BON JOVI – Slippery When Wet [2-CD Deluxe Edition] (2025) *HQ*

After celebrating their debut album with a deluxe edition last year, BON JOVI will offer similar treatment to their biggest album: 1986’s Slippery When Wet. The New Jersey rockers’ third LP it’s being reissued as ”Slippery When Wet [Deluxe Edition]” in a variety of formats including a 2-CD expansion with rare and unreleased tracks.
The album, featuring Bon Jovi classics such as “Livin’ On A Prayer,” “You Give Love A Bad Name,” “Wanted Dead or Alive” and more, is certified Diamond and one of the top 100 best-selling U.S. albums of all time.
This new deluxe edition is enhanced by the acoustic version of “Wanted Dead Or Alive,” an extended new mix of “Livin’ On A Prayer” as heard in the band’s documentary, and a set of raw, dynamite live tracks from the record-breaking Slippery When Wet tour, previously unreleased.

After the moderate success of their self-titled debut and the single “Runaway” – and the similarly minor impact of follow-up 7800° Fahrenheit a year later – ‘Slippery When Wet’ was a make-or-break for the band. Luckily, the band – frontman Jon Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, bassist Alec John Such and drummer Tico Torres – had some secret weapons in their arsenal.
Bon Jovi and Sambora co-wrote four tracks – including singles “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name” – with songwriter Desmond Child, a budding collaborator who’d contributed to tracks by KISS (“I Was Made for Loving You”), Cher (three tracks from her underrated I Paralyze) and Bonnie Tyler (“If You Were a Woman and I Were a Man”).

With a songwriting that split the difference between pure pop and glam metal and the skills of producer Bruce Fairbairn and engineer/mixer Bob Rock, ‘Slippery When Wet’ became Bon Jovi’s unquestionable breakthrough. The album topped the Billboard 200 and became the best-selling album of 1987 thanks to the chart-toppers “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer” (the potential of which was doubted by Jon Bon Jovi at first; now, it’s their signature song) and the Top 10, acoustic-driven “Wanted Dead or Alive.” (A fourth single, “Never Say Goodbye,” was only released to radio but became a staple.)
The sound and character of ‘Slippery When Wet’ proved influential as well: within a year, Desmond Child and Bruce Fairbairn would become key collaborators for Aerosmith as they entered a pop-rock phase with major commercial returns on the albums Permanent Vacation (1987), Pump (1989) and Get a Grip (1993).

The deluxe ‘Slippery When Wet’ is augmented by a bonus disc of tracks including the original acoustic B-side version of “Wanted Dead or Alive” and extended mixes of “Livin’ on a Prayer” (featured in the band’s 2024 docuseries Thank You, Goodnight) and album cut “Raise Your Hands,” remixed by the band’s longtime engineer Obie O’Brien.
The disc concludes with four live tracks from the Slippery When Wet Tour of 1987, all of which are different from the pair of live cuts included on a reissue campaign from 2010. (The live versions of “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “Wild in the Streets” featured here were included, in different mixes, as B-sides to singles from Slippery When Wet and follow-up New Jersey (1988).
Curiously, the bonus disc does not include fan favorite Slippery outtake “Edge of a Broken Heart,” included on the soundtrack to the 1987 comedy Disorderlies as well as the band’s 2004 rarities box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong.
A CLASSIC

ORIGINAL ALBUM
1. Let It Rock
2. You Give Love A Bad Name
3. Livin’ On A Prayer
4. Social Disease
5. Wanted Dead Or Alive
6. Raise Your Hands
7. Without Love
8. I’d Die For You
9. Never Say Goodbye
10. Wild In The Streets

BONUS Disc
11. Wanted Dead or Alive (Acoustic Version)
12. Livin’ On A Prayer – Thank You Goodnight Mix
13. Raise Your Hands – Extended Obie O’Brien Mix
14. Wild In The Streets (Live) Cincinnati Gardens, March 18, 1987 *
15. Livin’ On A Prayer (Live in Detroit) Cobo Arena, March 11, 1987
16. Wanted Dead or Alive (Live in Detroit) Cobo Arena, March 11, 1987 *
17. Let It Rock (Live In NY) Nassau Coliseum, August 9, 1987

Tracks 12-17 previously unreleased
* previously available with different mixes

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