So why is Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Slippery When Wet… slides into the fringe of the “Top 200” of the best 1,000 albums ever* on the power of nostalgia and, frankly, because I still feel like it kicks a hell of a lot of [REDACTED] after all these years.
* Oh, we’re MORE than halfway there, kids, 80% of the way really, and picking up steam for the final stretch!
Two stories come to mind from different times in my life when I think about Bon Jovi’s smash hit of a hair metal-meets-pop album from 1986.
The first dates back to when I was a sleepaway camp counselor between my sophomore and junior years of college. I had never gone to camps of any kind as a kid growing up, really, and was (and remain) not much of an outdoorsy person. I also had zero experience with kids (including the fact that I’m the youngest of three children in the household I was raised in).
So what was I thinking, taking on a fairly large group of 11-year-old boys with one other co-counselor? That’s the question I asked often during that long summer in the mountains north of New York City.
Since most of the other camp counselors were lifelong friends as they had been going to the same camp (Surprise Lake Camp) since they were little kids, it took me some time to fit in… that is, until the Brits – there on an exchange program – arrived.
The key, in addition to their newness to the situation (and to the U.S.), was that I had a car, a relatively rare circumstance even among the U.S. contingent (many of whom lived in New York City).
So the Brits and I became fast friends, but there was one British guy who didn’t seem to fit into the overall vibe. One reason was that he certainly had a different look: long and kind of permed-style hair, and goth-y clothes which were strikingly different than the preppie and regular shorts-and-t-shirts crowd which was the norm in that scene.
One day I struck up a conversation with him, and I realized that this was clearly one of the coolest people I’d had the chance to encounter. He turned me on to bands I was only vaguely aware of up until that point – such as The Smiths and Sisters of Mercy – and I especially recall an incredible conversation that we had about the merits of Nirvana’s Nevermind versus a seminal album called Slippery When Wet.
In his view, both albums had had an enormous influence on the direction of music at that point in pop culture history, and I still see no reason to disagree with this, though of course we may interpret that one had a longer lasting influence and impact than the other.
But the sturdiness of this argument speaks to Bon Jovi’s powerhouse ability to meld hair metal, hard rock, pop, and exquisite songwriting with stadium-sized ambitions, and Slippery When Wet is the album where it all came together best.
All right, story #2! Roughly ten years later, I’m at my own wedding and having a blast. It was held in California, and I was incredibly fortunate that so many friends and family of mine flew out from the east coast for the event. Cut to later in the evening, when ties are loosened and the music cranked up, and what song pops up at the perfect moment of wedding-partying crescendo?
You are correct: “Livin’ On A Prayer” brought all of the party rockers to the dance floor, and all was all manner of well*.
* Side note that our “first dance” wedding song was the Frank Sinatra version of “Fly Me to the Moon,” which still holds a special place in my heart to this day.
What’s pretty wild is that while “Livin’ On A Prayer” could easily serve as any really good band’s finest achievement, “You Give Love A Bad Name” is every bit its equal. Both are arena-shaking, hair and head banging music that both music normies and nerds can get with.
It’s kind of fascinating that the Western-tinged (and legitimately great) “Wanted Dead Or Alive” came out on Slippery When Wet, four years prior to Jon Bon Jovi’s solo smash hit, “Blaze of Glory” – which was tied to the Emilio Estevez-led Young Guns II movie, which was about the continuing adventures of Billy the Kid.
The 1980s had all kinds of great piano and keyboard intros to songs, and I’d argue that “I’d Die For You” is way up there on that score.
And “Raise Your Hands” proves that when Bon Jovi wanted to do more or less straightforward hair metal, they could do that better than almost everyone else in the biz, too.
Some stats & info about Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, Hair Metal, Arena Rock, Album Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Slippery When Wet released? 1986
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #202 out of 1,000
Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Shot through the heart and you’re to blame darling: you give love a bad name.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.