Published on May 3, 1998
Ahhh….How I would love to butcher this album. How I would like
nothing more than give these guys the equivalent of the middle
finger in reviews. But as I thumb through for another word for
“suck ass”, I stared at the heathen woman with the long tongue,
nostalgia kicked in. How I wore this album out in the 8th and 9th
grade.
A time when
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and
Daydream Nation were a bunch of funny album titles reserved
for the “college section” of
Rolling Stone. In essence, a time of innocence. Nintendo NES
“Punch Out”, Home Economics and the beginnings of “make out”
parties. And, in a lot of ways,
Open Up And Say …Ahh!, captured this period perfectly.
Technically, the album is devoid of any soul. It was a marketed
follow-up to the surprise success of
Look What The Cat Dragged In. Each song was meant to be
heard in the arenas. For the boys, there was the oogling chick
songs, “Look But You Can’t Touch” and “Love On The Rocks”. For the
chicks, a sentimental ballad to make these air brushed, primped
male bimbos have a soul with “Every Rose Has its Thorn”. And the
fantasy that a scrawny 13-year-old could be a bad ass came true
with “Bad To Be Good” and “Tearin’ Down The Walls”. Jesus, was
there any heavy metal band out there that does NOT have fuckin’
“Tearin Down The Walls” as the title to one of their songs?
Soundgarden the exception.
If musical props were to be given for this album, I would have
to award it to guitarist C.C. Deville. He knows how to construct a
heavy metal riff. The rest, well, Bobby Dall (the bassist) and
Rikki Rockett (drummer) lay down harmless downbeats. And lead
singer Bret Michaels, a showman in his own right, must have had a
picture or Elvis and David Lee Roth taped above where he slept on
the tour bus.
You can’t get mad with
Open Up and Say …Ahh!. The album came out at the height of
the hair band craze of the late 80s. And even the hearless
idie-head out there has to feel some pity that this band is on the
edge of playing at your favorite tavern in a year or so from
now.
The only thing that makes me pissed off is that some people
still get misty eyed when Michaels says, “I raise a toast to all of
us/Who are breaking their backs everyday”, in “Nothin’ But a Good
Time” or the good girl loses it all story in “Fallen Angel”. Poison
was a good band for the moment, but only for that moment. Grow the
hell up!
Though I would like to give this album an F, I just don’t have
the heart to do it. The execs went to the band and wanted a hit and
were willing to pay them big for it. They took the money and
produced the goods. Hell, Matchbox 20 and Bush do it today, just in
a different musical format.
Open Up and Say …Ahh! also kept the masses distracted.
Because of Poison, people could lay braging rights for seeing Sonic
Youth and Husker Du at clubs while goobers like us were standing in
line to see Poison open for David Lee Roth. And, like many people
in their mid-20s, you can actually look back on this album as an
innocent joke. How can you give a bad grade to an album that you
heard during one of the coolest swim parties you’ve attended in
your life?