When I was writing about C.C. DeVille's appearance on the Poison Behind The Music, I couldn't quite remember if he had claimed that he was making the best music of his career or not. It occurred to me that I might be able to find a transcript of the episode on the site of a really devoted fan. I believe the search I tried first was Transcript Poison Behind The Music. I probably would have had better luck had I searched for C.C. DeVille house of horrors, but I didn't think of it until now and right now I don't care. Because in my search for C.C. DeVille information, I had the misfortune to visit the Official Poison Web Site.
I guess my letter to local bands about their web sites should be extended to include national acts as well. That Poison site is a waste of space. As of last Monday, the news on the main page hadn't been updated since August. It didn't give me a last updated date, but it was plugging an episode of some TV show with Poison and the airdate was August 30th.
Anyway, I found one interesting thing on the site. One. They gave me an option to click to see exclusive pictures of Bobby Dall's 2001 back surgery. Oh, sign me up! That is content that I endorse. I clicked. Error 404. File Not Found. Chumps. Worst. Site. Ever. Except for the Bon Jovi site. That one sucks too.
I can't offhand remember why I was looking at the Bon Jovi web site. Wait! I think I was trying to find still shots from the Lay Your Hands On Me video so I wouldn't forget anything when mocking Jon Bon Jovi's outfit. Anyway, that site sucks too. In fact, the only useful band web site in the whole wide world belongs to Iron Maiden. And really, that site is mostly good for reminding me how old my computer is when I am trying to look at the latest pictures of Bruce Bruce and they take forever to load. At least they update the news more than once every six months. Although they have more news to share than the dreaded Poison.
But there was one item on the Poison site that caught my eye. They were advertising their new greatest hits album Best Of Ballads & Blues. What? WHAT? One of my favorite complaints about the Flesh And Blood record is that it contained songs like Poor Boy Blues and Swamp Juice (Soul-O). Poison is not bluesy. They are from Pennsylvania! Well, two of them are. Sure, there is probably some excellent blues music in Pennsylvania, but I know it is not being produced by Bret Michaels and Rikki Rockett. Just because they once had a member whose first name was Blues does not mean they can have an album called Best Of Ballads & Blues. Unless of course the songs are all either ballads or songs from the Blues Saraceno era.
I looked up the track list and it is just a disaster. The first four tracks are the big ballads. Go ahead, think of them in your head, I can wait. The one that you might not remember is Life Goes On, but other than that, all the garbage is there. Something To Believe In, Every Rose Has Its Thorn and I Won't Forget You are the other three openers. The rest of the album is just a wasteland of junk pulled from Flesh And Blood and the albums without C.C. DeVille. And! And! Unreleased versions of Something To Believe In and Stand.
LCG and I have this policy: Some things are unreleased for a reason. I figure that maybe if you rummage through unreleased tapes by The Who you could probably compile at least one decent album, but Poison? I'm guessing those versions were unreleased for a reason. The review I read of the album said that it was a good collection for the women who once loved Poison and now drive minivans with baby seats.
Oh, maybe that's why I don't understand the collection. I'm not in the demographic. Let's pretend for a minute that the reviewer was correct and that is the record company's target audience. Does that mean that my dollar is worth less than the dollar of a person that has to get a babysitter before attending the nostalgia-fest that is a Poison concert? Actually, my dollar is worth nothing to the record company because I am a Poison fan that finally wised up and realized that they aren't all that great. It was the style at the time when I was a youth. And that style is now filed in my mind as crap. And I don't have a CD player. And if I did I wouldn't buy it anyway.
But if the reviewer's assessment of the demographic is right, I have one more question. Why the flying skull on the cover of the album? No, really. There is a winged skull on the cover of Best Of Ballads & Blues. The picture of the cover I saw was very small and when I figured out what was going on, I searched far and wide on the so-called Internet to find a larger image. Unless it is a skull with giant feathered ears it can't be anything other than a flying skull.
So if the target audience is made up of shoppers who have "grown up", why is there a flying skull on the cover? Why not a rose? Wouldn't that instantly evoke the song title Every Rose Has Its Thorn in the buyer's mind? Would that not cause this mythical buying beast to coo, "Oh, I love Every Rose Has Its Thorn!" and plop it right into her cart at the discount department store?
But why would she? The Greatest Hits that I loathe contains all of the ballads featured on this collection as well as many other hit singles. If someone is going to plunk down money for a Poison collection, don't they want all of the hits? Do they really need unreleased versions of terrible songs? They don't, and I hope they realize that before they get lured in by the flying skull and make the purchase.