It was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, with recording sessions taking place between January and July 1986 at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver.

The album features many of Bon Jovi's best-known songs, including "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' on a Prayer", and "Wanted Dead or Alive".

Hiring Desmond Child as a collaborator, the band wrote 30 songs and auditioned them for local New Jersey and New York teenagers, basing the album's running order on their opinions.

[12] Much of the album was written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, whereas "You Give Love a Bad Name", "Livin' on a Prayer", "Without Love", and "I'd Die For You" were co-written with Desmond Child, and "Wild in the Streets" was by Bon Jovi alone.

He hasn't tried to change what we are, but to refine it slightly; to suggest extra ways that we could wring a bit more out of what we had.

"[13] Bon Jovi was initially reluctant to include "Livin' on a Prayer", believing it was not good enough.

[citation needed] The first version of "Livin' on a Prayer" that was recorded was included as a hidden track at the end of one of the CDs in the box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong.

Featured on the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Disorderlies, it has since been released as the B-side for the Livin' on a Prayer single album, on the 2-CD edition of Cross Road, and on 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong.

In 1986, Bon Jovi said "There's a song called 'Love Is A Social Disease' that Aerosmith were keen to get hold of.

A proposed cover with the band dressed as cowboys[15] was later used for the single release of the track of the same name.

According to Bon Jovi, the band named the album Slippery When Wet after visiting The No.5 Orange strip club in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The reasons given for the switch were record executives' fears that dominant record store chains at the time would have refused to carry the album with a sexist cover, and Jon Bon Jovi's dislike of the bright pink border around the photograph the band submitted.

Writing in The Village Voice in September 1987, Robert Christgau said, "Sure seven million teenagers can be wrong, but their assent is not without a certain documentary satisfaction.

On Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi sounds like bad fourth-generation metal, a smudgy Xerox of Quiet Riot.

The DVD side contains the same album in its original stereo mix, a slightly expanded 5.1 surround sound version, and all 5 music videos.