Nearly 40 years after its release, Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” has been Diamond-Certifed by the RIAA. It’s the band’s first song to achieve the milestone, which is awarded when a track or album shifts at least 10 million equivalent units across sales and streaming activity.
Bon Jovi and the RIAA took to Instagram to share photos of Jon Bon Jovi receiving the Diamond award on behalf of the group. A number of other certifications were also announced, including Slippery When Wet, the 1986 album featuring “Livin’ on a Prayer,” as 15x Platinum. “Wanted Dead Or Alive” is 6x Platinum, “You Give Love A Bad Name” is 5x Platinum, “It’s My Life” is 3x Platinum, “Runaway” is Platinum, and the album This Left Feels Right is Gold.
Last year, the video for “Livin’ on a Prayer” joined YouTube’s Billion Views Club. “Guess you liked it. We liked it, too,” Jon Bon Jovi shared at the time. “Thank you everybody for continuing to support Bon Jovi for 40 years.”
“Livin’ on a Prayer” wasn’t always destined to be a hit: “I remember walking out of the room with Richie and I said, ‘Eh, it’s okay. Maybe we should just put it on a movie soundtrack,’” Jon Bon Jovi told The Irish Times in 2021.
The band recently announced they will be releasing their classic compilation album, Greatest Hits, on 2LP vinyl on September 13th. Originally released in 2010, Greatest Hits eventually received its own Platinum certification from the RIAA and logged an impressive 352 weeks on the Billboard 200. The vinyl release will celebrate Bon Jovi’s 40th anniversary as a band, which was marked this year.
40 years hasn’t slowed them down: in June, the group released their latest record Forever, featuring the single “Legendary.” In April, the retrospective Hulu docuseries, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, premiered on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ in the U.K.
