Some would say that POISON Look What the Cat Dragged In is not metal. In some ways they’d be right, in other ways I think this qualifies. I’ve long been a fan of the Glam metal Genre and this is one banger of an album. It’s full of bubble gum bangers that have big choruses and some very tasty guitar riffage and solo’s, and of course front man, Brett Michael’s amazing voice sitting over the top of everything. I should come clean from the start and say everything about this album makes me feel good and takes me back to a time when I was a lot more optimistic about things than I am now.<\/p>\n\n
The album opens up with the song Cry Tough<\/b>. From the first second this is instantly addictive mainstream metal. It’s like a sugar hit that you’ve just mainlined. I don’t know much about the early history of Poison but this was basically made to chart. I grew up in the 80’s and this stuff was all I’d listen to at the time. It fits well with arena rock mainstays Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Van Halen and it just has that commercial appeal that was basically destined to top the charts. Laugh all you want but LA Glam metal made heavy metal socially acceptable and propelled it into the charts. I don’t think harder acts like Metallica or Pantera would have had the same run into the mainstream consciousness they did if it wasn’t for Glam metal bands like I mentioned above softening up the MTV audience for loud rock with big solos. My favorite songs on this would have to be “Look What the Cat Dragged IN” <\/p>\n\n
From a production point of view this album sounds magnificent. My research would indicate that the album was produced for a megre $23,000 (which even in the 80’s was virtually nothing)<\/i> funded by the band themselves and their family members! What an Investment! Dreams do happen my friends!<\/p>\n\n
Every song on this album has a great hook, great guitar lines and ear worm level choruses. This is the beauty of this stuff. Even if you’re not a fan of this stuff, I don’t think anyone can say this wasn’t a great play from this band basically taking in everything that was good about the 80’s and mashing it into one album. From my memory of the time the album spawned 4 video clips and established the band as a main player in the American metal scene from their first slab of vinyl. This wasn’t as good as their next album “Open up and say Ahhh!” but there’s great material on this and it laid the foundations for the bands later success. <\/p>\n\n
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