Link: Poison’s Official Website.
The Inside Pulse: When you talk about the 1980’s and hair metal, one band immediately comes to mind: Poison. For better or worse, Poison has come to epitomize all that was wrong with 80’s rock and roll, emphasizing image over musicality. But when you remove yourself from the negative connotations associated with the genre and just listen to the music objectively, you’ll find some fairly good pop songs in their catalog. For some reason, pop has become a four-letter word. But in the case of Poison, no other word does them justice. They made party music designed for people to have a good time listening to. And now, to commemorate their 20th anniversary, Poison has released a new greatest-hits album, Best Of: 20 Years of Rock, featuring 17 of their classic hits as well as a new track just for this album.
Positives: There’s no mincing around here. If you’re a fan of Poison, then all their biggest songs are here. “Talk Dirty To Me”, “Nothin’ But A Good Time”, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, “Unskinny Bop”, and “Stand”, along with 12 other classic Poison songs, are here, remastered and sounding better than they ever have. In addition, Poison teamed up with super producer Don Was to remake Grand Funk’s classic “We’re An American Band”, and Bret, CC, Rickie, and Bobby still sound like they’re in top form.
Negatives: It’s Poison. If every CD included a crisp, brand-new $100 bill, you still wouldn’t buy the album if you don’t like the band. For better or worse, this captures everything the band was famous (or infamous, as you may look at it) for.
Cross-breed: Poison was a class all their own.
Reason to buy: If you’re a Poison fan, there’s no reason not to get this CD. If you think Poison was the first trump of the Rapture, then this won’t change your mind.
