There are actually two versions of this video. Both of them feature model Rana Kennedy as the mysterious woman looking over Alice Cooper. One version features shots where the woman is meant to be topless. (A body double was used in those shots). The MTV-friendly version excises the toplessness and is less focused on torture than the first version.
Director Nigel Dick was one of the big music video directors of the MTV era. He worked with everyone who was anybody. Alice Cooper definitely was and still is somebody. It’s funny how he went from being the rocker that parents feared to being a beloved cultural institution and he did it while, for the most part, still remaining true to his original act and persona. All the kids who used to get yelled at for listening to Cooper grew up and kept listening to him and Alice turned out to be a pretty smart guy.
Because I’m getting old and I still don’t want to admit that the music I grew up with is now considered to be “classic” rock, this South Bay band is new to me but I like their sound and I like this video, which feels like a throwback to the days before music got boring and corporate.
I found an interview in which the lead singer (and director of the video) Meriel O’Connel had this to say about Poison:
The song is about society being subjected to constant overwhelming stimulus on our phones, devices, etc that creates this culture of comparison, disposability, and lack of fulfillment in our daily lives. There’s another component where these companies and corporations who push apps, social media, etc aren’t making these things just for fun, it’s all for profit. To keep us searching for more rather than being satisfied by ourselves and our immediate surroundings, and ultimately them knowing & tracking everything about us algorithmically.
It’s this lack of escapism that makes it more difficult for us to turn inwards & go into our own internal lives and spaces, and makes us place value on what we’re putting out externally rather than consider how we can be internally fulfilled, fill up our own cups.
In 2006, as a part of their 20th anniversary celebration, Poison recorded a cover of We’re An American Band and also released this music video, which is made up of behind-the-scenes footage of Poison recording the song and also archival footage from the band’s Glam metal heyday.
After all these years, Poison still occasionally play and tour together and they seem to have accepted their status as a nostalgia act with more grace than many of the other bands from the hair metal era. Even back in the 80s, when they were huge, Poison seemed to have a more down to Earth attitude about stardom than many of their contemporaries. You wouldn’t necessarily expect it from the music they were performing at the time but their interview was one of the highlights of Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II. Unlike some other performers, they stayed focused on having a good time and making the type of music that they wanted to hear and, as a result, they have the type of fan loyalty that many American bands could only hope for.
This song was written about James Kimo Maano, a security guard and a good friend of Bret Michaels. Maano’s death inspired the song and, during the making of the video, footage of James Kimo Maano appeared on the screen behind Michaels in order to get a response from him. Michaels became so upset that he had to stop singing and it would be several hours before Michaels could return to the set and continue filming.
The director who so upset Bret Michaels was Marty Callner, who has directed videos for everyone from Aerosmith to Justin Timberlake. He directed several videos for Poison, both before and after the video for Something To Believe In.
There some videos that you pick for video of the day because you really like the song or the band or even the director. There are other videos that you pick because it’s midnight and you suddenly realize that you still haven’t picked one yet. The videos that fall into the latter category usually feature competent bands in relatively simple performance clips.
(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice was one of the singles come off of Poison’s third studio album, Flesh & Blood. This album was the first part of Poison’s attempt to move away from their hair metal image and embrace more serious themes. It turned out to be one of their best-selling albums, even though the band itself still found itself soon replaced on MTV by groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
This music video was directed by Marty Callner, who was one of those directors who worked with just about everyone. If you were famous, you worked with Marty Callner.
“You’re getting paid to wash dishes … not listen to that … rock and roll music!”
This video could properly be called Washing Dishes With Poison. When you wash dishes with KISS, the dishes don’t get done and your boss yells at you. When you wash dishes with Poison, the dishes not only get one but the boss doesn’t even know what to say when he sees how quickly you did them. What’s going on in this video? Did Poison wash the dishes for him? Is that Poison’s idea of a good time?
This video was directed by Marc Reshovsky, who is also credited as being the director of photography on videos by Seal, kd lang, Billy Joel, and Ice Cube. Those are all talented artist but none of them will wash your dishes.
After her husband commits suicide, Ann Stewart (Kari Wuhrer) seeks revenge on the CEO who fired him and Nicole Garrett (Barbara Crampton), the woman who get the promotion that he was counting on. Ann has good reason for being upset, seeing as how she slept with the CEO specifically so he wouldn’t fire her husband. When she finds out that the her husband was never even being seriously considered for the promotion and all of that extramarital sex was for nothing, Ann snaps. Somehow, Ann not only knows how to blow up the CEO and his family but also how to get away with. However, her plot against Nicole is more complicated. After murdering Nicole’s housekeeper, Ann takes her place. Soon, Ann is trying to seduce both Nicole’s husband (Jeff Trachta) and her son (Seth Jones) while encouraging Nicole’s teenage daughter (Melissa Stone) to be even more slutty than before. Ann discovers that Nicole can be a demanding boss and that she and her husband are on the verge of splitting up. Ann also learns that Nicole is diabetic and has to be careful what she eats. That’s good information to have, now that Ann is the one preparing all of her meals! Ann sets her plan in motion. To quote the song of old, that girl is poison.
Poison is typical of the films that used to show up on Cinemax late at night. It’s also a Jim Wynorski film and you always know what you’re getting into with Wynorski. Poison has all of the gratuitous shower scenes and naked midnight swims that you would expect from a film like this. It also has the same basic plot as Scorned, with Kari Wuhrer taking on the Shannon Tweed role of the vengeance-obsessed widow. It’s hard to say who did the role better. Tweed was more calculated in the way she destroyed the family while Wuhrer is more obviously unhinged and impulsive in her actions. Perhaps because Jim Wynorski directed Poison while Andrew Stevens was responsible for Scorned, Poison is a little more self-aware that Scorned and has more of a sense of humor about itself than Scorned did. Ann is eventually as angry about Nicole being a demanding employer as she was about her husband committing suicide. Fans of these movies will want to see Poison for the chance to watch Barbara Crampton and Kari Wuhrer face off against each other. Both of them bring their best.
Every 80s hair band had to have at least one song that showed that, underneath all the debauchery and the partying, they were actually sensitive poets. Motley Crue had Home Sweet Home. Def Leppard had Two Steps Behind. And Poison had Every Rose Has Its Thorn.
This song was inspired by Bret Michaels’s relationship with his then girlfriend, Tracy Lewis. After playing a show in Dallas, Michaels called Lewis in Los Angeles and, in a scene reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, he was shocked when another man answered the phone. Michaels wrote the song the next day while sitting in a laundromat.
(Presumably, the death of the landline phone has all but eliminated the risk of getting caught cheating as a result of the wrong person answering phone.)
The concert scenes in this video were filmed at a show in Green Bay, Wisconsin while the scenes of Bret Michaels and his girlfriend (his Rose?) were filmed in a warehouse. The video’s director, Marty Callner, was one of the top music video directors of the 80s and 90s. He worked with just about everyone.
Incidentally, Poison is a band that I always used to make fun of but then I saw them interviewed in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II and they came across as being surprisingly well-adjusted, especially when compared to W.A.S.P’s Chris Holmes, who was famously interviewed while floating in a pool and pouring a bottle of vodka over himself.
This is definitely not your “Poison” of the early 1990’s BBD (Bell Biv Deveo) days. This time it’s the 2012 mini-album release for the South Korean girl group Secret. The quartet took a year off before launching a comeback which saw the mini-album’s release and a new sexy and feminine look. It was a far cry from their previous cutesy image.
The song is a combination of many influences from jazz (a repeating saxophone section) to pop R&B (reminiscent of late 90’s and early 2000’s) to hip-hop with it’s layered beats. All of these influences make for a nice uptempo beat that the video is still able to mine for a nice sexy, sultry concept video that shows the quartet unleashing their femme fatale aspects.
The video itself is a more story driven than most K-pop videos of the time. With the girls (or should I say ladies) decked out in British women’s spy fashion mixed in with detective film noir femme attire. While the theme calls to mind Spillane, Hammett and Cain, the dance choreography screams R&B and Hip-Hop. From the choreo matching the song’s percussive beats to the body rolls and get-low moves.
While all four ladies of Secret gets a chance to shine in the song, the video itself is taken over by the visuals of group Leader Hyosung and group Visual and Maknae (youngest in the group) Sunhwa. Both Hana (rapper) and Jieun (Main Vocalist) don’t shrink from their own roles despite the first two having a much more visual impact and presence in the video.
I must agree with all who have seen the video and some of their stage live performances of the song, Hyonsung plus thigh-highs stockings were and, still are, a killer look. A visual good enough to kill for.
Time for a new guilty pleasure and this time around we hit the music scene with a song that everyone seems to make fun of but whcih they also secretly love to sing-a-long to.
“Every Rose Has Its Thorns” by the hair metal group Poison has to be the cheesiest of all power ballad that came out during the 80’s hair metal era. The group were so intent on making it stand out from the rest of their hair metal brethren’s own power ballads that they decided to go all acoustic guitar to start things to give it that extra deep thoughts-theme. I will admit that I listened to this song like it was going out of style when it first came out.
What can I say? I was a sophomore in high school and the hormones were kicking in hard.
For someone whose own love of metal ranges from thrash, speed, power, Viking to black it’s such a rose amongst the bramble that this hair metal power ballad will still get me to sing along to this day. Though I usually try to make sure I’m alone….XD
Every Rose Has Its Thorns
We both lie silently still in the dead of the night Although we both lie close together We feel miles apart inside
Was it something I said or something I did Did my words not come out right Though I tried not to hurt you Though I tried But I guess that’s why they say
Chorus: Every rose has its thorn Just like every night has its dawn Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song Every rose has its thorn
Yeah it does
I listen to her favorite song playing on the radio Hear the DJ say loves a game of easy come and easy go But I wonder does he know Has he ever felt like this And I know that you’d be here right now If I could have let you know somehow I guess
Chorus
Though it’s been a while now I can still feel so much pain Like the knife that cuts you the wound heals but the scar, that scar remains
Solo
I know I could have saved our love that night If I’d known what to say Instead of makin’ love We both made our separate ways
But now I hear you found somebody new and that I never meant that much to you To hear that tears me up inside And to see you cuts me like a knife I guess
Through the Shattered Lens 