MattA75's Full Review: Slippery When Wet [Remaster] by Bon Jovi
Strap yourselves in, this is gonna be a long one...
When the very talented music category lead lambchops came up with the idea for the "Where it all Began" write off, I knew immediatelyI was in, even if I was gonna have to cheat.
The idea is to review the very first album you bought, no matter how embarrassing, how awful, or how cheesy. There's just one problem: I honestly don't remember what the first album I bought with my own money was. It could have been Poison, it could have been KISS, or it could have been Tone Loc or GASP, even New Kids on the Block (oh how desparately I wanted to fit in back then!!!). Of course, I'm sure I'll get guff over how I don't want to admit to what I first bought, but look at that list: ain't nothing on there to be proud of (the Kiss tape I bought was Crazy Nights, not one of their better moments, even if I still say to this day that the title track rocks). The other problem is that I would beg and plead my mom to buy me tapes too, so I have no real memory of whether I bought it or if she bought it for me. So how do we end up at Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi? Well, I'll tell you...
It was Christmas 1986, and I was two weeks away from turning seven. The great thing about having a birthday on January 9th (as I do) is that it's just far enough away from Xmas so that your relatives can't cheese you by saying one gift counts for both your birthday and Xmas gifts. Since I was nearly seven years old, I of course wanted toys, mostly action figure stuff like Transformers and G.I. Joe, and, if they were around in 1986, I probably wanted THUNDERCATS too, among others.
I was over my grandmother's house and we started doing gifts. I was pretty excited because I was six and it was Christmas Eve. The first gift I opened was this small little rectangular gift from my Uncle Bernie and Aunt Linda. Not sure if you guys remember this, but when you were six, didn't you hate the small little gifts? Especially something that would be about the size of a tape?
I ripped the wrapping paper and it revealed a cassette: the two words on the cover would become my favorite two words in music up until I was 12 and discovered two other words (Pearl Jam). Yes, my first ever musical recording was Bon Jovi's 1986 masterpiece, Slippery When Wet.
Man, you want to see jealousy, you should have seen the look in my cousin Keri's eyes (she was B&L's daughter). She hated me at that point in time. She was 8 or 9 and was completely head over heels with Jon Bon Jovi. What's worse is that when I saw what it was, I had no f*cking clue at all what it was; I just kind of sat there and was like "ok, thanks Auntie Linda." "Matt, do you know them?" My six year old head was totally lost and I was just like "duhhhh, no."
Before long though, this album was setting down what would be my main musical tastes for the rest of my life. I took that tape home on Xmas Eve and after uncovering another tape from my brother (more on that later, I promise!), I listened to Slippery When Wet front to back, and I loved every single moment of it.
When you're six, you don't really have any comprehension what is a "good" song, you kind of just want something catchy that you can sing along to. Needless to say, this album fits that description in every way. From the opening of Let It Rock to the closing bars of Wild in the Streets, Slippery When Wet is not just a rock fan's dream, but a six year old's dream (well this six year old's anyway!) of what music should be at that age.
This album spawned four radio hits, although I can only remember the videos for three of them. First of course, was You Give Love a Bad Name. I had no idea what Jon was singing about, I didn't care: that chorus was unbelievably catchy, and what about Richie Sambora's guitar work? That opening lick, I mean, when I was six, hearing this song made me play air guitar like a little hellion gone wild. :)
Then there was Livin on a Prayer, which has endured to become a certifiable classic. Has there ever been a rock song more condusive to screaming along at the top of your lungs to annoy your parents when you're a young kid than this one? I haven't met it yet if there is, and again, I had no idea of the meaning of the song, or what it came to mean for some people, but all I wanted was a hook, and that song had it in spades.
My favorite two tracks on the record were the aforementioned Prayer and the awesome Raise Your Hands, which just felt so alive to me. I still remember getting all giggly inside when I went to see Spaceballs in the movie theatre and that song was being played by Barf the Mog as he danced and stuffed his face. Wow, Spaceballs and Bon Jovi, there's a combo that just can't be beat.
Later on, I became quite fond of the other radio hits, Wanted Dead or Alive and Never Say Goodbye, two songs that I think were indicative of how good a songwriter Jon could be when he wanted to be. I also think it goes to show how diverse the band could be even back then when they were considered "hair metal" and "talentless" by every backpage music critic who thought that catchy rock and roll was the end of the world.
Perhaps what is most ironic about me loving this album/band is the fact that my brothers were pointing me into certain bands (read: Led Zep, The Who etc), and for the most part I listened; but they hated Bon Jovi with such abandon, and I didn't care.
People can say what they want about this album, or even this band. I've enjoyed most of the music they've come out with since this disc, and I feel they've progressed as a band amazingly well.
As for this write off, it's funny, because my family switches off every Xmas Eve between my mom's side and my dad's side: I could've been reviewing The Wrestling Album II: Piledriver! featuring all the "cool" WWF wrestlers singing songs, which is the previously mentioned tape my brother gave me that same Xmas. Now THAT would have been embarrassing!
This was part of the "Where It All Began Write Off" hosted by lambchops. Other participants are:
aerocat
age6racer
Atchesonate
beckytcy
bigd99999
cntaur5
cr01
darkofnight
dbbum
DrDevience
DrFaustus
e-kleptic
emptywishes
eplovejoy
ez013182
foxy_shy
freak369
Fuche_bu
Guildenstern
HipyX
insomniac1587
jeff_wilder78
Joubert
KCFoxy
Kieli
kristinaFH
lemon_lime
MattA75
mfunk75
Mike.Holmes
netnut746
PacManY2J
paulyoungotti
plorentz
pmills1210
pogomom
Psychovant
pt-paratroopa
Quasar
RedDiva
roheblius
sfarmer76
sparkless
speeddemon531
standells
SurgRN911
telynor
thegeniusx
thevoid99
trust12345
vanwarp
voxpoptart
waynio
youngchinq
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