Poison

Crack a Smile

Best Thing You'll Ever Have

Review Score:

(10/10)
Perhaps for the right reasons, or the completely wrong ones, Poison has been labeled as all that is absurd in this day and age...Crack a Smile, originally recorded in 1996 but due to a series of idiotic follies by their record company at the time only got it out in the spring of 2000, keeps its finger on the pulse of the glam metal sound but brings in a fairly abundant amount of Southern sounding rock to produce a quite unique sound.

The first song, "Best Thing You Ever Had" brings the most Southern sounding song on the album...After playing the album through a few months after getting it, I realized it's much better than I thought and consistently has been an MP3 I play consistently. The next song was "Shut Up and Make Love" which brought in a bit more glam and less country. The intro sees Bret rapping for a second, possibly in mockery of rap in general, leading in to what I think is another very cool song.

There are a few tracks that see Bret use awesome vocals on along with strong musical playing by the entire band (minus CC as he was not lead guitar when this was released). Sexual Thing, which made their greatest hits in 1996 but was previously unheard due to the record companies' mix up, is also on the album and is really one of the, musically, better songs Poison's ever done. *Said in passing* Mr. Smiley is a cool song as is No Ring, No Gets. But, Tragically Unhip steals the album for my money. Glammy hard rock metal that just mocks all that is (in 1996) bubble gum. Mainly, Bret takes a shot at Nervana saying "My record company says 'BLOW THE BRAINS OUT YOUR HEAD," I'll make the cover of every magazine!"...

The album also features tracks from MTV unplugged with the entire original line up as well as a song recorded for Open Up & Say Ah but never was on that release called Hangman. Those, especially Hangman, should be enough by itself to sway the typical Poison fan.

Overall, it's a cool album. I think it may be a little too complete which is odd to say of an album containing a few demos and out takes. It's a very long album and is just filled with stuff. Great for a long car ride!

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