Bon Jovi

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  • New Jersey
    New Jersey
    New Jersey

    Not wanting to be perceived as a one-hit wonder, Bon Jovi quickly went back into the studio to record the follow-up to the mega-successful Slippery When Wet. The band wished to make a double album, but the record company insisted on a more accessible single release. Five top 10 hits—“Bad Medicine,” “Born to Be My Baby,” “I’ll Be There for You,” “Lay Your Hands on Me,” and “Living in Sin”—and more than seven million albums sold established the group as a serious and consistent commercial draw. Their sing-along choruses demanded audience participation and made them a top-selling arena rock band. 

  • Slippery When Wet
    Slippery When Wet
    Slippery When Wet

    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 pinups 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.

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About Bon Jovi

Everything about Bon Jovi is huge—the choruses, the sales numbers, the riffs, the arenas—and they earned their place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with explosive tunes that command sing-alongs. But when Jon Bon Jovi formed the band with guitarist Richie Sambora, bassist Alec Such, and drummer Tico Torres in Sayreville, New Jersey in 1983, the biggest thing about them was their hair. They were a glammy pop-metal outfit who found themselves going from Garden State clubs to touring alongside Scorpions and Kiss on the strength of both their heartthrob looks and the 1984 Top 40 hit “Runaway” and its relentlessly catchy, New Wave keyboard line. With 1986’s Slippery When Wet, which broadened their arsenal with twangy power ballads (“Wanted Dead or Alive”) and blue-collar rock anthems in the Springsteen mold (“Livin’ On a Prayer”), they became MTV staples and global icons. As they aged ever-gracefully, Jon dabbled in acting—he had a recurring part on television’s Ally McBeal, among other roles—and the band continued reaching younger fans with 2000’s Max Martin-assisted “It’s My Life,” while later taking a stab at country on 2007’s Lost Highway, which featured guest spots from LeAnn Rimes and Big & Rich. But it’s the enduring lyrics of struggle and heartache and the eminently shoutable hooks that keep the fans coming in droves, whether or not they were alive for the days of spandex.

ORIGIN
Sayreville, NJ, United States
FORMED
1983
GENRE
Rock

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