Slippery When Wet
Encyclopedia
Slippery When Wet is the third studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi is an American rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Formed in 1983, Bon Jovi consists of lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi , guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, as well as current bassist Hugh McDonald...

, released in August 1986 by Vertigo Records
Vertigo Records
Vertigo Records today is a UK-based record label operated by Universal Music UK.-History:Vertigo Records was the name Philips Records chose in the late 1960s for its record sub-label to counter the progressive labels of its rivals EMI with Harvest Records and Decca Records with Deram...

. Slippery When Wet was an instant commercial success. The album features songs that are today considered as Bon Jovi's most well-known tracks such as "You Give Love a Bad Name
You Give Love a Bad Name (song)
"You Give Love a Bad Name" is a song written by Jon Bon Jovi, Desmond Child, and Richie Sambora about a woman who has jilted her lover. Although originally written for the band Loverboy, the song was recorded by Bon Jovi...

", "Livin' on a Prayer
Livin' on a Prayer
"Livin' on a Prayer" is Bon Jovi's second single from their Slippery When Wet album. Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora with Desmond Child, the single, released in late 1986, was well-received at both rock and pop radio and its music video was given heavy rotation at MTV, giving the band...

" and "Wanted Dead or Alive
Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)
-Music Video:The video for the song is black and white and features footage from the band's massive 1986-1987 world tour, including shots from Chicago's UIC Pavilion, Rochester, Minnesota's Mayo Civic Center, Denver, Colorado's McNichols Arena, Pittsburgh, PA F. Pitt Tunnel and Pittsburgh Skyline...

". The album spent eight weeks at #1 on The Billboard 200. Slippery When Wet is the band's best-selling album to date, with over 12 million copies sold in the United States and over 28 million copies worldwide and received diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

. It was named the top selling album of 1987 by Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

, and is currently the 21st best-selling studio album of all time. The album is featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a musical reference book edited by Robert Dimery, first published in 2005. The most recent edition consists of a list of albums released between 1955 and 2010, part of a series from Quintessence Editions Ltd...

.

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
Desmond Child
Desmond Child is an American musician, songwriter, and producer. He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.-Career:...

 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
Bruce Fairbairn
Bruce Earl Fairbairn was a Canadian musician and international record producer from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was active as a producer from 1976 to 1999 and is considered one of the best of his era...

 was chosen as the main producer of the album, with Bob Rock
Bob Rock
Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

 as the mixer. They recorded the album at Little Mountain Sound Studios
Little Mountain Sound Studios
Little Mountain Sound Studios was a music recording facility located in Vancouver, British Columbia. In its day, it was the most successful recording studio in Western Canada and was the home for many years to producers Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock...

 in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, 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 were co-written by Desmond Child
Desmond Child
Desmond Child is an American musician, songwriter, and producer. He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.-Career:...

. Desmond 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. The song is referred to in Bon Jovi's 2000 single "It's My Life
It's My Life (Bon Jovi song)
"It's My Life" is Bon Jovi's first single from the album Crush. It was released on May 23, 2000. It was written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Max Martin. The song hit #1 across several countries...

" 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
Hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...

 on the band's 2004 box set, 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong.

One of the songs written during the making of the album was "Edge of a Broken Heart
Edge of a Broken Heart
"Edge of a Broken Heart" is a song by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was one of the songs written during the making of the album, Slippery When Wet, but was not featured on the final version of the album...

", which did not feature on the final version of the album. It was first released on the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Disorderlies
Disorderlies
Disorderlies is a 1987 comedy film starring the rap group, The Fat Boys, and Ralph Bellamy.-Plot summary:Winslow Lowry, the no-good, indebted nephew of elderly, infirm billionaire Albert Dennison seeks to speed his uncle's demise by hiring three of the most inept orderlies he can possibly find...

and has since been released on the band's box set as well as the special 2-CD edition of Cross Road
Cross Road
Cross Road is a greatest hits compilation released by the American band Bon Jovi in 1994. The album contains hits from between Bon Jovi and Keep The Faith and two new tracks: the hit singles "Always" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night", as well as a new, updated rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer"...

.

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
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...

 guy.

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 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 Guns N' Roses; later the band decided to name the album Slippery When Wet after visiting strip clubs in Vancouver.

The cover consists of a wet black garbage bag
Bin bag
A bin bag, swag sack or bin liner or garbage bag, trash bag, refuse sack, black sack, or can liner is a disposable bag used to contain rubbish. Such bags are useful to line the insides of waste containers to prevent the insides of the receptacle from becoming coated in waste material...

 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 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.
Another reason that has been advanced regarding for the re-design of the cover is that Walmart, one of the nation's largest music outlets, was not amenable to distributing the original, racy cover illustration.

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
You Give Love a Bad Name (song)
"You Give Love a Bad Name" is a song written by Jon Bon Jovi, Desmond Child, and Richie Sambora about a woman who has jilted her lover. Although originally written for the band Loverboy, the song was recorded by Bon Jovi...

" and "Livin' On A Prayer
Livin' on a Prayer
"Livin' on a Prayer" is Bon Jovi's second single from their Slippery When Wet album. Written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora with Desmond Child, the single, released in late 1986, was well-received at both rock and pop radio and its music video was given heavy rotation at MTV, giving the band...

") reached #1, making Bon Jovi the first hard rock band to ever have two consecutive #1 Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 chart hits. The third single "Wanted Dead or Alive
Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi song)
-Music Video:The video for the song is black and white and features footage from the band's massive 1986-1987 world tour, including shots from Chicago's UIC Pavilion, Rochester, Minnesota's Mayo Civic Center, Denver, Colorado's McNichols Arena, Pittsburgh, PA F. Pitt Tunnel and Pittsburgh Skyline...

" peaked at #7, making Slippery When Wet the first hard rock album to spawn three Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 Top 10 hits.

The album peaked at #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 #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 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, receiving a 3x Platinum certification by the BPI
British Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...

. The album also achieved Diamond status in Canada and 6x Platinum status in Australia.

Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...

magazine listed the album at No. 44 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time".

Track listing

DualDisc

In 2005, Slippery When Wet was re-issued as a DualDisc
DualDisc
DualDisc was a type of double-sided optical disc product developed by a group of record companies including EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and 5.1 Entertainment Group and later under the aegis of the Recording Industry Association of America...

. The CD side containing a newly remastered version of the album, and the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 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 within many of the songs, in some cases increasing their runtime. The audio material is playable through a DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....

 player and standard DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 Players. The DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 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
Have a Nice Day (Bon Jovi album)
Have a Nice Day has mostly received mixed or unfavorable reviews by music critics. It was commonly commented that Jon Bon Jovi was "streching" his lyrical abilities, while the best rating the album has gotten is an 8 out of 10...

.

Samples

Personnel

  • Jon Bon Jovi
    Jon Bon Jovi
    Jon Bon Jovi is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as the founder, occasional rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of rock band Bon Jovi, which was named after him...

     – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
    Rhythm guitar
    Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...

  • Richie Sambora
    Richie Sambora
    Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...

     – lead guitar
    Lead guitar
    Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...

    , backing vocals, talkbox on "Livin' on a Prayer"
  • Alec John Such
    Alec John Such
    Alec John Such is an American musician, and the former bassist for the band Bon Jovi. He left the band in 1994, and has not been officially replaced. As well as playing bass guitar, Such sang backing vocals and occasionally took the lead for part of 'Blood on Blood' at live shows...

     – bass, backing vocals
  • Tico Torres
    Tico Torres
    Hector Samuel Juan "Tico" Torres is an American drummer and percussionist for rock band classic, Bon Jovi. He also has taken lead vocals on a song on the box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong, as well as backing vocals on a couple of the early Bon Jovi tracks, notably "Born to Be My...

     – drums
    Drum kit
    A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

  • David Bryan
    David Bryan
    David Bryan is the keyboard player of the band rock classic, Bon Jovi. Bryan also sings backing vocals and often at live shows sings part of or the whole of the song "In These Arms", one of a handful of Bon Jovi songs credited to him as songwriter...

     – keyboards
    Keyboard instrument
    A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

    , backing vocals
  • Bruce Fairbairn
    Bruce Fairbairn
    Bruce Earl Fairbairn was a Canadian musician and international record producer from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was active as a producer from 1976 to 1999 and is considered one of the best of his era...

     – producer
    Record producer
    A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

  • Bob Rock
    Bob Rock
    Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

     – engineer / mixer
  • Tim Crich – assistant engineer
    Audio engineering
    An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...

  • Tom Keenlyside – horns
  • Bill Levy – artwork
  • George Marino – digital remastering engineer
  • Lema Moon – horn
  • Mark Weiss – photography
    Photography
    Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...


Album

Charts Peak
Position
Australia
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

1
Canada
Canadian Albums Chart
The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...

1
Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

1
Germany 11
Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

10
New Zealand 1
Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

1
Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

3
Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

1
Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

2
United Kingdom
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...

6
United States
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

1

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
1987 "Livin' on a Prayer" The Billboard Hot 100 1
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

Certifications

Organization Level Date
RIAA – US Gold October 15, 1986
RIAA – US Platinum October 15, 1986
RIAA – US 2x Platinum November 6, 1986
RIAA - US 3x Platinum December 9, 1986
RIAA - US 4x Platinum January 6, 1987
RIAA – US 5x Platinum January 20, 1987
RIAA – US 6x Platinum February 19, 1987
RIAA – US 7x Platinum April 27, 1987
RIAA – US 8x Platinum August 21, 1987
RIAA - US 9x Platinum November 29, 1989
RIAA - US 10x Platinum October 21, 1993
RIAA - US 11x Platinum November 18, 1994
RIAA - US 12x Platinum October 10, 1995

Use in Media

Named after this album, "Slippery When Wet" is the title of Clear Channel's Hair Metal format available online and used as a niche format by a selective number of Clear Channel FM stations.

See also

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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