The single adjective for this release is \u201cembarrassing.\u201d Bret Michaels has had to deal with embarrassing his entire career, suffering through the backlash of the alternative rock explosion that drove Poison into irrelevance. Poison hasn\u2019t been able to rejuvenate its career — I hear that snickering and you can stop now — so it\u2019s time for Michaels to try it solo. His VH1 show Rock Of Love <\/i>brought him the attention he needed to get VH1 to release this sleazy disc. It is unbelievable that Michaels compromised his integrity this much. This could have been a decent four or five-song demo but less than half of this release is worth your ears. <\/p>\n
The first two tracks are pitiful, cocky struts that are a struggle to listen to repeatedly (though maybe with a cold beer in hand and followed by Cinderella and Warrant.) First, \u201cGo That Far\u201d and then \u201cDriven\u201d are crap. Relying on clich\u00e9s that have been professed by other Los Angeles-based rockers like Motley Crue and Ratt, these songs offer nothing — not even a cool guitar riff — that you can use to qualify them as being worthy of ever having been recorded. <\/p>\n
Then Michaels seems to have been hit with a brick because the next two, \u201cFallen\u201d and \u201cRaine,\u201d are decent pseudo-ballads that are okay. The latter plays off the name and talks about how \u201cI\u2019ll be the sun, you be my Raine.\u201d Raine, apparently is the name of a girl and Michaels likes her. The next track \u201cBittersweet\u201d is more cock rock but actually tells a story about his ex-girlfriend leaving and Michaels not really caring. In fact, he declares, \u201cShe sucked in the sack \/ Want my ring back.\u201d He goes on to describe how she goes out with \u201cmy ex-best friend Jack\u201d who, Michaels confides in all of us, is about to get his ass kicked. The fact that the guitar solo on this track is decent helps. So far, Michaels is three for five. <\/p>\n
Michaels returns to the pseudo-ballad style of \u201cFallen\u201d and \u201cRaine\u201d with \u201cSongs Of Life,\u201d proving three is the magic number of songs in this style I can tolerate. He would have been better off with just two. \u201cSongs\u201d is in the same vein and is mostly forgettable. Then the acoustic guitar gets plugged back in for \u201cStrange Sensation,\u201d which is more drivel like \u201cGo That Far\u201d and \u201cDriven.\u201d The count is now three for seven. <\/p>\n
Thank goodness Michaels sings a duet with Jessica Andrews during \u201cAll I Ever Needed.\u201d What a classic ballad with just the right touches! Poison could have released this song in the \u201880s and it would have been all over the radio and played at weddings and proms and all high school dances in-between. As it is, married Poison fans may play this at their wedding anniversary party as a tip of their hat to Michaels. Michaels is four for eight.<\/p>\n
Given how much I liked \u201cAll I Ever Needed,\u201d it\u2019s sad to say the last three tracks are pure awful. There are so many clich\u00e9s and shoddy lyrics in \u201cMenace To Society,\u201d where Michaels bitches about his job and declares, repeatedly, that his situation of having a no holiday \u201cmakes me feel like raisin\u2019 hell.\u201d Sigh. Leave the hell raisin\u2019 to ZZ Top. The final track, \u201cIt\u2019s My Party\u201d attempts to update the oldies hit because the official title is \u201cIt\u2019s My Party [2008 Mix].\u201d There\u2019s that word again — embarrassing. Didn\u2019t Faster Pussycat play crap like this on their self-titled debut?<\/p>\n
I have a friend that is going to want to kick my butt for not worshiping this release like it is gold. I can\u2019t do that. I refused to bash this record too severely but it was very tempting. Bret Michaels is Poison but this release is not Poison in the same way that the Gene Simmons solo release Asshole<\/i> was not KISS. Frankly, Poison would be embarrassed to release this recording. The shoddy lyrics are a dip even for Michaels, who once sang about an \u201cUnskinny Bop.\u201d I only liked four out of 12 songs on this release. The rest of the material should never have been released except as a B-side to a Poison single.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8236],"rating":[5616],"class_list":["post-41005","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bret-michaels","rating-rating-d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41005"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}