"Bad Medicine" is a song by American rock band Bon Jovi. It was written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child, and was released on September 12, 1988, as the lead single from the band's fourth album, New Jersey (1988). The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, Bon Jovi's third single to do so, and became a top-10 hit in Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
There are two videos for the song, one with the band live in concert, and a more well-known live video which begins with a crowd of young people waiting in line to get into the video shoot. Before being let in, one of the security guards asks if there are any questions, and Sam Kinison asks if the video will "be the same of video slop that we get from these glam rock pretty boys". When he answers "yes", Kinison rallies the crowd to hijack the cameras and "make a better Bon Jovi video than these guys can." The members of the crowd are given hand-held cameras and invited onstage to help shoot the video. In an alternate cut of this video, Kinison has photos of various celebrities with their mouths cut for him to impersonate them while promoting the band.[5]
^Smith, Troy L. (April 4, 2018). "Bon Jovi's 25 greatest songs". Cleveland.com. Retrieved March 4, 2021. If there was a song that showcased just how larger than life Bon Jovi had become by the time "New Jersey" dropped, it was "Bad Medicine." To be clear, the single was in line with the glam metal every rock band was doing in the late 1980s. Bon Jovi was just doing it better.
^"The Number Ones: Bon Jovi's "Bad Medicine"". Stereogum. June 9, 2021. Retrieved July 2, 2021. Bon Jovi did something similar when they used New Jersey as the title for their first album after their insanely popular 1986 album Slippery When Wet. With that title, Bon Jovi put their roots front and center, making the implicit point that they weren't one of those Sunset Strip glam metal bands. But for the first single from that album, Bon Jovi dropped maybe the most straight-up Sunset Strip glam metal song of their career.
^"Single Releases"(PDF). Cash Box. September 24, 1988. p. 12. Retrieved December 22, 2022.
^Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin - levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Tammi. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
^"New Singles". Music Week. September 10, 1988. p. 31.
^Gett, Steve (August 20, 1988). "Bon Jovi Bows 'N.J.' Album". Billboard. Vol. 100, no. 34. p. 76. PolyGram is to release 'Bad Medicine' as the album's leadoff single Sept. 14.
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