Rockitt Rant – Bret Michaels, Enough is Enough!
In the late eighties and early nineties, the band Poison was a force to be reckoned with. In 2011, Poison is making a joke out of themselves, mostly in partdue to Bret Michaels spending more time doing Hollywood Reality TV shows, than writing new music.
For Poison’s 25th Anniversary, the band is releasing “Double Dose of Poison, Ultimate Hits”. Yes, you guessed it, another CD compilation with NO new Poison songs.
“Between Double Dose Of Poison and the 25th Anniversary Tour, I honestly can’t think of a better way to mark this major milestone,” says Poison’s singer Bret Michaels.
Really Brett? Really? It is the 25th Anniversary of the band that made you famous, and you can’t think of anything better than to release your 8th CD Compilation?
Let us see, there has already been “Poison’s Greatest Hits: 1986 – 1996”, “Poison – Rock Champions”, “Best of Ballads & Blues”, “The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock”, “Poison 10 Great Songs”, “Poison – Box Set”, “Nothin’ But A Goot Time: The Poison Collection” I haven’t even mentioned the five live albums of the same regurgitated Poison songs.
Mr. Michaels, here is a unique idea, for your 25th Anniverary, how about spending some time with your band mates and write some new songs instead of releasing another compilation of the tunes that the majority of Poison fans already own.
I am happy that you are healthy, and you are back out there playing music, however, I won’t waste any more of my dollars on your Greatest Hits Compilations, nor will I waste my hard earned bucks to watch you play the same songs live. Before you reinvented your self as a Hollywood Reality star, you were a musician, and you had talent. You have written some of the biggest pop metal songs of the eighties and nineties. I have no doubts that you and Poison could reconnect with today’s music fans, if only you could write some NEW music.
Please take your self out of the running for “Rock of Love 15”, “Dancing With the Stars”, or whatever your next reality project is, and do what the fans really want. Write some new tunes! If Poison puts out a CD of new material (No covers please) myself, and many other fans will be more than happy to buy your music, and support your live shows. Until then, seeing Poison live will be like watching an old reality show re-run.
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Hard Rock Hideout 
First, thank you for the Rockitt Rant! Always love them. Second, yes, Poison needs to do a new album of non covers, but the fact is the band is lazy. They only get together for 2-3 months out of the year, rehash the same tired songs for a tour, take their money and go home. Even if they won’t record a new album, perform some different songs live. There is an EXCELLENT album’s worth of material in Crack A Smile that has never been played live and there are one or two decent tracks on Hollyweird that the fans would like to hear live. Hell, they could even pull out Let Me Go To The Show from their debut. Anything to mix it up! However, lazy is as lazy does (to paraphraase Gump) and Poison is lazy.
I think Bret wants to concentrate too much on being a solo star, which he is clearly not.
The sum of the parts does not equal the whole. Bret is better in Poison. Hopefully he will realize that soon.
Poison is/was one of my favorite bands, but I think I stopped buying their Best Of albums after the first one. I would also say concentrate on new music, but their last few new albums have been so bad:(
Couldn’t agree with you more. I have seen Poison several times over the years (since 87 or 88) and although they put on a good, high energy live show, it’s the same songs tour after tour. But, do you think it’s Brett holding up any new music? He has released 2 or 3 solo albums in that time frame. Maybe it’s the other three who are not interested in making new music.
Check the track listing of Bret Michaels solo CD’s. Lots of rehashed or re-released songs on those recent releases.
Amen! You said exactly what the rest of us were thinking! I want to go see the Poison/Motley show this summer, but I’m having a hard time paying an outrageous amount of money to see the same ol’ Poison show I’ve seen a million times before.
As much as I hate to say it, I am not excited about this tour in the least bit. I love Motley Crue & Poison, but I can’t justify spending an exorbitant amount on either band in a live setting any more. If Sixx A.M. was on the bill, I would have been a little more interested. Neither Motley or Poison have any new tunes to offer. I can’t spend 90 bucks to hear Vince forget his lyrics again. I can probably remember them better than he can.