Track Listing

1. Nothin' But A Good Time
2. Talk Dirty To Me
3. Unskinny Bop
4. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
5. Fallen Angel
6. I Won't Forget You
7. Stand
8. Ride The Wind
9. Look What The Cat Dragged In
10. I Want Action
11. Life Goes On
12. Flesh And Blood Sacrifice
13. Cry Tough
14. Your Mama Don't Dance
15. So Tell Me Why
16. Something To Believe In
17. Sexual Thing
18. Lay Your Body Down

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26416 in Music
• Released on: 1997-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

Plain old 80's hair goodness
This cd pretty much sums up a great band that had an amazing time doing what they loved. The collection contains pretty much all of Poison's best songs including 'fallen angel', 'Unskinny bop' and 'Life goes on'. C.C Deville is one of the most melodic guitarists ever imo and so this cd is a tribute especially to his enduring work.

'C.C. pick up that guitar and talk to me'!!!
The opening track sets the mood of this album perfectly: pure good time rock. If you like bands with attitude, musicianship and class you'll like Poison. Warning: if you are a manic depressive this is not the album for you. Every track has a 'feel good' quality to it.

For me the star of Poison has to be C.C. De Ville - surely one of the great all-time guitarists. Clearly influenced by the 'wild' style of Eddie Van Halen, C.C. is one of the few who has pulled it off. His solos 'make' Poison's songs. Two deserve a mention: Every Rose and Life Goes On. The former conveys the emotion of the song perfectly. The 40-odd second effort on Life Goes On is quite possibly the best solo I've ever heard: wild, ridiculously over-the-top and heartbreaking. Simply amazing. None of today's 'guitarists' could even think of such a masterpiece let alone play it. Saying that, no other guitarist has ever taken the amount of, ahem, 'substances' that C.C. was doing at Poison's peak. Yet that's what I think makes great rock stars: excess - they are licensed to do such things.

I'd break this album into two sub-genres: no-holds barred all out rock 'n' roll and guitar rock ballads. In Bret Michaels Poison have a singer who can switch between the two effortlessly. Even the new songs added are surprisingly excellent, which isn't usually the case with a greatest hits comp. In the sleeve Bret adds amusing commentaries on each song. My favourite concerns Talk Dirty To Me: C.C. turned up to audition for the band but instead of playing the song he was given to learn he started playing his own riff; this caused Bret to walk out. Eventually Bret 'got' the riff and it became Poison's breakthrough.

When you get the album and see the band's photo on the back you'll see a group of men who drank, took certain substances (which I don't condone but like I said rock stars have license) and engaged in 'relations' with some of the best-looking women around (Bret infamously was caught on video with Pamela Anderson)- in short what a hard rock band should be. To cap it off they were all great at their 'day job' as well. A world away from the blandness and safety of today's drivel.

Hair Metal classics
This is certainly one of the better "best of" CD's around - and there are loads of bands putting them out.
All the big and popular hits are here: "Talk Dirty..", "...Good Time", "Every Rose...", Unskinny Bop", etc, as well as less successful but fondly remembered singles (eg. "Cry Tough"), favourite album tracks ("Look What The Cat Dragged In"), and one song off the Native Tongue album ("Stand"), the only song with Richie Kotzen on guitar, who's technically streets ahead of CC Deville but made the mistake of boffing Bret Michaels' girlfriend! Not to say that CC wasn't a very good guitarist, but he's more of a "street" player, Richie is a bit of a virtuoso (he went on to play with Mr Big, and anyone who can handle Paul Gilbert's guitar lines has to be something special).
There are also a couple of more recent unreleased tracks with Blues Saraceno on guitar (who's superb) and one of them ("Sexual Thing") is now up there with my favourites, although I wish Blues had had longer to let rip.

There are also little comments by Bret Michaels about every number which are interesting and amusing, and a reasonable photo gallery.

By the way, don't think I'm knocking CC, he's the man who refused to learn the old material for his audition and instead presented the band with their first big hit - "Talk Dirty to Me".

A good buy.