you are THE best husband, she told us all (ont the fanclub website)how you drove her all around Jersey and all the wonderful things you did so she could have an awesome time at the Fanclub concert. What a nice guy! My husband is of the same stripe and there aren’t many of you left, keep up the good work and pass it along to your boys if you have any. :O)
Riff Rock would describe AC/DC to a tee. Three chords or riffs over and over again….but when done well ala AC/DC its impossible to not tap your foot or throw your devil horns up. You know the song in an instant when you hear that first guitar riff.
Really enjoyed your article. We were at the concert also and like you we had no idea what riff rock is. We had just been talking about it when I read your column. Your comments about expecting to find any information you need on the internet are spot on – perceptive and funny, too.
Great article, informative & humorous! I’ve been a huge BJ fan since their beginning and am an fc member (Just Older now, lol!), so as far as I’m concerned you couldn’t pick a more perfect subject for your article than Jon. You are so right about the internet. People rely on it too much. It can have you going in circles trying to find out something, looking at all sorts of different places, without ever finding out what you want to know. You just go from site to site, either being told they don’t know and/or referring you to another site. In regards to riff rock, I happen to know what it is only because my brother plays guitar so I know from him. I did enjoy your article nonetheless. The internet…. things that make you go “hmmmm…”
The british rockband Status Quo has an album with covers out that is called riffs. Like AC/Dc the band produces an enormous mass of 3 chord boogie that gets millions of fans up and going. There ain’t nothing like! If Bon Jovi goes riffs there be an album with 12 I believes and that gotta be the mother of all rockalbums.
At first I only read the article because I saw the picture of JBJ in it but then I continued reading and I think you’re right! I’m only 13 but I agree with everything you wrote.. Thanks for sharing..
a riff rock song is like ac dc`s ones is based in guitar and drums is generally hard rock or metal
dumass… bon jovi rokc anyway
Great article! thanks for posting it.
Now I look forward to the new album 😉
It’s Bon Jovi THE BAND!. It was not JON BON JOVIS last record, it was BON JOVI’S last record. They are a band!!! It will be THEIR new CD!!! lol. Can’t believe people are still thinking BON JOVI means JON BON JOVI… they are two different things. JON BON JOVI sings for BON JOVI which is a band consisting of JON, RICHIE, TICO, AND DAVE!!!
Rest assured, my wife usually makes very, very sure I’m clear on that point. In this case he was talking informally, but I changed it in the text to make it more clear.
I knew what it meant.
riff/rock = BON JOVI
Hard/slow but ROCKING!!!
I have been a fan since 1984 and I am 38 – riff rock is Slippery, New Jersey, These Days….