Poison - Open Up and Say... Ahh!

The album that turned Poison into one of the biggest bands of the late 1980s, and one of the defining records of the hair metal era. Released on April 27, 1988 on Enigma and Capitol Records and recorded at Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles with producer Tom Werman, Open Up And Say...Ahh! peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, eventually sold over eight million copies worldwide, and achieved five-times platinum certification in the United States. Paul Stanley of Kiss was originally set to produce the record before scheduling conflicts intervened, and the result under Werman's direction was a record perfectly calibrated for mainstream hard rock radio without sacrificing any of the band's swagger and personality.

The singles campaign was relentless and unstoppable. "Nothin' But A Good Time," the album's opener and first single, established the template immediately and became Poison's first gold record, peaking at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. "Fallen Angel" followed to number twelve. A cover of Loggins and Messina's 1972 hit "Your Mama Don't Dance" cracked the top ten. And then there was "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," the band's one and only number one single, a power ballad with a country-tinged ache in Bret Michaels' vocal delivery that held the top spot for three weeks at the end of 1988 and has never left the airwaves since. Michaels has said he wrote the song on an acoustic guitar in a laundromat after calling his girlfriend from a cowboy bar in Dallas and hearing another man's voice in the background. That kind of raw, specific heartbreak is what made it connect with millions of listeners instantly and permanently.

The original album cover, featuring a luminous red demon with a protruding tongue, caused enough controversy with parental groups that the band eventually released an edited version showing only the eyes. Both are now part of the record's legend. Open Up And Say...Ahh! remains the commercial and creative peak of Poison's career and an essential artifact of its era.