Published on Dec 31, 1998
In the latter years of their career, Poison proved themselves to
be a band that rose above the hair and created some very solid hard
rock. Their final album
Native Tongue was an incredible release (which admittedly I
haven’t listened to in years) that was a commercial flop; that this
album didn’t get the attention it deserved in 1991 was a crime I
never understood.
Looking back at this, I’m truly amazed that they ever got to
that point. Their 1986 release
Look What The Cat Dragged In captured everything in hard
rock/heavy metal that was bad. The songwriting, the big hair and
makeup, the simplistic beats and subject matters, they all add up
to one thing: a piss-poor album.
It doesn’t start off that poorly; “Cry Tough” is a halfway
decent effort, although Bret Michaels, C.C. Deville, Bobby Dall and
Rikki Rockett (what’s embarrassing is that I know these names by
memory) had no idea what a harmony vocal was at the time. (They’d
eventually discover harmony vocals, and things would improve with
their introduction.) This particular song isn’t anything special in
the world of hard rock, but is pleasant enough to listen to and
unoffensive to the ear.
Then the plot sickens. Three words: “I Want Action”. Three more
words: Piece of crap. Delving into a poor effort at cock-rock is
not the best move that Poison could have made. Further efforts in
this vein (“Talk Dirty To Me,” “Play Dirty,” “Look What The Cat
Dragged In”) only make the case against this album that much
stronger.
Things really hit the bottom of the barrel with “Let Me Go To
The Show,” the attempt at teenager-parent confrontation that has
been done better by dozens of bands without making the teenager
sound like a whining pansy. Why bother?
This album could have been significantly improved with two
things. First, better songwriting. It helped later albums
(“Something To Believe In,” “Unskinny Bop,” “Ride The Wind”), even
if they didn’t totally leave the cock-rock vein. Second, a change
in image. This might seem superficial, because as I’ve always said,
it’s the music, stupid. But the fact of the matter is, once Poison
dropped the makeup and stopped worrying about how high their hair
was, they were able to get down to the music once and for all – and
things did improve. But the fact is,
Look what The Cat Dragged In is painful to listen to.
Poison went on to become a much better band than they ever got
credit for. Too bad they never seemed to shake the albatross of
Look What The Cat Dragged In off their necks.