POISON WANTS YOU TO BE THEIR SEXUAL THING

Behind the make-up and pretentious stage image, BRET MICHAELS from LA glam metal band POISON was (and still is) a truly great songwriter. It took me a long time to discover that fact, in the 80`s when i was at kid and still an ultra-conservative (laugh), hearing the words FALLEN ANGEL from the song of the same name had me thinking POISON was satanic and that mummy would smack me if i listened to the band, but thankfully i have learnt to look past my nose since those days. FALLEN ANGEL is actually a brilliant piece of emotive songwriting from BRET MICHAELS, the fallen angel he is referring to is not the abominated archangel Lucifer but a woman who went to Hollywood with big dreams and ambition, far too much for her own good, and fell into a lifetyle of debaunchery and self destruction. I like heaps of POISON songs these days, around 5 years ago i bought a ten dollar Poison greatest hits album thinking i'd probaly use it as a paper weight but i ended up loving most of the songs off it. POISON certainly could have claimed to being america's premier party rock band ahead of VAN HALEN after the release of their two bonafide classic glam metal albums in the late 1980's. The band never really regained its full momentum after the departure of guitarist CC Deville in the early 90`s, the more blues influenced RICHIE KOTZEN deputised for the absent Deville for the solid but unspectacular album NATIVE TONGUE, which produced the cracking soul inspired STAND, a song written by Michaels against the backdrop of the 1992 LA riots, but unlike most west coast glam bands, including the more fancied MOTLEY CRUE, POISON's output has stood the test of time and to this day doesn't sound dated and antiquated. Here is a song off the greatest hits album i bought which i think was a new recording tacked onto the end of the album - it doesn't sound like anything off OPEN UP AND SAY AHH, it has a slight alternative, industrial flavour to it, but still with an emphatic melody which POISON was always renowned for. CC Deville had returned to the ranks of POISON after his one album layoff. The song is called SEXUAL THING.