TRACK REVIEW - "WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU" - POISON

This blog originally appeared at www.forcesofgood.blogspot.com

Hair metal bands. (The term "metal" being used loosely) Hairspray bands. Glam rockers. They always come up in conversation amongst people who get excited every summer when the the local hair metal revival tour breezes through town. Or if you're at a bar with one of those Internet jukeboxes and a someone shoves a twenty in and plays nothing but hair metal for the next two hours. Then, you try to beat them at their own game by putting forty bucks and utilizing the "Your Song First" feature in an attempt to force good taste on the masses. It's a battle of good versus evil and the only ones who win are the people that own those infernal machines.(Note: the Internet jukebox may be the biggest double-edged sword in the pop culture world. It can do so much good, but can do SOOOOO much evil.)

Poison will be releasing an album of covers called Poison'd. (I wonder if this is due to the rise of guyliner) On this offering, they perform a cover of The Romantics' "What I Like About You" and have released a video of it. Lucky us. The concept of the video is a high school yearbook come to life in which all the pics tell each other what they like about each other. I wonder how long it took them to come up with that concept. The band is dressed in suits, but not quite 80s style. They just look like a hair metal wedding party. This video seems like it was a pretty good idea.....for when Poison was a popular band. Poison ruins the track which is surprisingly hard to do. The original has a bare bones, garage rock feel. It's not rocket science. Brett Michaels puts a little too much of glam, faux-soul swagger in his voice which doesn't work. The harmonica solo has been replaced by dueling harmonica-guitar solo, complete with simplistic noodling. You can totally see the sales guy from work having a few too many Bud Lights and playing air guitar to this at happy hour.

My guess is people who like Poison will like this no matter what I say. In fact, they'd probably like it Poison released a techno record, simply for the fact that it was Poison's techno record. As for me, this is the only poison I'll ever need.