1988 No. 1, With A Music Video Filmed By Fans, Hit The Top 38 Years Ago Today

On November 15, 1988, the brand-new No. 1 song on the Hot 100 chart was "Bad Medicine," a Bon Jovi song that hasn't been as overplayed as "Livin' on a Prayer." The first single off of "New Jersey," the band's fourth studio album and intensely anticipated follow-up to the then-already eight-times-platinum "Slippery When Wet," "Bad Medicine" helped establish the hold of brash, bombastic, and famous '80s hair bands. The song also gave the band an opportunity to showcase its enthusiastic fans, as the music video for "Bad Medicine" consisted of concert footage compiled by Bon Jovi admirers with camcorders.

Plenty of stars can't stand Bon Jovi, and the skit at the top of the "Bad Medicine" video alludes to that sentiment. Speaking for a crowd waiting to populate the set for a Bon Jovi video, comic Sam Kinison asks a security guard, "Is this gonna be the same video slop that we always get from these glamor rock pretty boys?" The guard answers in the affirmative; Kinison suggests, "Then why don't we take their cameras and make our own Bon Jovi video?" That's a fairly accurate explanation — the performance video was cobbled together from material captured by 250 fans. "We told them to film whatever they wanted and, if it was good, we'd use it in the video," frontman Jon Bon Jovi explained to NME (via Songfacts).

While the video for "Bad Medicine" was joyous, developing the song was difficult. Bon Jovi brought in a trusted songwriter from outside the group to help get the song into shape. Desmond Child co-wrote previous hits "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer" with Jon Bon Jovi and guitarist Richie Sambora, and the duo called him into recording sessions to assist with a rough sketch of "Bad Medicine." 

Child added crucial fixes and new arrangements to make the song better. "... I came in and wrote that 'B' section that kind of lifted it. It was like a deceptive modulation," Child said (via Fred Bronson's "The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits"). "It sort of modulated down, then it modulated back up to the regular key, and it sounded like you went somewhere when you actually didn't."

The song compares a relationship to something also perceived as toxic and unhealthy: illicit substances. The "Bad Medicine" lyrics are loaded with medical jargon and wordplay, all analogous to a relationship that Bon Jovi guitarist and song co-writer Richie Sambora had recently endured. "I was just drawn to this woman, sexually, physically, and mentally, but it was bad. It was bad medicine, but that's what I wanted. I wanted some more of it," Sambora told Fuse TV (via Songfacts). Evidently both entertaining and relatable, "Bad Medicine" went to No. 1 in November 1988. Bon Jovi's third chart-topper, it resided atop the pop chart for two weeks.