“I Want Action” is a bit substanceless in the same way as Katy Perry’s “California Girls” but it has a good hook (better than the Perry tune.) Same for “Nothing But a Good Time”. (It’s easy to say it sucks but go back and listen to how many shitty power ballads have been forgotten.) “Unskinny Bop” is meh. It does make me wonder though: Is Poison’s music as soullessly perfunctory as critics allege or is there something to it? Though I’d hate to admit it, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” is one of the better power ballads and has staying power. It’s funny to think that even when I was a baby, American mass culture was gaudy, tasteless, and fucking weird as all hell. It’s kind of delightful to go back and look at hair metal just past its aristea, when it was at its most excessive, neon, and feminine. There was also some weird subtext about them giving flyers to high school aged fans that probably wouldn’t have gone as under the radar today as it did in the late 90s/early 2000s. The forced “grunge killed hair metal wahh!!” narrative is very much there, like in most Behind the Music episodes about 80’s bands. You don’t get that with Zep or Sabbath even though they were critically panned at their inception. ![]() It’s kind of funny that they actually let the critics talk unabashed shit about them on that episode. I rewatched the first 20 minutes of Poison’s VH1 “Behind the Music” last night, having somewhat remembered it from when I was a kid.
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