Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” has achieved an impressive digital milestone, becoming the band’s second song to surpass 1 billion streams on Spotify.
Videos by American Songwriter
The Bon Jovi Updates X page pointed out that “You Give Love a Bad Name” had reached more than a billion streams on Saturday, June 1. Spotify compiles a “Billions Club” playlist featuring every song that’s amassed at least 1 billion streams. Currently, about 640 songs are on the list.
The New Jersey rocker’s first song to join Spotify’s Billions Club was “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which reached the milestone in January of this year.
“You Give Love a Bad Name” Chart Details
“You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer” were both featured on Bon Jovi’s chart-topping 1986 album Slippery When Wet. Both tunes, which were co-written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and songwriter Desmond Child, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“You Give Love a Bad Name” spent a week at the top of the Hot 100 in November ’86, while “Livin’ on a Prayer” was No. 1 for four weeks in early 1987.
Writing “You Give Love a Bad Name”
In a 2012 interview with Songfacts, Child told the website that he co-wrote “You Give Love a Bad Name” with Bon Jovi and Sambora on the “very first day [they] got together” to collaborate. He also revealed that they wrote “Livin’ on a Prayer” a few weeks later.
“It was a magical collaboration and there was instant chemistry between us,” Child noted.
“You Give Love a Bad Name” was written in the basement of Sambora’s mother’s house in New Jersey. The title phrase was Child’s ideas, while Bon Jovi subsequently came up with the line “shot through the heart.” The main melody of the song actually was taken from a tune Child wrote called “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)” that Bonnie Tyler released in early 1986.
About Bon Jovi’s Upcoming Album
As previously reported, Bon Jovi will release its new studio album, Forever, this Friday, July 7. To promote the record, Jon Bon Jovi will appear on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday, July 5.
