Songoftheday 9/30/16 - Ricky was a young boy he had a heart of stone, lived nine to five and worked his fingers to the bone...

"18 and Life" - Skid Row
from the album Skid Row (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the hard rock band Skid Row, whose core of Dave Sabo on guitars and Rachel Bolan got together in Toms River, New Jersey in the mid-80s. Sabo, who played previously with Jon Bon Jovi, brought on a second guitarist in Scotti Hill and Bahamian-born Canadian lead singer Sebastian Bach as well as drummer Rob Affuso, and after Bon Jovi's manage Doc McGhee helped them secure a record contract, they released their self-titled debut album at the beginning of 1989. The first single, the raucous "Youth Gone Wild", which combined the vocal stylings of glam-metal like Poison with the pristine production of Bon Jovi, and MTV took the bait, and the single climbed to #27 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart and slipped into the pop chart at #99. The second single from the record was a more slow-paced reflection on growing up bad, with a sound like Def Leppard's older ballad, "18 and Life". Written by Sabo and Bolan, the song fit the band name and pop radio found some room since Guns N Roses were in between albums...

"18 and Life" became Skid Row's breakthrough hit, reaching the top-5 on the pop chart in September of 1989. The song just missed the top-10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio list, peaking at #11. Internationally, the record went to #6 in Canada, #12 in the UK (a rare feat for an American metal band), and #17 in Sweden.

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Here's the band performing the song live at the "Moscow Peace Festival" in 1989...

...and again on tour in 1991...

Lastly, Sebastian Bach with his own band in 2012...

Up tomorrow: More glam metal boys heading for the skies.