Bon Jovi reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Bad Medicine” on the chart dated November 19, 1988, beginning a two-week run. The lead single from their fourth studio album, New Jersey, moved up from No. 4 to become the band’s third U.S. chart-topper.
After eighteen months of touring for Slippery When Wet, the band moved quickly into writing and recording its follow-up. Jon Bon Jovi wanted to establish that the breakthrough could be repeated. “I was determined that people wouldn’t be able to say that Slippery was a fluke,” he said in 1988, as quoted in the band’s Backstage archive. That determination came with an abundance of material: the group wrote thirty-four songs for the project.
“Bad Medicine” brought Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora back together with co-writer Desmond Child. Their partnership had begun in the basement of Sambora’s parents’ house, where the three wrote “You Give Love a Bad Name.” They followed it with “Livin’ on a Prayer,” giving Bon Jovi two U.S. No. 1 singles from Slippery When Wet. The new single extended that collaboration into the next album. There was continuity behind the recording desk, too: Bruce Fairbairn, who had produced Slippery When Wet, also produced “Bad Medicine.”
The band developed New Jersey demos at Chalet Music in Manasquan, New Jersey, before recording at Little Mountain Sound in Vancouver. Initially, they envisioned a double album under the working title Sons of Beaches. The label pushed back on that plan, and feedback from fifty teenagers in Vancouver helped the band narrow its material. Mercury ultimately released New Jersey as a twelve-track album, named for the band’s home state. “Bad Medicine” became the first single introducing that collection.
Fans also had a direct role in the song’s video. Director Wayne Isham’s shoot in Long Beach, California, put cameras into audience members’ hands and invited them to record what they wanted. Bon Jovi played a five-song set before the main filming began. The approach gave the performance footage a perspective from inside the crowd, with fans participating in how the band would appear on screen. Audience involvement had helped shape the album’s selection of songs; here, it became part of the presentation.
By the time “Bad Medicine” reached the top, New Jersey had already led the U.S. album chart, where it spent four consecutive weeks at No. 1. The single took nine chart weeks to reach its peak and held that position the following week. The Hot 100 then drew on retailers’ sales reports and radio playlists, measuring the record’s progress across both sales and airplay.
The singles that followed extended that success. “Born to Be My Baby,” “Lay Your Hands on Me” and “Living in Sin” all reached the Hot 100’s top ten, while “I’ll Be There for You” became the album’s second No. 1 single. New Jersey ultimately produced five U.S. top-ten singles, with “Bad Medicine” starting that sequence.
