6 Things You Didn't Know About New Jersey (The Bon Jovi Album)

On this day in 1988, Bon Jovi took the world to New Jersey with their fourth (and most successful) album. It was the follow-up to the insanely popular Slippery When Wet and the band was under a lot of pressure to prove their last record wasn’t a fluke. They totally delivered, because New Jersey is one of their most commercially successful albums and is still a great listen front to back today. In honour of one of the ’80s best rock albums, let’s look at 6 Things You Didn’t Know About New Jersey (the Bon Jovi album, not the state)

1. The album was recorded at Vancouver’s famous Little Mountain Studio (which was located just a few blocks from the current JACK studio)! Other classic albums recorded at Little Mountain include Metallica’s Black Album, Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood and Aerosmith’s Get A Grip (to name a few). Here’s a special Vancouver factoid: the Translink station voice from the ’80s was recorded at Little Mountain too!
2. The album featured 5 Top 10 Hits, which continues to be the record for the most Top 10 Hits for any glam/metal album ever released. “Bad Medicine” and “I’ll Be There For You” both reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
3. It was the 1st American album released in Russia! Yep, New Jersey was released in the USSR by Russian record label Melodiya. It featured the same album cover and track listing but the back cover was entirely different… and was written in Cyrillic!
4. The initial working title of the album was Sons of Beaches. They ended up scrapping the name as they felt it was too closely related to Slippery When Wet.
5. The band had almost 30 songs ready for New Jersey and originally wanted it to be a double album. Their record company felt a double album was too risky and kiboshed the idea.
6. The accompanying Jersey Syndicate Tour saw the band play 237 concerts over 2 years, including a performance at the Moscow Music Peace Festival.

What’s your favourite song from this iconic album?