“Unskinny Bop” by Poison

"Unskinny Bop" kicked off Flesh & Blood, Poison's third album, as its first single in June 1990, and its title is glam metal's great shaggy-dog story: it means nothing at all. C.C. DeVille came up with the phrase as a stand-in while he was writing the music, before Bret Michaels had got round to the words, and it stuck because it sat so neatly on the beat. Played the song, producer Bruce Fairbairn confessed he had no clue what an unskinny bop might be and pronounced it perfect anyway.

All four of them share the writing credit, with Michaels singing, DeVille on guitar, Bobby Dall on bass and Rikki Rockett on drums, and Mike Fraser engineering, mixing and co-producing. It climbed to number 3 on the Hot 100 and topped Canada's The Record chart, and the video set Michaels dancing beside a pair of animated neon cowgirls.

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