
The original cover of Bon Jovi’s third album featured a busty woman in a wet T-shirt with the words “Slippery When Wet” on the front, framed by a hot-pink border. Executives worried stores wouldn’t sell it, so they changed it to a wet garbage bag with the title streaked in black. One image was fun and trashy (figuratively, at least); the other was tough and stoic. That the band can pass as both spoke to what a huge phenomenon Slippery When Wet became upon its release in 1986. The members of Bon Jovi had enough of a taste of heavy metal to sound contemporary (“You Give Love a Bad Name”, “Social Disease”). But compared to pin-ups like Poison and Mötley Crüe, the group could also evoke the sound and feel of classic rock (“Livin’ On a Prayer”, “Wanted Dead or Alive”). And on Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi even taps into Lynyrd Skynyrd-like nostalgia (the ballad “Never Say Goodbye”) and Rod Stewart-indebted swagger (the rave-up “Wild in the Streets”).
And because Bon Jovi is, at heart, a pop band, the group pulls it all together with a seamlessness that makes you forget where they were coming from in the first place. And while a lot of their pop-metal peers ended up stranded on the last branch of an evolutionary tree, Bon Jovi—and Slippery When Wet—resonates both as a product of its time, and as another step in the continuum of loose-letting, party-hardy rock music.
Tracklisting
Position | Title | Duration |
---|---|---|
A1 | Let It Rock | 5:25 |
A2 | You Give Love A Bad Name | 3:53 |
A3 | Livin’ On A Prayer | 4:12 |
A4 | Social Disease | 4:17 |
A5 | Wanted Dead Or Alive | 5:07 |
B1 | Raise Your Hands | 4:17 |
B2 | Without Love | 3:32 |
B3 | I’d Die For You | 4:31 |
B4 | Never Say Goodbye | 4:48 |
B5 | Wild In The Streets | 3:52 |
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Release Images
Release Information
Key | Value |
---|---|
Wikipedia URL | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_When_Wet |
Format | Vinyl LP Album Reissue Stereo (180 Gram) |
Label | Mercury |
Catalog Number | 06025 470 292-1 (8) |
Notes | Comes with a lyric inner sleeve and includes a download coupon. The sticker on the front of the shrink-wrap may vary. The inner sleeve has different durations to the labels for all tracks except B4: - A1: 5:27 - A2: 3:42 - A3: 4:09 - A4: 4:18 - A5: 5:08 - B1 4:16 - B2: 3:30 - B3: 4:30 - B5: 3:54 [Back cover and labels] ℗© 2016 Mercury Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. Made in the EU. [Inner sleeve] Recorded at Little Mountain, Vancouver, B.C. Mastered by: Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound, New York © 2016 Mercury Records, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc. |
Discogs URL | Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet |