Bon Jovi wanted its third album to be massive. The band sought help from songwriter Desmond Child, producer Bruce Fairbairn and engineer Bob Rock.

Then band members went to a New Jersey pizza parlor and got input from teenagers.

“The kids would hang out there. We were right around the block, rehearsing and writing…” Jon Bon Jovi said in the band’s official archive . “Finally, we went over there and invited them all back into the studio with us. So, there were 30 kids who really picked the material for this album.”

Guitarist Richie Sambora compared it to a marketing test.

“They came in and said, ‘Yeah, we like this one. This one gets through and that one doesn’t,’” Sambora said as quoted by Destroyer of Harmony .

The result was Slippery When Wet , which became Bon Jovi’s first No. 1 album on Oct. 25, 1986, and spent eight nonconsecutive weeks on top of the Billboard 200.

“That was our Thriller ,” Jon told the Arizona Republic in 2013 as quoted by Ultimate Classic Rock . “That was our Born in the U.S.A .…