Lost Highway

As Bon Jovi prepares to share the stage with Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson during its current tour—demonstrating that it means serious business with newly established country roots—latest single "Lost Highway," the title track from its No. 1 album, neatly walks a line between adult top 40-ready pop/rock and Nashville native, further intimating that 2006 No. 1 country track "Who Says You Can't Go Home" with Jennifer Nettles was no fluke. The New Jersey band sounds perfectly at home here, singing could-be redneck lyric, "I drive, watching white lines passing by, with my plastic dashboard Jesus waiting there to greet us/ Hit the gas, there ain't no brakes on this lost highway." The recent crossover phenomenon of well-tread rock acts finding acceptance at country continues to be a savvy move. And why not? Everyone wins.—Chuck Taylor