Slippery When Wet [Remaster] (CD - 1986)

Bon Jovi: Jon Bon Jovi (vocals); Richie Sambora (acoustic & electric guitars, guitar synthesizer, talk box, background vocals); Dave Bryan (keyboards, background vocals); Hugh McDonald (bass, background vocals); Tico Torres (drums, percussion).

Recorded at Little Mountain, Vancouver, British Columbia.

All tracks have been digitally remastered using 20-bit technology by George Marino (Summer 1998, Sterling Sound, New York, New York).

This video compilation includes interviews of the band.

SLIPPERY WHEN WET, the famed 1980s release that started it all for Bon Jovi, features radio anthems like "You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Livin' On A Prayer."

This remastered rerelease also contains the video for "Wanted Dead Or Alive" on CD-ROM.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

A video companion to the Slippery When Wet album, it combines several of the videos that helped to break them as well as some live footage. ~ David Jehnzen

It is probably true that Bon Jovi's breakthrough success with Slippery When Wet, their third album, had more to do with lead singer Jon Bon Jovi's mop of curls and winning smile than with anything in the grooves of the record. Nevertheless, the album contained competent contemporary pop/rock, from its Eddie Van Halen-inspired guitar solos to the singer's enthusiastic, husky wail (which owed a lot to Bruce Springsteen). Jon Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, and songwriter-for-hire Desmond Child had little more on their minds than girls and rock-as-mythology (even the working-class anthem "Livin' on a Prayer" featured a character who was forced to hock his "six string"), but that may only mean they had identified their audience -- young white adolescent males -- and were targeting it accurately. ~ William Ruhlmann

Bon Jovi took a few faltering steps with their promising self-titled debut album and its shoddy 7800 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT follow-up. However, it was with this third record, a mixture of New Jersey storytelling and songwriter/collaborator Desmond Child's keen awareness of commercial appeal, that the perfect equation of songs and suss was established. The almost noble "Wanted Dead Or Alive" spawned a thousand copycat monochrome, on-the-road videos, while the sure-fire snap of "Livin' On A Prayer" and "You Give Love A Bad Name" simply elevated the banner much higher. minimize