The supporting tour for Slide It In came to an end in January 1985, when Whitesnake played two shows at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil.

[14] In the spring of 1985,[12] Coverdale and Sykes decamped to the town of Le Rayol in the south of France to start writing material for a new album.

Two songs that would emerge from these sessions would be two of Whitesnake's biggest hits: "Still of the Night", based on an old demo by Coverdale and Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore,[13] and "Is This Love", originally written for Tina Turner.

[16] Coverdale, Sykes and Murray then moved to Los Angeles, where they rehearsed and started auditioning for drummers, and hired Aynsley Dunbar.

With their line-up complete, Whitesnake headed up to Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, Canada, to lay plans for the new record.

[13] One of the first issues the band faced was Sykes' desire to achieve a specific guitar sound that he wanted, which he eventually found with the help of Coverdale's friend and engineer Bob Rock, who had previously worked with Bon Jovi on the multi-platinum album Slippery When Wet.

This put the album's production behind schedule,[15] especially when Coverdale underwent surgery and half a year-long rehabilitation program without a guarantee the voice would come back.

[14] While recovering, various invoices started circulating from Toronto and London,[15] with Coverdale saying that "received no support from Sykes at that time" and "he did everything he could to take advantage of me being compromised".

[20] Caught up in the torrent, Dutch guitar player Adrian Vandenberg, later said in a 2021 interview, that he was in the same studio in Los Angeles, recording the guitar solo for "Here I Go Again", when he "heard a lot of screaming in the actual mixing room, and I had no idea what was going on, and then later, I heard it was Sykes who apparently stormed in the studio and he didn't agree with that with the fact that they've (Coverdale) decided not to keep working," hearing that at this point, Sykes had been fired.

By late 1986, with the recording process done and the album slated to be released in early 1987, Coverdale made the decision to let the other members of the band go, due to personal differences.

[15] According to Coverdale, he was facing trust issues with band members, his depression upon arrival to L.A. from a holiday in Munich, where he had seen his daughter from his first marriage, and a massive debt due to not working for two or three years.

[24] Coverdale had expressed his advocacy for the perceived "warmth" of analogue recording in many interviews while working on the Into the Light solo album.

Based on Coverdale's idea, Syme created a Celtic runic-style amulet with various elements representing the Sun, Moon, fertility and others.

[12][14] This line-up, dubbed "The Vid[eo] Kids" by Coverdale,[14] toured in support of the album, and all appeared in music videos for "Still of the Night" (which was the most requested video on MTV when it was released[28]), "Is This Love", "Here I Go Again" and "Give Me All Your Love", the first three of which prominently featured Coverdale's then new partner Tawny Kitaen, all with heavy MTV and radio airplay.

[31] In Europe, the album was simply called 1987, featuring a different running order and two extra tracks: "Looking for Love" and "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again", released on 30 March through EMI.

[2] Coverdale considers "Looking for Love" one of the best songs he wrote with Sykes, but it was not included in the North American version because of Kalodner's preference for "Children of the Night" and time constraints of vinyl records limited to about 20 minutes a side.

[57] Whitesnake's initial breakthrough was via album's lead single "Still of the Night" which video got a "tremendous amount of airplay" on MTV.

[30] Later, Coverdale recalled that he did not expect such success, and though he was ready for it professionally, he was not privately as he was constantly chased by the paparazzi which forced him to move from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe.

[69] The band, featurig the new lineup, went on an extensive tour which began with a concert in-front of over 80,000 people at the sold-out Texxas Jam festival on 20 June 1987,[30] and finished at Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon, on 15 August 1988.

[29] J. D. Considine favorably writing for Rolling Stone argued that although the album is perhaps lacking in originality having "every worthwhile mannerism and lick in the heavy-rock vocabulary" and a mixture of styles reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, Scorpions and Foreigner, "what makes it such a guilty pleasure, though, is that Coverdale isn't simply stealing licks; he and guitarist John Sykes understand the structure, pacing and drama of the old Led Zeppelin sound and deserve credit for concocting such a convincing simulacrum".

[79] Steve Huey and Bradley Torreano writing for AllMusic gave both North American and European versions the same rating of 4.5 stars out of 5, being "a collection of loud, polished hard rockers, plus the band's best set of pop hooks",[8] however felt the European version is superior due to better tracklist flow and two more songs, especially "Looking for Love", which "a nice slow build to a blustery chorus makes this a classic David Coverdale ballad".

[87] In 2012 Reader's Poll of Rolling Stone it ranked as 9th among Top 10 "The Best Hair Metal Songs of All Time",[88] while in 2017, The Daily Telegraph included it among 21 best power ballads.