Reviled by rock critics and metalheads alike, Poison have never gotten their due as the definitive hair metal band. Don’t get me wrong, now, I’m not saying they’re the best. Def Leppard invented the pop-metal style. Bon Jovi took that sound into the biggest arenas. Guns N’ Roses smoked everyone in terms of energy, songwriting, and artistic credibility (at first, anyway). And no one embodied the sleazy excess of the era better than Motley Crue. But let’s look again at what hair metal was, according to its many critics. Hair metal was shallow. Formulaic. Slickly produced. More reliant on looks than musical talent. Calculated for multi-gender appeal. Simple and easy to play. Decidedly not heavy. Silly fluff made by slavish trend-hoppers for hormonal MTV fans with no attention spans.And let’s remember the meaning of the word “definitive.” Did any band of the era epitomize all those characteristics better than Poison? Was there a more ambitious – and successful – group of trend-hoppers to be found on the Sunset Strip? I’m looking through my extensive hair metal library, and I can report to you that the answer to both of those questions is “no.” Time and time and time again, Poison became whatever they thought you wanted them to be. Far from being inconsistent, that is the very essence of what Poison was. Criticizing them for it is like complaining that bankers are too greedy, or lobsters are too pinchy. It’s WHO THEY ARE. Consider the following QUARTER-CENTURY of successful trend-hopping:
1985: We’re workin’-class dudes with big dreams. Let’s move from middle America to Los Angeles to make it big.
1986: What? Pop-metal is starting to take off commercially? All the girls want to touch Jon Bon Jovi’s big teased-up hair? Well, let’s utilize our drummer’s skill as a professional hairdresser, and present ourselves on our first album as hot trannies ripping off the New York Dolls.
1988: What? If you want to break into the big time, you need a really good power ballad the ladies can enjoy too? OK, let’s write one with barely more than two chords and make a shit-ton of cash. (Too simple? Well, YOU didn’t think of it, smart guy.) Let’s also write a bunch of party anthems, and then take a bunch of groupies and fuck a bunch of drugs. Yeah, you read right. These are crazy times!
1990: What? Critics hate us? They’re pissed about the Reagan era because they see their youthful ‘60s-era idealism being crushed in an orgy of military spending and capitalistic greed? The only music they want to hear is relevant sociopolitical criticism, because they think the power of protest rock can change the world again? OK, let’s call our new album Flesh and Blood to signify that we’re getting more substantive, and let’s do a piano ballad about stuff that is deep and real, like the homeless, Vietnam, televangelists, and also the death of our security guard, which is what started us thinking about all this depth.
1991: What? All the guitar magazines say our records have some of the worst guitar playing ever? Even the writer of this review was able to play C.C.’s guitar solos, despite being the second-least-coordinated kid in gym class? OK cool, you’re gone, C.C. Let’s hire third-tier shredder Richie Kotzen!
1993: What? The musical landscape changed and now we’re perceived as anachronistic symbols of America’s greatest pop-culture embarrassment? Shit, we better get even more substantive, as substantive as these alternative bands! Let’s revamp our sound to be real bluesy, because blues = authentic substance.
1994: What? Richie Kotzen fucked our drummer’s fiancée? Let’s get a different guitar shredder. One with such selective appeal that the only “record company” that would release his solo work was actually a magazine called “Guitar for the Practicing Musician.” Welcome aboard, Blues Saraceno! Blues = authentic substance!
1995: What? Hair metal is dead? Welp, time for our record company to shelve the new album and drop us.
1998: What? Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson made a sex tape that everyone is talking about? Hey Bret, YOU should make a sex tape with Pamela Anderson!
1999: What? Motley Crue got back together a couple years ago? Welcome back, C.C.! (Fuck, we missed one! We should have tried to go hard pseudo-alternative, like the Crue with John Corabi. Blues Saraceno? What the fuck were we thinking???)
2000: What? The only people who listen to us anymore like the party stuff? OK, let’s write some of that and call the new album Power to the People! Let’s make half the record live performances of old songs they already know, to remind them of why they liked us! Let’s also form our own “indie” label and call it Cyanide (a clever allusion to our band!). No one else is gonna release this thing. Fuck that prick Bon Jovi and “It’s My Life.” WE never had to hire outside songwriters.
2002: What? Def Leppard is still releasing records in their old style, and doesn’t seem ashamed to sound like it’s still the ‘80s, and is putting effort into songwriting even though they have no chance of getting on the radio anymore? OK, let’s write about the old days in L.A. and call the new album Hollyweird!
2006: What? Washed-up ex-celebrities are getting a second life on reality TV? Hey C.C., you’re a motormouth, you’d be perfect! Get your ass out of rehab and get it on The Surreal Life the very next day!
2007: What? Def Leppard released a covers album and actually got good reviews for it? Let’s Poison up some classic rock tunes, POISON style, and call the album Poison’d! Fuck the letter E!
ALSO 2007: What? Flavor Flav got a Bachelor-style dating show after being on The Surreal Life? Hey, C.C. was on – wait, there was a trumped-up domestic violence complaint, and he just got out of rehab. Errrrrrrrr…let’s give this one to Bret instead.
2009: What? We played the Tony Awards? And Bret got his nose fractured by a descending stage piece? Uh…OK, that’s a new one.
Whew. If you made it through that entire litany of reactions to what other people were already doing, you are now properly set up to enjoy the EXQUISITE irony of the band Poison writing a song called “Stand,” whose chorus goes like this:
“You know you’ve got to stand
Staaaaaand
STAND FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE.”
This song was from the uber-substantive 1993 album Native Tongue, and was designed to be the successor to “Something to Believe In.” A pop-hit ballad couldn’t be as substantively bluesy as the rest of the record, so how do you achieve musical substance here? Easy. You get the First A.M.E. Church Choir of South Central Los Angeles, because nothing announces epic musical importance quite like a gospel choir. (Especially, as Bret Michaels points out in the liner notes of Greatest Hits 1986-1996, a gospel choir from the area where the L.A. riots had just taken place a year before. No one can know the truth of the line “Lies and money become the white man’s god” better than these folks!) You also put a mandolin in the all-acoustic first verse, because this signifies totally authentic “roots” music. You also bury Richie Kotzen’s inconsequential noodling under some choir soloists toward the end of the song. Because it isn’t time for flash and fun – this is SERIOUS business. Serious business that can only be expressed through clichéd stock phrases, such as “carry the cross,” “burned our bridges,” and “draw the line.”
Behind all the fake tits, bleached blondes, and general destruction of American culture that was Rock of Love, it was possible to pick up on the qualities that animated Bret Michaels: a puppy-dog eagerness to be liked and accepted, an intense drive to do whatever it took to get to that point, and a tendency to be deeply impressed by his own accomplishments. Those threads are woven throughout Poison’s music, but nowhere is it easier to hear the third point than on “Stand.” And, as such, it is crucial to truly understanding the band.
(N.B.: This is also why Poison’s best song is “Ride the Wind.” It’s not only superbly catchy, it’s their least calculated choice of topic – it’s just about how much Bret really liked motorcycles.)
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Brilliant.
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