You Give Love a Bad Name is the fourth studio album released by American punk rock musician GG Allin, recorded with his backing band the Holy Men.

The album was the first to fully mark a distinct change in his vocal tone, which by this time began to take on a slurred and gravelly characteristic, and increasing usage of shock rock lyrical content.

After the release of the Hated in the Nation compilation cassette by ROIR, as well as a series of letters written by Allin to such magazines as Maximum RockNRoll and Flipside, and advertising campaigns in many music magazines and fanzines like Option, Flipside, RIP, Ben is Dead and many others by Black & Blue Records, Allin's stature in the punk rock underground had grown considerably.

On May 18, 1987, Allin entered a low-budget studio called The Music Box, located on Avenue B in New York City's East Village, accompanied by a four-piece band that included Cosloy on second guitar, along with three other area musicians: lead guitarist Greg Bullock, bassist Mike Kirkland, and drummer Mike "Machine Gun" Edison.

"Beer Picnic" is a faithful, if slower, version of a song by obscure NYC punk band Bad Tuna Experience.

Cosloy produced but did not take production credit, instead claiming on the liner notes that he "re-mixed, unmixed, and edited" the album as heard in its final form.

In 1992, while Allin was serving a prison sentence for parole violation in Jackson, Michigan, Awareness Records reissued You Give Love a Bad Name, adding the Watch Me Kill 7-inch EP recorded on July 7, 1991, in Lowell, Massachusetts, by Allin, with himself and then-collaborator Mark Sheehan (of the band Out Cold) playing all of the instruments, plus an interview conducted over the phone from prison on March 4, 1991, with journalist Jeff Koch.