Flesh & Blood is the third studio album by American glam metal band Poison, released in 1990 through the Enigma label of Capitol Records. The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts and it sold over 7.2 million copies worldwide.
The album was recorded and mixed at Little Mountain Sound Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn and mixer Mike Fraser.
The front cover of the album featured the Poison logo and album title as a tattoo on Rikki Rockett's arm. The cover was originally planned to have a slightly different version of the tattoo cover that featured the tattoo after being freshly inked. This showed the skin as red and inflamed with dripping ink or blood. This cover was pulled though and instead a cleaned up tattoo was shown. The original cover was released for the initial pressing in Japan but was subsequently removed from all later pressings (including those in Japan). The record’s marketing reflected the end of the more extreme elements in Poison’s "glam" image, including its excessive make-up and teased, girlish hair (see Look What the Cat Dragged In), featuring a look similar to Guns N' Roses.
Parts of the album reflected a darker, more serious side to the band, touching themes such as hard times and overcoming them ("Valley of Lost Souls", "Life Loves A Tragedy", "Come Hell Or High Water"), missing loved ones ("Life Goes On"), long-term relationships ("Don’t Give Up an Inch", "Ball and Chain"), and disillusionment ("Something to Believe In"). The fun side of the band remained intact, however, in tracks dealing with sex ("(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice", "Unskinny Bop"), exhilaration from music or motorbikes ("Let It Play", "Ride the Wind"), and tongue-in-cheek poverty ("Poor Boy Blues").
The meaning of "Unskinny Bop", one of the band's most popular songs, has always been shrouded in obscurity. DeVille later confessed that the phrase "unskinny bop" has no particular meaning. He invented it as a temporary measure while writing the song, before vocalist Bret Michaels had begun working on the lyrics. The phrase was used on the basis that it was phonetically suited to the music. The song was later played to producer Fairbairn, who stated that although he did not know what an "unskinny bop" was, the phrase was perfect.
Flesh & Blood was voted Best Album in Circus magazine's 1990 Readers' Poll, while "Something to Believe In" was voted Best Single. The album was connected to three Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards in 1990, when the magazine's readers voted it for Album of the Year and "Something to Believe In" for Song of the Year and Best Video.Flesh & Blood is the third studio album by American glam metal band Poison, released in 1990 through the Enigma label of Capitol Records. The album peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts and it sold over 7.2 million copies worldwide.
The album was recorded and mixed at Little Mountain Sound Studios, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn and mixer Mike Fraser.
The front cover of the album featured the Poison logo and album title as a tattoo on Rikki Rockett's arm. The cover was originally planned to have a slightly different version of the tattoo cover that featured the tattoo after being freshly inked. This showed the skin as red and inflamed with dripping ink or blood. This cover was pulled though and instead a cleaned up tattoo was shown. The original cover was released for the initial pressing in Japan but was subsequently removed from all later pressings (including those in Japan). The record’s marketing reflected the end of the more extreme elements in Poison’s "glam" image, including its excessive make-up and teased, girlish hair (see Look What the Cat Dragged In), featuring a look similar to Guns N' Roses.
Parts of the album reflected a darker, more serious side to the band, touching themes such as hard times and overcoming them ("Valley of Lost Souls", "Life Loves A Tragedy", "Come Hell Or High Water"), missing loved ones ("Life Goes On"), long-term relationships ("Don’t Give Up an Inch", "Ball and Chain"), and disillusionment ("Something to Believe In"). The fun side of the band remained intact, however, in tracks dealing with sex ("(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice", "Unskinny Bop"), exhilaration from music or motorbikes ("Let It Play", "Ride the Wind"), and tongue-in-cheek poverty ("Poor Boy Blues").
The meaning of "Unskinny Bop", one of the band's most popular songs, has always been shrouded in obscurity. DeVille later confessed that the phrase "unskinny bop" has no particular meaning. He invented it as a temporary measure while writing the song, before vocalist Bret Michaels had begun working on the lyrics. The phrase was used on the basis that it was phonetically suited to the music. The song was later played to producer Fairbairn, who stated that although he did not know what an "unskinny bop" was, the phrase was perfect.
Flesh & Blood was voted Best Album in Circus magazine's 1990 Readers' Poll, while "Something to Believe In" was voted Best Single. The album was connected to three Metal Edge Readers' Choice Awards in 1990, when the magazine's readers voted it for Album of the Year and "Something to Believe In" for Song of the Year and Best Video.false2025-04-23 05:22:29Flesh & Blood7.520062006-03-072006-03-0766GlamGlam MetalHard RockHeavy MetalRock11381121269458300c560-9efe-4816-b606-1a0366dbbbacc79c43d4-cbed-4373-89ce-6560f62eb7d8f119385d-c478-3762-9bfe-7a751b58f493/media/data/media8/Music/Poison/Flesh & Blood (1990)/folder.jpgPoisonPoisonPoison is an American rock band formed in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in 1983. The most successful incarnation of the band consists of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Bret Michaels, drummer Rikki Rockett, bassist Bobby Dall and lead guitarist C.C. DeVille. The band achieved huge commercial success in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s and sold over 40 million records and DVDs worldwide.
The band had a Billboard Hot 100 number one hit single with "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and other top 40 hit singles in the 1980s and 1990s, including "Talk Dirty to Me", "I Won't Forget You", "Nothin' But a Good Time", "Fallen Angel", "Your Mama Don't Dance", "Unskinny Bop", "Something to Believe In", "Ride the Wind", and "Life Goes On." The band's breakthrough debut album, the multi-platinum Look What the Cat Dragged In, was released in 1986, followed by Open Up and Say... Ahh!, which was certified 5× platinum in the US. Their third consecutive multi-platinum album was Flesh & Blood, which became their best-selling release. In the 1990s, following the release of the band's first live album, Swallow This Live, the band experienced some line up changes and the fall of glam metal with the grunge movement, but the band's fourth studio album, Native Tongue, still achieved Gold status and the band's first compilation album, Poison's Greatest Hits: 1986–1996, went double platinum.
The original line up reformed for a greatest hits reunion tour in 1999. The band began the 2000s with the release of Crack a Smile... and More!, followed by the Power to the People album. They released the album, Hollyweird, in 2002 and in 2006 the band celebrated their twenty year anniversary with The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock tour and album, which was certified Gold and marked Poison's return to the Billboard top 20 charts for the first time since 1993. Band members have released several solo albums and starred in reality TV shows. Since their debut in 1986, they have released seven studio albums, four live albums, five compilation albums, and have issued 28 singles to radio. In 2012 VH1 ranked them at No. 1 on their list of the "Top 5 Hair Bands of the '80s".