Flesh & Blood by Poison

Flesh & Blood, Poison's third album, hit the racks July 10, 1990, on Enigma and Capitol, and it's the sound of the hair-metal party band trying to grow up in public. After the good-time romp of 1988's Open Up and Say... Ahh!, Bret Michaels, C.C. DeVille, Bobby Dall and Rikki Rockett went looking for something weightier to say, and Bruce Fairbairn's production hands them a beefier, more muscular frame to say it in.

The hooks still rule the day. "Unskinny Bop" struts on pure nonsense and swagger, "Something to Believe In" swaps the smirk for sincerity, and "Ride the Wind", "Life Goes On" and "(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice" kept the singles rolling. The gamble paid: number two on Billboard, number one on Cash Box, triple platinum by 1991 and more than 7 million sold around the world, making it the biggest seller the band ever had.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.