Slippery When Wet
is the third studio album by Bon Jovi, released in August 1986 by Mercury Records. The album is widely considered one of the greatest albums in rock music history. Slippery When Wet was an instant commercial success. To date, the album has sold over 28 million copies worldwide [1] and received diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. It was named the top selling album of 1987 by Billboard [2]. The album is featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
.
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SLIPPERY WHEN WET TICKETS
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Background
Despite the respectable 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. They recorded the album at
Little Mountain studios in
Vancouver,
British Columbia,
Canada.
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", and "Without Love" which was co-written by
Desmond Child. Desmond Child helped write some of the songs along with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. He was brought in by the record company. 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. The song is referred to in Bon Jovi's 2000 single "
It's My Life" among other songs. The original demo, which Jon Bon Jovi thought was not good enough for the album, can be found as a
hidden track on the band's
box set.
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. It has since been released on the band's
box set
, and featured on the special 2-CD edition of
Cross Road
.
Jon Bon Jovi has since said (from notes in the boxset booklet and on the boxset DVD (Disc 5)) that this track should have been on the album. Jon said "
It was absolutely appropriate for the Slippery record - coulda, shoulda, woulda been on Slippery had cooler minds prevailed. Here's my formal apology.
" Jon also mentions that this was the same era when he thought "Livin' on a Prayer" wasn't a hit (see above) and he's never claimed to be a good
A&R guy.
Album name and art
The album went through various name changes during its inception, with
Slippery When Wet
being the final title conceived. According to Jon Bon Jovi in a DVD interview on the box set
100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong
, the album's working titles were
Wanted Dead or Alive
and later the band decided to name the album Slippery When Wet.
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 woman in a wet yellow tee 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 Jon Bon Jovi hated the pink edging to the cover. The exception is in Japan, where most releases of the album do include the original cover art.
Commercial reception
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 #1, making Bon Jovi the first hard rock band to ever have two consecutive #1
Billboard Hot 100 chart hits.
Slippery When Wet
also was the first hard rock album to spawn three
Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 hits. The album also had impressive staying power, with 38 weeks inside the Billboard 200 Top 5, including 8 weeks at #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 48nd best-selling album in the United States. The album peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200, becoming Bon Jovi's first number-one album in United States. Over eight months after its release, Slippery When Wet was certified seven times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for 7 million U.S. shipments.
In the UK, it peaked at #6, spent a total of 107 weeks inside the Top 75, 23 of them on the Top 20. It became Bon Jovi's biggest-selling studio album in UK, achieving over 1 million copies sold, and receiving a 3x Platinum certification by the
BPI on
August 1,
1993. To date, the album has sold twenty five million copies worldwide.
Track listing
DualDisc
In 2005,
Slippery When Wet
was re-issued as a
DualDisc. This released supposedly to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary the following year. The
CD side containing a newly remastered version of the album, and the
DVD side containing the same album in its original stereo mix, plus a slightly expanded Dolby 5.1 Surround version. The expanded album included additional elements 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
.
Samples
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Personnel
- Jon Bon Jovi – lead vocals
- Richie Sambora – guitars, guitar synths, backing vocals
- Alec John Such – bass guitar, backing vocals
- Tico Torres – drums, percussion
- David Bryan – keyboards, piano, synthesizer, various noises, backing vocals
- Bruce Fairbairn – percussion, horn, producer
- Bob Rock – engineer / mixer
- Tim Crich – assistant engineer
- Tom Keenlyside – horns
- Bill Levy – artwork
- George Marino – digital remastering engineer
- Hugh McDonald – bass guitar, backing vocals
- Lema Moon – horn
- Mark Weiss – photography
Chart positions
Charts and certifications
Charts [3]
| Peak Position
| Certification
| Sales/Shipments
|
Australia
| 1
| 6× platinum
| 420,000
|
Canada
| 1
| Diamond
| 1,000,000
|
Germany
| 11
| Platinum
| 500,000
|
Japan
| 10
| 2× platinum
| 500,000
|
United Kingdom
| 6
| 3× platinum
| 900,000
|
United States
| 1
| 12× platinum
| 12,000,000
|
Singles
Year
| Single
| Chart
| Rank
|
1986
| "You Give Love a Bad Name"
| The Billboard Hot 100
| 1
|
1986
| "Wanted Dead or Alive"
| Mainstream Rock Tracks
| 13
|
1986
| "You Give Love a Bad Name"
| Mainstream Rock Tracks
| 9
|
1986
| "You Give Love a Bad Name"
| UK Singles Chart
| 14
|
1986
| "Livin' on a Prayer"
| UK Singles Chart
| 4
|
1987
| "Livin' on a Prayer"
| The Billboard Hot 100
| 1
|
1987
| "Wanted Dead or Alive"
| UK Singles Chart
| 13
|
1987
| "Wanted Dead or Alive"
| The Billboard Hot 100
| 7
|
1987
| "Livin' on a Prayer"
| Mainstream Rock Tracks
| 1
|
1987
| "Never Say Goodbye"
| Mainstream Rock Tracks
| 11
|
1987
| "Never Say Goodbye"
| UK Singles Chart
| 21
|
References
- On a steel horse Bon Jovi rides to top of the charts
- http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/charts/yearend_chart_display.jsp?f=The+Billboard+200&g=Year-end+Album
- European charts