Webster”s online dictionary uses fifteen words to define glamour: An exciting and often illusory and romantic attractiveness especially alluring or fascinating personal attraction. While it is hard to fault Webster because most of the time the Dictionary guy is right on, this time he is being a bit excessive. It only takes one word to define glamour: Poison. Brett Michaels, C.C. Deville, Bobby Dall and Rikki Rockett partied their way into the hedonistic hearts of Americans with their carefully feathered bleached blonde locks, and heavily lined eyes. From the start, Poison was more of an image than a musical group. A picture of Poison is worth a thousand songs. Bobby Dall, bassist, once admitted that one day before a show he ran out of eyeliner and had to use magic marker. Despite their androgenous appearance they still slept with more people than a narcoleptic in a New York subway. As the great philosopher Butthead said to his esteemed colleague Beavis, “Sometimes you gotta act like a wuss to get chicks, dumbass.”
Although their debut album went quadruple platinum, it was their second release Open Up and Say Ahh! that solidified their position atop the musical world as the Glam Slam Kings of Noise. Poison embodied everything rock “n” roll should be: Extravagant dress, substance excess, hordes of more-than-willing groupies, larger than life personas and cheesy stage names like Rikki Rockett. They had it all. Their image and their hair was larger than life. Open Up and Say Ahh! was more than an “album”, it was a guide to life. With anthemic song “Nothin” but a Good Time” people learned to lighten up, and enjoy the little things in life. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” topped the singles charts while teaching invaluable lessons of love. These two songs and the album as a whole were enough to permanently stick Poison into the pages of rock “n” roll history, with an obnoxiously large can of hairspray.