Classinc Albums: Skid Row - Skid Row

Once upon time, etc, etc, Bon Jovi and Dave Sabo had been friends for a very long time. They had agreed that if one of them made it in the music business, he would help the other out. So when in 1987 Jon Bon Jovi had been put in a position to seek out new and upcoming talent (he had set up a publishing company called the Underground Music Company) he sent his manager Doc McGhee sought out Skid Row, and signed them. Skid Row secured a record deal with Atlantic Records in 1988, and entered the studio with Michael Wagener (of Ozzy Osbourne, White Lion and Extreme fame) to record their first album. The album was recorded in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at the Royal Records studio.

The self titled first album was released on January 24, 1989 and it charted at #6 on The Billboard 200 and is certified 5x Platinum by the RIAA. The album spawned 3 top 10 singles, "18 and Life" and "I Remember You" and the huge mainstream rock hit "Youth Gone Wild". It is the band's most commercially successful album. It went on to sell over 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone.

Track listing
All Songs Published By New Jersey Underground Music.

1. "Big Guns" Rachel Bolan, Scotti Hill, Dave Sabo, Rob Affuso 3:36
2. "Sweet Little Sister" Bolan, Sabo 3:10
3. "Can't Stand the Heartache" Bolan 3:24
4. "Piece of Me" Bolan 2:48
5. "18 and Life" Bolan, Sabo 3:50
6. "Rattlesnake Shake" Bolan, Sabo 3:07
7. "Youth Gone Wild" Bolan, Sabo 3:18
8. "Here I Am" Bolan, Sabo 3:10
9. "Makin' a Mess" Sebastian Bach, Bolan, Sabo 3:38
10. "I Remember You" Bolan, Sabo 5:10
11. "Midnight/Tornado" Matt Fallon, Sabo 4:17

Listen the tracks on the Amazon mp3 player:

• Sebastian Bach – lead vocals
• Scotti Hill – lead and rhythm guitar
• Dave "The Snake" Sabo – rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals
• Rachel Bolan – bass guitar, backing vocals
• Rob Affuso – drums and percussion
• David Kent – engineer
• Michael Wagener – producer, engineer, mixing

The Singles from the album:

Youth Gone Wild was the debut single and the lead single. Its music video received heavy airplay on MTV; however, while the album itself was a major hit and went multi-platinum in the U.S. and other countries, "Youth Gone Wild" as a single only reached #99 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached #20 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks.

18 and Life has been the band's biggest hit, reaching #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, but only reaching #11 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart,It was named the 60th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.

I Remember You is the third and final single from Skid Row's 1989 eponymous debut album. The power ballad was released in November 1989 and written by bandmates Rachel Bolan and Dave "the Snake" Sabo. It reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and number twenty-three on the Mainstream Rock Tracks in early 1990. The song also charted at #36 on the UK Singles chart.