On The Road Again: Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet"

viernes, 1 de junio de 2018

Bon Jovi "Slippery When Wet"

Slippery When Wet is the third studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was released on August 18, 1986 by 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, British Columbia, Canada.

Slippery When Wet was an instant commercial success. The album features songs that are considered Bon Jovi's best known songs, 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 U.S. Billboard 200 chart and was named by Billboard as the top-selling album of 1987. Slippery When Wet is Bon Jovi's best-selling album to date, with an RIAA certification of 12× Platinum, making it one of the top 100 best-selling albums in the United States. The album was featured in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Despite the moderate success of 7800° Fahrenheit (1985), Bon Jovi had not yet become the superstars they had hoped. This made them change their approach for their next album, going for a more mainstream sound than their heavier first two albums. Hiring Desmond Child as a collaborator, the band wrote 30 songs and auditioned them for local New Jersey (including recording artist and Phantom's Opera vocalist Colie Brice) and New York teenagers, basing the album's running order on their opinions. Bruce Fairbairn was chosen as the main producer for the album, with Bob Rock as the mixer. The 1985 album Without Love which Fairbairn produced for the heavy metal band Black 'n Blue, attracted Jon Bon Jovi for its sound quality, and he immediately sought out the producer.

Much of the album was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, whereas "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Livin' on a Prayer," "Without Love" and "I'd Die For You" were co-written with Desmond Child, and "Wild in the Streets" was by Bon Jovi alone. This was the first time Child worked with Jon and Richie. He came to New Jersey, where they worked on the four songs in Sambora's mother's basement.

"I liked what Bryan Adams had done with Tina Turner," Bon Jovi explained, "so I suggested we do something similar: I write a song for someone like her, and then we do the song together. But that got changed, and our A&R guy came up with Desmond's name… He hasn't tried to change what we are, but to refine it slightly; to suggest extra ways that we could wring a bit more out of what we had."

Bon Jovi was initially reluctant to include "Livin' on a Prayer", believing it was not good enough. Sambora convinced him it was a hit in the making, and so the band rerecorded it, releasing the second version on the album. It is Bon Jovi's signature song.

One of the songs written during the making of the album, "Edge of a Broken Heart", did not feature on the final release. Bon Jovi has since said it should have been included: "It was absolutely appropriate for the Slippery record - coulda, shoulda, woulda been on Slippery had cooler minds prevailed. Here's my formal apology." Featured on the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Disorderlies, it has since been released on the 2-CD edition of Cross Road, the box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong and the B-side for the Livin' on a Prayer song. The song has never been performed live by the band, despite being a fan favorite.

"There's a song called 'Love Is A Social Disease' that Aerosmith were keen to get hold of," remarked Bon Jovi in 1986. "It would be ideal for them, but they're not having it, because it's even better for us."

The album went through various name changes during its inception, including Wanted Dead Or Alive. A cover with the band dressed as cowboys (owing to Jon's growing cowboy fetish.) was later used for the single release of the track of the same name.

According to Bon Jovi, the band named the album Slippery When Wet after visiting The No.5 Orange strip club in Vancouver. According to Sambora, "This woman descended from the ceiling on a pole and proceeded to take all her clothes off. When she got in a shower and soaped herself up, we just about lost our tongues. We just sat there and said, ‘We will be here every day.’ That energized us through the whole project. Our testosterone was at a very high level back then."

The cover consists of a wet black garbage bag with the words "Slippery When Wet" traced in the water ("So simple," observed Sambora, "and not very impressive"). The album originally was to feature a busty woman in a wet yellow T-shirt with the album name on the front of the shirt. This was swapped for the plastic bag cover just prior to release. The reasons given for the switch were record execs' fears that dominant record store chains at the time would have refused to carry the album with a sexist cover, and Jon Bon Jovi's complaint the record company had put a bright pink border around the photograph the band submitted. "Our label freaked out a bit when they saw what we'd done," recalled Sambora. "They thought it would be banned by American stores, so we had to come up with something else – fast."

In Japan, most releases of the album included the original cover art.

Track listing
Side one