Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet [ISLAND]

Why you'll love it

This edition puts Slippery When Wet on 180g vinyl. The album spent eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, was Billboard's top-selling album of 1987 and is certified 15x platinum in the US.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Stereo mix

About the album

Bon Jovi made their breakthrough record in Vancouver. In 1986 the band went to Little Mountain Sound with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn and songwriter Desmond Child, aiming squarely at radio, and came out with an album that turned arena rock into pure pop gold.

"You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Livin' On A Prayer" both went to No. 1 on the Hot 100, and "Wanted Dead Or Alive" made it three top ten hits, a first for a glam metal album. Richie Sambora's talk-box guitar, Jon Bon Jovi's open-throated choruses and Fairbairn's huge, polished sound do the rest, from "Let It Rock" to "Never Say Goodbye."

The band wrote around 30 songs with Desmond Child and auditioned them for New Jersey and New York teenagers, basing the running order on their verdicts. Jon Bon Jovi wasn't sure "Livin' On A Prayer" was good enough until Richie Sambora talked him round. The key change in "Livin' On A Prayer" still claims a karaoke victim every weekend, and we're not naming any staff members.

Also at Kops: more Bon Jovi on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Mercury (cat# B0021968-01), a reissue of the 1986 album.