Bon Jovi has reached a significant milestone: “Livin’ On a Prayer” has been performed on Spotify two billion occasions.
The tune first appeared on the New Jersey rockers’ third studio album, August 1986’s Slippery When Moist. “Livin’ On A Prayer” topped the charts for 4 weeks in February 1987. A motivational anthem for the working class, the tune follows a fictional couple, Tommy and Gina, as they attempt to retain their religion whereas struggling to make ends meet. The band was initially lukewarm on the soon-to-be mega-hit.
“I remember walking out of the room with Richie and I said, ‘Eh, it’s okay. Maybe we should just put it on a movie soundtrack,’” Bon Jovi informed The Irish Instances. “Richie looked at me and said, ‘You’re an idiot. It’s really good.’ I said, ‘I just don’t know where it’s going.’ But it didn’t have that boom-boom-boom bassline yet, so it sounded more like The Clash.”
The demo model of the tune, which was featured as a hidden monitor on the 2004 field set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Followers Can’t Be Fallacious, was much less strong than the ultimate product.“We had sort of written it like this spooky, moody, sensitive thing,” co-songwriter Desmond Baby recalled on a podcast in 2019. “Jon didn’t think it was going to be right for the direction that they were going into, which was like, hard rock, stadium rock. The song was so good that Richie Sambora and I literally got on our hands and knees, half-joking, half-serious, and begged him to record it.”
“Livin’ On a Prayer” grew to become their second consecutive No. 1 single following “You Give Love A Bad Name.” Bon Jovi had been the primary laborious rock band to ever high the Scorching 100 with back-to-back singles.
Earlier this yr, Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” reached one billion streams on Spotify. It was the third of the band’s traditional hits to realize this milestone, following on from “Livin’ On A Prayer” in January 2023 and “You Give Love a Bad Name” in June 2024. “It’s My Life” was initially launched because the lead single from Bon Jovi’s multi-platinum seventh album Crush in June 2000.
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