On August 18, 1986, "Bon Jovi" released their third album, "Slippery When Wet".
Here are 37 interesting facts about the album and the cover that was confiscated ...
1. This is Bon Jovi's best-selling album to date with sales of over 28 million copies worldwide, of which 12 million are in the US.
2. The album spent 8 weeks in first place and 38 weeks in a row in the top five places on Billboard 200.
3. This album was a significant breakthrough in the band's career and gave it immediate success !!
4. 4 successful singles have been released from the album, namely: "You Give Love A Bad Name", "Livin 'On A Prayer", "Never Say Goodbye" and "Wanted Dead or Alive".
5. It's also the best-selling album of 1987. It knocked out Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction", U2's "The Joshua Tree" and Michael Jackson's "Bad" from the top of the charts.
6. On this album the band decided to go more towards mainstream compared to their previous two albums. They even used focus groups of teenagers to decide which songs to choose for the final version of the album. They selected 1o song out of 30 songs in total.
7. In order to sharpen their writing and produce hits, the band got help from Desmond Child who is one of the famous songwriters that won the "Songwriters Hall of Fame" in 2008 and is responsible for hits by "KISS", "Aerosmith", Alice Cooper and Ricky Martin.
8. Desmond helped Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi write songs like, "You Give Love A Bad Name", "Livin' On A Prayer", "I'd Die for You" and "Without Love".
9. The three worked on the album in the basement of Richie Sambora's mother.
10. Keyboardist David Bryan and drummer Tico Torres received no credit for writing any of the album's songs.
11. The only song on the album that was not written in collaboration is "Wild in the Streets", the song that closes the album and was written by Jon Bon Jovi alone.
12. The first single released from the album was "You Give Love a Bad Name". It's also the band's first song to reach number one on Billboard.
13. The song was originally written by Desmond Child for singer Bonnie Tyler. It included different words and was called "If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)", but Desmond Child Child who was disappointed with it's failure decided to rewrite it along with John and Richie. For Bonnie Tyler's song click on the link: here.
14. One of the songs that almost was not included in the album is "Livin' on a Prayer" which Bon Jovi felt was not good enough, but Richie Sambora believed it would be a huge hit and indeed he was right.
15. The song was written by Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi and Desmond Child and is based on a true story about Desmond and his then girlfriend Maria Vidal, who in the song became Tony and Gina.
16. This is the first song in which Richie Sambora used the Talkbox effect making the guitar sound like it speaks.
17. Tony and Gina returned to star in another "Bon Jovi" hit from 2000 - "It's My Life". Richie also uses the Talkbox effect in this song.
18. According to singer Joe Lynn Turner, known among others from the bands "Rainbow" and "Deep Purple", Richie Sambora asked him for permission to "steal" the riff for the song "Livin 'on a Prayer" from Turner's song "Get Tough" taken from the solo album "Rescue You", which came out a year earlier. Turner claimed he agreed. For Turner's song click on the link: here.
19. The one who wrote the bass line for the song and plays bass is Hugh McDonald and not Alec John Such. McDonald's will become an unofficial member of the band in 1994 and later an official member starting in 2016.
21. The song "I'd Die For You" was first born as "Take Me Home" with completely different lyrics, until it evolved into its final version that we all know.
21. The song "Without Love" is the only song from the album that was never performed live.
22. John was inspired by the song "Wanted Dead or Alive" after listening to Bob Seger's "Turn The Page".
23. He wrote the song on the band's bus between performances, with the words "steel horse" he meant the band's bus.
24. The producers of "Young Guns II" wanted the song for the soundtrack of the movie, but Jon Bon Jovi thought it was inappropriate and eventually wrote "Blaze Of Glory" for the film.
25. Also the name of the album was supposed to be "Wanted Dead Or Alive" and include a picture of the band members dressed as cowboys on the cover.
26. According to Richie Sambora the name of the album and the original cover were chosen as a result of the high level of testosterone that the band members had during the recording of the album. We will not expand much but just note that during the recordings they visited a strip club in Vancouver where one of the strippers performed acrobatic exercises that included a tube, water and a pillar and this left a great impression on them.
27. So about the cover ... The original cover that came out only in Japan includes a picture of a woman wearing a wet yellow tank top with the name of the album on it. The cover was banned by the band's management because they feared that the record stores would not be willing to sell an album with such a cover.
28. The cover that was finally approved at the last minute, is a picture of a wet black nylon bag marked with the letters of the album name.
29. Another song that was recorded during the sessions and did not enter the album, was "Edge of a Broken Heart". It eventually entered the soundtrack to the 1987 film "Disorderlies," but John regrets to this day that he did not make it in the album the end, in his opinion it was fit for the spirit of the album.
30. John chose Bruce Fairbairn as the producer because he really liked his production work on the "Without Love" album of the band "Black‘ N Blue" which came out a year earlier.
31. The recording technician and the one who did the mix for the album is the renowned producer Bob Rock who will later produce, among other things, Metallica's "Black Album".
32. This album made "Bon Jovi" the first hard rock band to have two consecutive singles at number one on the Billboard charts.
33. It also became the first hard rock album of which three songs reached the top ten in the chart.
34. That record was broken on Bon Jovi's next album "New Jersey" when five singles from it reached the top ten.
35. Kerrang Magazine! Ranked the album in 44th place on the list of "100 Best Heavy Metal Albums of All Time".
36. The album entered the prestigious list of the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
37. It is ranked 44th in the list of the 200 greatest albums of all time by the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame".
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