Skid Row is the debut studio album by American heavy metal band Skid Row, released on January 24, 1989, by Atlantic Records. After signing with manager Doc McGhee, Skid Row signed with Atlantic and began recording its debut. The album was recorded in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin with producer Michael Wagener, and received mixed reviews upon its release. The band toured behind the album mainly as an opening act, supporting Bon Jovi and Aerosmith in 1989–1990. The album peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 and was certified 5× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1995 for shipping five million copies in the United States. It generated four singles: "Youth Gone Wild", "18 and Life", "I Remember You" and "Piece of Me", all of which were accompanied by music videos and received heavy rotation on MTV. The album's commercial and critical success made Skid Row a regular feature in rock magazines and brought the group nationwide popularity.

Skid Row is an American rock band formed in 1986 in Toms River, New Jersey. Their current lineup comprises bassist Rachel Bolan, guitarists Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill and drummer Rob Hammersmith, with Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale currently filling in on vocals. The group achieved commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with its first two albums Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) certified multi-platinum, the latter of which reached number one on the Billboard 200. Those two albums also produced some of Skid Row's most popular hits, both in and outside of the United States, including "18 and Life" and "I Remember You", which peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, and other charting singles such as "Youth Gone Wild", "Monkey Business", "Slave to the Grind", "Wasted Time", and "In a Darkened Room". The band's third album Subhuman Race (1995) was also critically acclaimed, but failed to repeat the success of its predecessors. Those three albums featured the band's "classic" lineup, which consisted of Bolan, Sabo, Hill, drummer Rob Affuso and frontman Sebastian Bach. The band had sold 20 million albums worldwide by the end of 1996. Amid rising tensions, Bach was fired and Affuso left Skid Row towards the end of that year, after which the band entered a three-year hiatus.