This is a pretty good collection of Bon Jovi's best tunes up to this point in their career. The only problem with it is it is missing the tune She Don't Know Me from the first record, which I feel is the best song off that record, even better than Runaway. From what I've heard the only reason the song does not appear hear is that Jon did not write it, and didn't really want to include it because it was written by someone outside of the band. Other than that ommission this is a strong collection of their best worthy of your time and money.

What you're hoping to take away with this package will affect how good you think it is:

1) An overview of the band's 'best' material from "Bon Jovi" forward...

OR

2) A collection of the chart hits that were blared out of radios and on MTV throughout most of the late 80s.

If you're in the #2 group, this will be pretty good. Bon Jovi is at his best with huge sounding arena anthems, not sensitive singer-songwriter tunes. 3 big ones are missing ("Living in Sin","Born to Be my Baby","Never Say Goodbye") and you don't get "It's my Life" or "Thank You for Loving Me" since they weren't released until 2000's "Crush" (this collection came out in 1994) but those are the biggest nitpicks with the collection.

There is a Japanese import version that adds on "Never Say Goodbye" and "Tokyo Road" from early album "7800 Fahrenheit" (no crappy "Livin' on a Prayer" remake either)(ASIN:B0000677K0) but it'll cost you nearly 3 times what you're paying here.

#1 category fans who insist the two most "metal" albums are the best stuff won't be happy: 1 track each from "Bon Jovi" and "7800 Fahrenheit". There's nothing from the "These Days" album at all.

The liners are nonexistent. No lyrics...no context for the songs..just a pic of the band moping in a diner.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Their most indelible material remains what came out on the mega-hit albums "New Jersey" and "Slippery When Wet": "Livin' on a Prayer" still sounds great played loud on your car stereo, macho fantasies "Blaze of Glory" and "Wanted:Dead or Alive" get my testosterone flowing, and "You Give Love a Bad Name" is a fist pumper everytime. Outside of those, "Keep the Faith" is a surprisingly strong later period effort that rides its chorus on shattered tremolo guitars and "I'll Be There for You" was one of their best power ballads, "sensitive" without being mawkish. "Runaway" was the breakthrough tune for the group and holds up pretty well even with the 80s-ish keyboard on the intro.

LOWS:
"Always" takes the worst excesses of power ballads and amplifies them. All awash in strings and syrupy sentiment, it's a pile of goo. "Bed of Roses" wastes what could have been a good song by not bothering to write a good hook and letting it run WAY too long (6 1/2 minutes of this dreck? Please...) His lyric about being on the road away from his woman ("Well I'm so far away/That each step that I take is on my way home/A king's ransom in dimes I'd given each night/Just to see through this payphone") is one of his better ones but it's wasted here. "Prayer '94", an unplugged remake of "Livin' on a Prayer", was probably an attempt to place the focus on the lyric (which to be fair is a good one) but it saps all the power out of the song. The song just NEEDS to be pumped up with Sambora's guitar chords.

BOTTOM LINE:
Bon Jovi is a singles band. Buy this and you've got most of their best. You'll probably want to get "New Jersey" and "Slippery..." used cheap to have the missing 3. You can always burn them onto your own anthology.

3 stars (lost a star because of liners/missing hits)

i know you might think im stupid but id just like to say bon jovi is the best band ever im not into all the knew bands bon jovis music is ultrra cooll

With the exception of a girl I knew in elementary school back in 1988-1989, I've never met a real Bon Jovi fan. Therefore, it's my belief that more people probably own "Cross Road" than "Slippery When Wet" or "7800 Degrees Fahrenheit." Quite frankly, from what I've heard, no one really needs any more Bon Jovi than the 14 songs contained on this one CD. All the hits are here, and if you can think of even one Bon Jovi song that ISN'T on here and you absolutely MUST hear, then there might be something wrong with you.

For a greatest hits album, Crossroads is pretty good. However, it is old, it was released 11 years ago. I like a lot of the songs on this CD, but they are all old, Bon Jovi's sytle has changed since this album. I think it is about time for another greatest hits album from Bon Jovi.