Slippery When Wet

Slippery When Wet
Studio album by Bon Jovi
Released	August 18, 1986 (US) September 1986 (UK)
Recorded	Little Mountain Sound Studios, Vancouver, BC, January–July 1986
Genre	Hard rock[1]
Length	42:22
Label	Mercury (North America) Vertigo (International)
Producer	Bruce Fairbairn
Bon Jovi chronology
7800° Fahrenheit (1985) Slippery When Wet (1986) New Jersey (1988)
Alternative cover
Rejected wet T-shirt cover
Singles from Slippery When Wet
"You Give Love a Bad Name" Released: July 23, 1986 (1986-07-23) "Livin' on a Prayer" Released: October 31, 1986 (1986-10-31) "Wanted Dead or Alive" Released: March 2, 1987 (1987-03-02) "Never Say Goodbye" Released: June 15, 1987 (1987-06-15)

Slippery When Wet is the third studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was released on August 18, 1986 through Mercury Records in North America and Vertigo Records internationally. The album was produced by Bruce Fairbairn. Recording sessions took place between January and July 1986 at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, Canada.

Slippery When Wet was an instant commercial success. The album features songs that are today considered Bon Jovi's most well-known tracks, such as "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Wanted Dead or Alive".

The album spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.^[2] It was named the top selling album of 1987 by Billboard.^[3] Slippery When Wet is the band's best-selling album to date, with an RIAA certification of twelve times platinum, and over 28 million copies sold worldwide. The album is featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Background

Despite the moderate success of 7800° Fahrenheit, Bon Jovi weren't becoming the superstars they had hoped, and they changed their approach for their next album. Hiring professional songwriter Desmond Child as a collaborator, the group wrote 30 songs and auditioned them for local New Jersey and New York teenagers, basing the album's running order on their opinions. Bruce Fairbairn was chosen as the main producer of the album, with Bob Rock as the mixer.

Writing and composition

Much of the album's content was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, except "You Give Love A Bad Name," "Livin' on a Prayer," "Without Love" and "I'd Die For You" which were co-written by Desmond Child. Child was brought in by the record company to help write some of the songs along with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. This was the first time Child worked with Jon and Richie. He came to New Jersey, where they worked on this in the basement of Sambora's mother's house.

Jon Bon Jovi was initially reluctant to include "Livin' on a Prayer" on the album, believing that it was not a good enough song. Richie Sambora was convinced it was a hit single in the making, and so the band re-recorded it, releasing the second version on the final album. Ironically, it became one of the band's most popular and well-known songs.

One of the songs written during the making of the album was "Edge of a Broken Heart", which did not feature on the final version of the album. Jon Bon Jovi has since said that this track should have been on the album. He said "It was absolutely appropriate for the Slippery record - coulda, shoulda, woulda been on Slippery had cooler minds prevailed. Here's my formal apology." It was first released on the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Disorderlies and has since been released on the band's box set as well as the special 2-CD edition of Cross Road. It was also on the B-side for the Living on a Prayer single. The song has never been performed live by the band, although many fans would love to hear them do so.

Album name and art

The album went through various name changes during its inception including "Wanted Dead Or Alive" (an album cover was produced with the band dressed as cowboys; the artwork was later used for the single release of the track of the same name), with Slippery When Wet being the final title conceived. According to Jon Bon Jovi, the album's working titles were Wanted Dead or Alive later the band decided to name the album Slippery When Wet after visiting The Number 5 Orange Stripclub in Vancouver.

The cover consists of a wet black garbage bag with the words "Slippery When Wet" traced in the water. The album originally was to feature a busty, 34DD woman in a wet yellow T-shirt with the album name on the front of the shirt. This original version of the cover was swapped for the wet plastic bag cover just prior to release, mainly due to the fact that vocalist Jon Bon Jovi hated the pink border on the cover. The exception is in Japan, where most releases of the album do include the original cover art.

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Robert Christgau	B− [4]
Rolling Stone	(unfavorable) [5]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[6]

The album became a massive success commercially. Between 1986 and 1987, Slippery When Wet produced an amazing string of hit singles, including three Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, two of which ("You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Livin' On A Prayer") reached No. 1, making Bon Jovi the first hard rock band to ever have two consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 chart hits. The third single "Wanted Dead or Alive" peaked at No. 7, making Slippery When Wet the first hard rock album to spawn three Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hits.

The album peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming Bon Jovi's first number-one album in United States. The album also had impressive staying power, with 38 weeks inside the Top 5 of Billboard 200, including 8 weeks at No. 1. Slippery When Wet was the best-selling album of 1987 in the United States, and eventually reached Diamond certification by the RIAA and current sales stand at 12 million copies, making it the 48th best-selling album in the United States.

In the UK, Slippery When Wet received a 3x Platinum certification by the BPI. The album also achieved Diamond status in Canada and 6x Platinum status in Australia.

The album was ranked 44th in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the Definitive 200 albums of all time.

Track listing

DualDisc

In 2005, Slippery When Wet was re-issued as a DualDisc. The CD side contained a newly remastered version of the album, and the DVD side contained the same album in its original stereo mix, plus a slightly expanded 5.1 surround sound version. The expanded album included additional elements within many of the songs, in some cases increasing their runtime. The audio material is playable through a DVD-Audio player and standard DVD Players. The DVD side also included all 5 promo videos from the album:

• "You Give Love a Bad Name"
• "Livin' on a Prayer"
• "Wanted Dead or Alive"
• "Never Say Goodbye"
• "Wild In The Streets"

The DualDisc was released on September 20, 2005, the same release date as Have A Nice Day.

Personnel

Bon Jovi

• Jon Bon Jovi – lead vocals, guitar
• Richie Sambora – guitar, backing vocals
• Alec John Such – bass, backing vocals
• Tico Torres – drums
• David Bryan – keyboards, backing vocals

Production

• Bruce Fairbairn – producer
• Bob Rock – engineer / mixer
• Tim Crich – assistant engineer
• Tom Keenlyside – horns
• Bill Levy – artwork
• George Marino – digital remastering engineer
• Lema Moon – horns
• Mark Weiss – photography

Charts

Certifications

See also

• Bon Jovi discography
• List of best-selling albums
• List of best-selling albums in the United States

References

External links

• Slippery When Wet (Adobe Flash) at Radio3Net (streamed copy where licensed)