What's got you so jumpy?

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

22/07/90 : Flesh And Blood - Poison

I know Poison from "Every Rose Has Its Thorns", but I also know that's not a typical Poison song so I'm intrigued as to what we'll be getting here - and no, I've obviously never owned it (6/24) 

It's not really my thing, but there's certainly enough skill involved, they sound like they're having fun and there's no denying "Unskinny Bop" is pretty catchy.  The whole album got a bit samey for me, but if I'm being honest probably not as samey as I feared - if you like this kinda over the top US rawk then it feels like there's plenty here to enjoy and I imagine they put on a good live show.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on their second week of an eleven week run, with it having peaked at an astonishingly high #3 in its first week.  The top five were Elton John, Luciano Pavarotti, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Madonna and the highest new entry was MC Hammer (#17 - and I'm not sad to have missed out on that).

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album but it does feature some very odd sentences, including telling us that it was "the end of Poison's glam image, including excessive make-up and teased, girlish hair" and some "fun topics include sex, exhilaration from music or motorbikes, and tongue-in-cheek poverty".  It also spends far too long telling us that "unskinny bop" doesn't mean anything.  The critics weren't massively impressed with the album, but it made no difference to the public who bought it by the bucketload - particularly in the US where it sold 3 million copies and got to #2.  Which is just mad - and doubly so when you see it was nowhere near as successful as their previous album.

"Customers also listened to" Warrant, Motley Crue, Skid Row and Cinderella - I've never listened to an album by any of them and I fully expect the situation to remain this way.  But I wouldn't have expected to listen to a Poison album and I certainly wouldn't have expected to tolerate it as much as I did - so you never know!

15/07/90 - Dull, dull, dull
29/07/90 - A stupendously successful album

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