Poison – The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock (A PopEntertainment.com Music Review)

PopEntertainment
Mar 15, 2006
2 min read

Poison – The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock (Capitol/EMI)

The subtitle 20 Years of Rock is a bit of a stretch – thirteen of the eighteen songs on this compilation (and all of the top 40 singles) stem from three albums (and one soundtrack contribution) during the band's white-hot period of 1986 to 1990. Of the other five songs, only one barely charted (1993's "Stand" which made it to 50 on the Billboard charts) and one is newly recorded (a surprisingly-good-if-a-tiny-bit-too-faithful cover of Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band.")

By 1992, the band was pretty much scuttled by two totally unrelated things – one from within the band and one from outside. The heavy-partying ways of the band, particularly guitarist CC Deville, led to friction with Deville eventually getting kicked out of the band. Meanwhile, the prevailing rock and roll winds stopped blowing from the Sunset Strip and started to come from Seattle. The slick hair metal bands were quickly made obsolete by the punky grunge music of Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

However, for the five years in which they were on top of the world, Poison was responsible for some sweet party jams. Their breakthrough smash "Talk Dirty To Me" is nice sleaze metal. "Fallen Angel" works surprisingly well despite its overdone lyrics about a small-town girl who has gone bad in the big city. "Ride the Wind" is much catchier than you'd expect from its lyrics. Of course there are a share of big dumb pseudo-rebel tracks like "I Want Action" or goofy love declarations like "I Won't Forget You."

Unlike the average hair band, Poison actually had a certain number of experimental urges. The bluesy guitar riff of "Unskinny Bop" is surprisingly funky – in fact that instrumental is the best thing the band ever committed to tape. With "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" the band created the ultimate expression of that most derided genre of song – the sappy acoustic metal ballad – and actually made one of the few examples of the style worth hearing.

While their covers tended to be a little safe, a terrific version of KISS' "Rock and Roll All Nite" recorded for the Less Than Zero soundtrack and the new Grand Funk rip, you do have to give them a little credit for their radical toughening up of Loggins and Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance." (3/06)

Jay S. Jacobs