From hair metal stardom to “Behind the Music” melodrama, few bands have rocked as hard and lived as high as L.A.’s famous foursome, Poison. Bret, C.C. and the boys celebrate 20 years of glam-trashed brilliance on the remastered Best of Poison. This must-have set includes all of Poison’s biggest hits, including “Unskinny Bop,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” “Talk Dirty To Me,” and “Nothin’ But A Good Time,” plus a cover of Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band.”
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Buy The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock at Amazon
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The sound quality alone was enough for me to upgrade to this new 2006 digitally remastered compilation. While the 1996 ‘Greatest Hits’ remastering was good for it’s time this new 2006 remastering by Evren Goknar is brilliant. (Evren also did a wonderful job on 2005’s ‘Greatest Hits’ release by Pat Benatar). The audio is crisp, clean, and full, capturing the audio advancements in mastering 10 years later. It sounds WONDERFUL. The punchy, heavy, driving sounds of “Unskinny Bop” and “Nothing But A Good Time” (listen to those pounding drums at nearly 3 minutes in!) are only two examples of why this collection is worth owning for the audio enhancements.
Many fans who purchased the 1996 Capitol release, ‘Greatest Hits 1986 - 1996′, may be hesitant to pick up a new Poison hits compilation. If you don’t care much about sound quality, don’t bother. However, if you are interested in a stunning audio upgrade with new packaging and extra tracks not featured on the ‘96 release, I highly recommend this release!
Note: Although Amazon.com does not specify, both “I Want Action” and “I Won’t Forget You” are present in their single versions.
For the record, I’m a musician who loves a lot of different genres of music, from prewar blues like Robert Johnson and Son House, to the Beatles to 70’s punk, etc, etc, and I love this album. Are Poison musical visionaries? Of course not. They never set out to be. But they sound like THEY ACTUALLY ENJOY PLAYING MUSIC. Playing music, first and foremost, should be FUN, and that’s something a lot of rock bands have forgotten. They’re not the greatest musicians in the world, but these are fun, catchy pop rock tunes played with a lot of passion, and with tongue firmly in cheek.Some of the bad reviews seem to be motivated more by image and the desire to look cool than anything. Forget about the magazines like Spin or Blender, pay no attention to the whiney-ass Pitchfork Media crowd, and just listen to what you enjoy. Music is music, and it’s all good.
And for the record, I’m a guitar player, and C.C. DeVille is nowhere NEAR as bad a guitar player as he’s made out to be. He’s sloppy, yes, and the guitar tone sucks, but his solos were always melodic and memorable, unlike a lot of the million mile an hour shredders of the the 1980’s.