This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Frankly, I’m not sure which is more surprising — that there’s a new Poison album in stores, or that it’s actually not that bad.
Maybe that’s because it’s actually not that new. Crack A Smile was recorded back in 1994, but Poison’s hair-metal harlotry didn’t make the cut in the era of heroin chic and gloomy alt-rock. Now that Kurt Cobain is gone and Poison are reunited, however, this long-lost bootleggers’ fave is seeing the light of day, augmented with B-sides, outtakes and acoustic versions of their hits from MTV Unplugged. And ashamed as I am to admit it, Bret Michaels and the boys’ decadent sleaze-pop (like the sinful slam of Sexual Thing), cheesy balladry (like an acoustic version of Every Rose Has Its Thorn) and rock-star posturing (like a drunken, metal-flake version of Cover Of The Rolling Stone) are an invigorating antidote to the overdose of teen-pop and rap-metal that’s currently killing music. Welcome back, C.C. — all is forgiven.
