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Rating: The new wave of glamsters coming from the States had been announced for some time: with the battle cry of “shock the world” an army of leather boyz with electric toyz was preparing to launch a new assault on the music business. From the gritty Buckcherry to the rough American Pearl, from the wonderful Beautiful Creatures to the boisterous Toilet Boys… after ten years in Los Angeles a new scene was finally flourishing but it was necessary for an entity with experience and charisma to lead this young multicolored reality and for this element to gift the more conservative audience with a work worthy of rivaling its cumbersome and glorious past.
Introduced by the single “Squeeze Box,” a decidedly fun cover of The Who, the new Poison album was gearing up to become a style example for the new recruits and a rather credible return to the glories of the past for the old guard fans. In the splendor of the original lineup, the poisonous quartet thus reintroduces themselves to the large public with an album, “Hollyweird,” featuring a production by Thom Panunzio that is deliberately dirty and rough (even excessively “garage”…), able to highlight the band’s “street” attitude at the expense of the old sound with clear pop metal origins. The album opens with the decent title track, a song in full Poison style, then continues with the aforementioned “Squeeze Box,” enhanced by a good solo branded C.C. DeVille. Bret Michaels and company deliver a more impactful one-two punch with the pair “Shooting Star” – “Wishful Tinkin’,” a diptych that shines for freshness and richness of harmonic solutions (even if the deadly use of the chorus in the second track leads to a points win…). At song number six comes the first surprise: just like in the “Power to the People” compilation, here too, axe-man C.C. DeVille steps up to the microphone, delivering more than satisfactory performances. “Emperor’s New Clothes” and the punkish “Livin’ in the Now” represent the two aces up the sleeve of the old six-string fox, who draws heavily from the modern sounds already heard on his solo album. The best track on the disc turns out to be “Devil Woman,” well introduced by a suffering harmonica, but its primacy is dangerously threatened by the catchy “Stupid, Stoned & Dumb.” If one were to find a flaw, it could be in the double version of the static track “Home” and in the presence of two or three fillers, but even this flaw is partly forgotten in front of the concluding song “Rockstar,” already released as a promotional single on the internet and published as a bonus track in the previous LP “Power to the People.”
Without a shadow of a doubt “Hollyweird,” far from being considered a masterpiece, represents a return of Poison to the edgy style of the debut “Look What The Cat Dragged In” (1984): having definitively buried post-grunge temptations and abandoned the modernist audio solutions present in the fluctuating “Crack A Smile” (1998) this work can surely be considered the best album of the historic glam band since the great “Flesh & Blood” (1989). A curious note: the promotional tour for the album (with Cinderella, Winger, and Faster Pussycat supporting) started in the spring/summer of 2002, saw a remarkable influx of the public, enough to literally smash the attendance numbers reported in the same arenas by then trending names like Nickelback and Kid Rock. (Enrico Rosticci)
01) HOLLYWEIRD
02) SQUEEZE BOX
03) SHOOTING STAR
04) WISHFUL THINKIN’
05) GET ‘YA SOME
06) EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES
07) DEVIL WOMAN
08) WASTELAND
09) LIVIN’ IN THE NOW
10) STUPID, STONED & DUMB
11) HOME (BRET’S STORY)
12) HOME (C.C.’S STORY)
BONUS TRACK: ROCKSTAR
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Squeeze Box (02:29)
Mama's got a squeeze box
She wears on her chest
And when daddy comes home
He never get no rest
Chours
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a queeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
The kid won't eat
The dog won'r sleep
There's no escape from the music
In the whole damn street
Chours
Chours(2)
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out
Chours
She goes, Squeeze me
Come on and squeeze me
Come on and tease me like you do
I'm so in love with you
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
(Solo)
Chours (2)
Chours out
03 Shooting Star (04:36)
a small town girl with big time dreams
but nothing's ever as it seems
a mother waves her girl goodbye
then slowly hangs her head and cries
hollywood hills and the big city lights
outside her window they burn bright
someday the world will praise her fame
they'll know her face they'll shout her name
pre-chorus
they'll shout it real load
she'll make her mama real proud
she'll stand about the crowd
Chorus
i am someone
look what i've done
stare into the sun
i am a shooting star
i am something
i am someone
look what i have done
i am a shooting star
she looks down at the stars lying on the streets
says to herself "that will be me"
a big time dream a small town mind
searching for a break she may never find
streets of gold they turned to gray
just one more chance just one more day
someday that world will know this face
she swears they'll never fall from grace
they'll shout it real loud
she'll make her mama real proud
she'll stand about the crowd
and shout
chorus (solo)
she stand out on the streets in the pouring rain
strangers walk by they don't know her name
as the silver screen slowly fades to black
she'll never give in she can never go back
chorus
someday you'll see me
don't you need me
everybody will believe me
i am a shooting star
i will stand strong
i will hold on
it's not my last song
i am a shooting star
06 Emperor's New Clothes (02:12)
Now that you've been bought and sold
You don't have time to fix the mess you're in
And if I may be so bold
I bet you couldn't even do it again
Bridge
Lying like yesterday's paper outside the door
Chorus:
Now you need me to clean your shoes
Walk on water be in the mood
Everybody's talking but nobody knows
Where did the emperor get them new clothes
I always did look up to you
Tried to copy everything that you did
Until you broke my heart in two
You shot me up then you flipped your lid
bridge
Chorus
solo
Chorus out
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