Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Track Listing
Let It Rock
You Give Love A Bad Name
Livin' On A Prayer
Social Disease
Wanted Dead Or Alive
Raise Your Hands
Without Love
Wild In The Streets
Never Say Goodbye
I'd Die For You
John Francis Bongiovi, born in New Jersey, started out playing piano and guitar, working the music scene by playing clubs. In 1980, John entered a music contest with the now instantly recognisable song “Runaway”. In 1984, just one year after Jon recruited Richie Sambora, Tico Torres, Alec John Such, and David Bryan, the rock legend that is Bon Jovi, were signed by Polygram.
“Slippery When Wet”, their third album, was released in late 1986 and has sold well over 12,000,000 copies worldwide since. It was this album that established Bon Jovi as an all time great, whether you like them or loathe them. With Living on a Prayer, American Rock, Hair Metal, call it what you will, Bon Jovi introduced a style of rock that hadn’t found commercial success of this magnitude in the music scene, and took the MTV generation by storm. Their music and image spawned a multitude of copycats, some good, and some that really should have stuck to the day jobs and never had been allowed to go anywhere near a musical instrument.
"Slippery When Wet" was an album of ready made hit singles, with no track "fillers", each song with it's own strengths. The first track, Let It Rock, is often overlooked due to the strengths of the more obvious hits, but in the US, the organ playing is still used across the USA for things like sporting events, such as basketball when the players cross onto the court. As far as openers go, it's a pretty hood one!
The second and third tracks, "You Give Love A Bad Name" (which incidentally nearly didn't make it onto the album!) and "Livin' On A Prayer" are instantly recogniseable the world over. If you haven't heard them..where have you been?! Simply put, these two tracks are Bon Jovi classics! Richie Sambora's talents shine through, the guitar work is phenomenal, and Jon it seems finally found his voice.
The fourth song, Social Disease opens with the sounds of a hospital. On any other album this track would have been fine, but with "Slippery". it does tend to get eclipsed by the likes of 'Prayer' and 'Bad Name'. If you ever get a chance to look at the lyrics, then you'll find that it isn't a profound song full of deep meaning.
Allegedly, the fifth song on the album, Wanted Dead Or Alive, inspired MTV's "Unplugged" series, after it was played at the MTV Video Music Awards acousticly. The strength of the performance won Bon Jovi yet more fans, and proved that they were far more then just "pretty boys". The song itself is about life on the road, something the band know a great deal about having done many world tours. The cowboy metaphor may seem cheesy, but it's still an anthem, even now.
"Raise Your Hands" was apparently used in an end sequence in the rather odd film "Spaceballs".. Again, Sambora is let loose, and almost eclipses Jon (surely not!?). Without Love is a forgotten acoustic gem of a track, and is more then just an "acoustic love song". In fact it's more about self doubt, second guessing, loneliness, and the feeling shared by many..being too scared of commitment and letting a good thing slip by.
"I'd Die For You" did earn Jon some flak for trying too hard to sound like Bruce Springsteen, with "heavy inluences" of Van Halen. As if combining the epic talents of Springsteen and Van Halen would be a bad thing??
"Never Say Goodbye" along with a couple of the other songs mentioned earlier, spawned the candle/lighter holding antics that packed stadiums in the 80's. It's during this song that older fans of Bon Jovi exhange smiles and knowing looks as they recall how things used to be.
The final track, "Wild In The Streets", is quite simply put an excellent way to bring an awesome album to a close.
