#69. Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi

69.  Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi (1986) 75/100 (for nostalgic reasons alone) .  When I was in the sixth grade, Slippery When Wet came out and it was my favorite album at that time (I owned it on casette).  After buying Slippery When Wet, I made sure I owned 7800 Degrees Farenheit and their first album with the song Runaway on it (I don't remember the name and am too lazy to look it up).  My love of Bon Jovi brought me to Whitesnake in seventh grade and Still of the Night and Here I Go Again.  Then eighth grade brought Appetite for Destruction and ...And Justice for All and I was introduced to a little band named Led Zeppelin and I never looked back to Bon Jovi.  Fast forward twelve years and I was on a Greyhound bus traveling from Los Angeles to San Diego with a gentleman who had no problem announcing to the entire bus his love of crack cocaine.  "I love it.  I smoke it, I eat it, I snort it...I do it all man," he announced with glee.  My new crack loving friend also had a very large radio with him and had no problem playing You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' On A Prayer over and over and over again.  For hours, those two songs were all we heard and no one was about to tell a schizophrenic crackhead to turn it off so we just had to ingest it.  I really never would have thought that Bon Jovi would be good crack smoking music so I guess that was a definite - TIL.  So, one more fast forward - this time thirteen years and listening to Slippery When Wet again for the 1001 Albums I Must Hear Before I die.  Given that their is a certain cheesiness hump that I would have to get over, I sat down and fired up all of Slippery When Wet.  It is hard to be objective but did the best that I could seeing as I have heard this album probably a few hundred times in my life, and most of them were pre-teen.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a nostalgic bliss but there was a nostalgia factor to it.  Well, now that we all know about my history with this album - on to the actual review.  The album was ok.  Nothing that I would be inclined to put in again anytime soon but was worth a listen.  You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin' on a Prayer, and Wanted Dead or Alive are so overplayed they are almost cliche.  I'd Die for You, Let it Rock, and Raise your Hands were respectable.  Overall, nothing I would go out of my way for again.  For 80's hair band, it is good.  I guess there is a sixth grader inside of me that refuses to die no matter how many times I try to kill him - hence my other blog on retro video games (http://www.geekyclown.com).  To that mini sixth grade GeekyClown, I am glad you got to relive riding your bike with your Walkman on listening to Social Disease at top volume.  Listened: 3/4/2011
Favorite Tracks: Wanted Dead or Alive, Let it Rock, Raise your Hands