Rock
Page: 146
After earning his second Super Bowl ring earlier this year, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce just found the perfect way to celebrate his championship. The high-energy baller announced on Tuesday (April 4) that he’s behind the first-ever Kelce Jam, a music festival slated to take place on April 28 in Kansas City, Mo., with a lineup he curated from acts that have personal meaning for him.
Topping the bill is one of his old childhood neighbors who also happens to have blown up into a superstar, Machine Gun Kelly, who grew up down the street from Kelce in Cleveland.
“[I’ve] been following his success from the start of his career,” Kelce tells Billboard about of the “Emo Girl” rocker. “It’s been amazing to see a hometown hero selling out stadiums. So for me, MGK was a no-brainer and I personally drafted some of my favorite artists in the world alongside him.”
Those other acts include Loud Luxury, Rick Ross and special guest Tech N9ne. “Loud Luxury is one of the biggest DJ duos out there right now. Everyone loves [the pair’s 2020 single] ‘Body’ and they bring the energy, and I have no doubt they will get the crowd rocking,” the football star tells Billboard. Kelce also says that Ross is, of course, “the boss, a true legend,” and that there was no way he could throw a party in KC without one of the city’s hometown heroes, rapper Tech N9ne.
As for why he’s hopping into the already crowded festival space, Kelce says he wanted to time his event around the 2023 NFL draft, which will take place at Union Station in KC from April 27 to 29. “With the NFL Draft headed to Kansas City and as the perfect way to continue celebrating our Super Bowl victory, I am launching one of KC’s most unique festivals to date!” says the 33-year-old. “I really wanted to bring the whole city together and what better way to do so than with fire music, great food, tons of football attractions, interactive brand activations and so much more.”
Pre-sale opens on Friday (April 7) at 11 a.m. ET, with the general on-sale following at 1 p.m. ET. Check out the Kelce Jam website for more details on the show. “KC has supported me in immense ways throughout my career, and I wanted to throw a city wide celebration that truly represents the energy and people of this great city,” Kelce adds. “We are excited to grow this into one of KC’s biggest entertainment events with 20,000 attendees and who knows where we will bring it next!”
Kelce has teamed up with event producer Medium Rare, the company behind a number of pre-Super Bowl events, including Shaq’s Fun House with Shaquille O’Neal, Gronk Beach with Rob Gronkowski and Guy’s Flavortown Tailgate with Guy Fieri.
Courtesy Photo
Additional reporting by Anna Chan.
Even while on break, BTS scores a supremely fab week on the Billboard Hot 100.
As previously reported, Jimin’s “Like Crazy” blasts in at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart (dated April 8), marking his first leader – and the first for a member of the superstar South Korean pop group. He’s also the first South Korean solo artist to lead the list.
With BTS having tallied six Hot 100 No. 1s, and Jimin notching his first, BTS joins The Beatles and The Supremes as the only groups with at least six leaders and at least one member having led the list solo.
The Beatles boast a record 20 Hot 100 No. 1s, while all four members have reigned solo: Paul McCartney (nine No. 1s), George Harrison (three), John Lennon and Ringo Starr (two each).
(Notably, on this date – April 4 – in 1964, The Beatles became the first act to monopolize the Hot 100’s entire top five. Drake, in 2021, and Taylor Swift, in 2022 – as she secured each spot in the top 10 – have each since matched the milestone.)
The Supremes amassed 12 Hot 100 leaders, while Diana Ross added six solo.
Here’s a recap of each group’s Hot 100 No. 1s and all the chart-toppers by their respective soloists.
BTS:
“My Universe,” with Coldplay, 2021
“Permission To Dance,” 2021
“Butter,” 2021
“Life Goes On,” 2020
“Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat),” with Jawsh 685 & Jason Derulo, 2020
“Dynamite,” 2020
Jimin:
“Like Crazy,” 2023
The Beatles:
“The Long and Winding Road”/“For You Blue,” 1970
“Let It Be,” 1970
“Come Together”/“Something,” 1969
“Get Back,” with Billy Preston, 1969
“Hey Jude,” 1968
“Hello Goodbye,” 1967-68
“All You Need Is Love,” 1967
“Penny Lane,” 1967
“Paperback Writer,” 1966
“We Can Work It Out,” 1966
“Yesterday,” 1965
“Help!,” 1965
“Ticket To Ride,” 1965
“Eight Days a Week,” 1965
“I Feel Fine,” 1964-65
“A Hard Day’s Night,” 1964
“Love Me Do,” 1964
“Can’t Buy Me Love,” 1964
“She Loves You,” 1964
“I Want To Hold Your Hand,” 1964
Paul McCartney:
“Say Say Say,” with Michael Jackson, 1983-84
“Ebony and Ivory,” with Stevie Wonder, 1982
“Coming Up (Live at Glasgow),” with Wings, 1980
“With a Little Luck” (Wings), 1978
“Silly Love Songs” (Wings), 1976
“Listen to What the Man Said” (Wings), 1975
“Band on the Run,” with Wings, 1974
“My Love,” with Wings, 1973
“Uncle Albert”/“Admiral Halsey,” with Linda McCartney, 1971
George Harrison:
“Got My Mind Set on You,” 1988
“Give Me Love – (Give Me Peace on Earth),” 1973
“My Sweet Lord”/“Isn’t It a Pity,” 1970
John Lennon:
“(Just Like) Starting Over,” 1980-81
“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” with the Plastic Ono Nuclear Band, 1974
Ringo Starr:
“You’re Sixteen,” 1974
“Photograph,” 1973
The Supremes:
“Someday We’ll Be Together” (Diana Ross & The Supremes), 1969
“Love Child” (Diana Ross & The Supremes), 1968
“The Happening,” 1967
“Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone,” 1967
“You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” 1966
“You Can’t Hurry Love,” 1966
“I Hear a Symphony,” 1965
“Back in My Arms Again,” 1965
“Stop! In the Name of Love,” 1965
“Come See About Me,” 1964
“Baby Love,” 1964
“Where Did Our Love Go,” 1964
Diana Ross:
“Endless Love,” with Lionel Richie, 1981
“Upside Down,” 1980
“Love Hangover,” 1976
“Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To),” 1976
“Touch Me in the Morning,” 1973
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” 1970
The Cure‘s Robert Smith continues to fight back against high concert ticket prices. After weeks of battling to knock out or knock down what he called Ticketmaster’s exorbitant extra fees for the band’s upcoming North American tour, Smith was at it again over the weekend.
Smith revealed that “approx. 7K tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled.” The singer claimed those tickets were acquired with fake accounts and/or listed on secondary resale sites. “TM have identified specific locations from secondary postings,” he said. He then asked fans who think their tickets may have been wrongly cancelled to reach out to TM fan support (@TMFanSupport).
The Cure leader also had another notion about the ongoing imbroglio over ticket fees and the secondary market, writing, “A WEEKEND THOUGHT… THIS ONGOING TM ‘CONVERSATION’ IS NOT TAKING PLACE IN A VACUUM… THE SYSTEM THAT VALUES PROFIT OVER PEOPLE IS REALLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED…”
To date, spokespeople for Ticketmaster have not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on Smith’s ongoing battle against fees and the secondary market.
In the lead-up to the veteran group’s upcoming The Lost World North American tour, The Cure had hoped to keep seat-buying fair and simple for their fans by opting out of dynamic pricing and shielding against scalpers with non-transferable tickets. But when the sale opened mid-March, customers were disappointed to find that the Ticketmaster had tacked on sky-high fees to tickets that totaled more than the price of the actual tickets themselves.
At the time, Smith went on a similarly all-caps Twitter rant, writing that he was “AS SICKENED AS YOU ALL ARE BY TODAY’S TICKETMASTER ‘FEES’ DEBACLE” before promising to investigate what went wrong. Soon after, he took to social media again to announce that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds and lower fees.
Last week Smith warned fans of a scam in which scalpers offered to sell account login details to get around TM transfer limitations. ANY/ALL TICKETS OBTAINED IN THIS WAY WILL BE CANCELED, AND ORIGINAL FEES PAID ON THOSE TICKETS WILL NOT BE REFUNDED,” he wrote, adding that the fees from those tickets will be donated to human rights organization Amnesty International.
The Lost World tour is slated to kick off on May 10 at New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center and run through a July 1 gig at Miami’s Miami-Dade Arena.
See Smith’s latest tweets below.
‘IHBT’ #? “Approx 7k tickets across approx 2200 orders have been cancelled. These are tickets acquired with fake accounts / listed on secondary resale sites. TM have identified specific locations from secondary postings” #ShowsOfALostWorld2023— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
A WEEKEND THOUGHT… THIS ONGOING TM ‘CONVERSATION’ IS NOT TAKING PLACE IN A VACUUM… THE SYSTEM THAT VALUES PROFIT OVER PEOPLE IS REALLY WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED… X— ROBERT SMITH (@RobertSmith) March 31, 2023
It may be the last day of March, but we’re going out with a bang when it comes to new music thanks to releases by Jisoo, Boygenius, Chlöe and more.
The BLACKPINK singer became the final member of the the girl group to go solo with her single album ME, featuring songs “Flower” and “All Eyes on Me,” while Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers reunited for their full-length album The Record a full half-decade after forming their alt-rock supergroup for their self-titled 2018 EP.
Chlöe Bailey also unveiled her debut solo album, In Pieces, on the heels of previously released singles “Pray It Away,” Chris Brown collab “How Does It Feel” and the piano-driven title track. Plus, Tyler, the Creator re-upped on his 2021 opus Call Me If You Get Lost by dropping Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale — a deluxe edition with eight new tracks not on the original album, including single “Dogwood” and collaborations with Vince Staples (“Stuntman”), A$AP Rocky (“Wharf Talk”) and YG (the 2020 demo version of “Boyfriend, Girlfriend”).
Meanwhile, on the new song front, Taylor Swift stripped down her bombastic Midnights opener “Lavender Haze” for a ghostly acoustic version that could sound easily at home on her 2020 album Evermore.
Becky G and Peso Pluma delivered a horn-blasted Spanish-language duet with “Chanel,” and Charlie Puth teamed up with Dan + Shay for their boundary-setting ballad “That’s Not How This Works.” (A promised remix with Sabrina Carpenter is still a couple of weeks away.) Plus, rising U.K. pop star Maisie Peters offered yet another irresistible sneak peek of her upcoming sophomore album The Good Witch with the triumphant “Lost the Breakup.”
Vote for your favorite release in Billboard‘s latest new music Friday poll below.
The Coachella Valley in Indio, CA will be the epicenter of metal this fall when some of the greatest hard rock bands of all time converge for the first-ever PowerTrip Festival. The three-night Goldenvoice-promoted event will kick off on Oct. 6 with a double-bill featuring Guns N’ Roses and Iron Maiden, according to a release announcing the event on Thursday morning (March 30).
Night two will find AC/DC sharing the stage with Ozzy Osbourne, in the metal legend’s first announced show since Ozzy revealed that he will no longer tour due to health concerns. The final night (Oct. 8) pairs Metallica with Tool. In the release, Goldenvoice promised that the nighttime double-headliner shows will have “unmatched concert production [that] will amplify the experience beyond the traditional stadium or parking lot concert norm.”
Goldenvoice, which is also behind the iconic Indio-based Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and Stagecoach country fest, teased the announcement on Wednesday with a cryptic post featuring the show’s metal fingers logo.
Three-day general admission tickets start at $599 (plus fees), with upgrades available to The Pit, reserved floor and grandstand seating options, as well as a number of VIP packages; click here to learn more and register for first access to tickets beginning today at 1 p.m. ET.
In February, Osbourne, 74, posted a note to fans on social media, saying, “This is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to share with my loyal fans…” In it, he announced that his touring days have come to an end and that his scheduled 2023 European/UK tour dates have been canceled. “Believe me when I say that the thought of disappointing my fans really f—s me up, more than you will ever know.”
“My team is currently coming up with ideas for where I will be able to perform without having to travel from city to city or country to country,” he continued in the note. “My goal is to get back onstage as soon as possible.” Ozzy previously revealed that though his voice is “fine,” after three operations, stem cell surgeries and other procedures to deal with a spinal injury he suffered four years ago he can no longer deal with the rigors of touring.
Check out the event poster below.
Sheryl Crow, Margo Price and Old Crow Medicine Show singer Ketch Secor performed at the “Nashville Remembers” vigil in the town’s Public Square Park on Wednesday night (March 29) honoring the lives of the three 9-year-old children and three adult staff members who were killed at the city’s Covenent School on Monday.
In the wake of Monday’s mass shooting, Crow responded to a tweet from Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s comment that her office was “ready to assist” by suggesting, “If you are ready to assist, please pass sensible gun laws so that the children of Tennessee and America at large might attend school without risk of being gunned down.”
Crow performed first, playing a solemn “I Shall Believe” while seated at a keyboard to a hushed crowd, ending with a bit of Dionne Warwick’s “What the World Needs Now is Love,” according to the AP, while Price thundered an emotional a cappella cover of The Band’s “Tears of Rage,” according to Rolling Stone. Secor played the banjo — with harmonica accompaniment from his son — as the audience joined him in a sing-along to the anthem of the Grand Ole Opry, the Carter Family’s “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By).”
The performances ended with Secor and Price joining for “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away.” The 30-minute event included the repeated recitation of the victims’ names: 9-year-old students Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, as well as custodian Mike Hill, 61; the school’s headmaster, Katherine Koonce, 60; and substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61; the latter were reportedly close friends of Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s wife, Maria, and Peak was scheduled to have dinner with the Lee’s on Monday night. Hill’s seven children were also on hand at the event.
Price is raising funds for Everytown for Gun Safety, writing in an emotional Instagram post that, “It doesn’t have to be this way, yet, guns are the leading cause of death for children in the US. In Tennessee, @govbilllee has made it easier than ever to procure weapons when he passed permit less carry in 2021. @marshablackburn has accepted over 1 million dollars from the NRA. Please vote them out and also donate to @everytown and let’s help end this nightmare. Children shouldn’t go to school and fear for their lives.”
The day after the shooting, Secor posted an emotional video in which he said the community was struggling to understand a reality that includes “murder in our school systems with assault rifles and kids dying in classes,” and imaging how heart-wrenching it must have been for the parents of the fourth graders who had to identify the bodies of their children.
“We’re not gonna be pushed around anymore by people that think that the right to have an assault rifle okay,” he added through tears. “F–k your assault rifle. If you need to defend your house with an assault rifle you must be crazy… You need a storm the beaches on D-day weapon to protect your family? F–k you!… Never again, this has to stop.”
First Lady Jill Biden was also on hand — but did not speak — at the event, where Mayor John Cooper called the shooting the “city’s worst day.” A number of Nashville musicians spoke out in grief and anger after the nation’s 132nd mass shooting so far this year, carried out by a 28-year-old former student at the private religious charter school while armed with one military-grade semi-automatic rifle and two handguns.
As conservative politicians mostly offered up thoughts and prayers and made comments including “emotion doesn’t solve problems,” Pres. Biden once again urged Congress to take any action to curb the easy access to military-style weapons. “We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation — ripping at the very soul of the nation. And we — we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons,” Biden said in remarks following the 17th school shooting so far this year.
Biden once again urged Congress to pass his assault weapons ban, an action that GOP lawmakers have steadfastly refused to take on.
Operation Ivy fans rejoice! The legendary late 1980s Berkeley, California ska punk band featuring Rancid singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong and singer Jesse Michaels is partially reunited on the debut single from Armstrong and Michaels’ new band, Bad Optix.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Their easy skanking first track, “Raid,” dropped on Wednesday (March 29) and it features the former bandmates trading off vocals on a track about looking for distraction in a time of anxiety and confusion. “Rethrone a crown with their hands made of stone / New crew got oil in our bones / Good things perish on the road to the castle,” Armstrong sings in his signature dead-set vocal style over a bubbling ska arrangement.
“RAID/ Hit them where they live, where they kill, where they bury/ RAID/ We won’t step in line for the party secretary,” the group gang up on the anti-authoritarian song’s urgent chorus. The band featuring Circle Jerks/The Bronx drummer Joey Castillo and Trash Talk bassist Spencer Pollard share a writing and production credit on the song, which will kick off the new Hellcat Single Club.
The Club will roll out a series of releases by a number of as-yet-unnamed bands curated by Armstrong and the Hellcat squad.
“’Raid’ is about every person’s spiritual autonomy from the powers that be, regardless of who they are or what their particular struggle is,” Michaels said in a statement about the rockstady song. “Like many of the tracks we have worked on, I heard the music and wrote the lyrics very quickly, almost on the spot. This was only the second song we did but it felt hot immediately and just flowed so we thought it would be a good way to introduce the new band to the world.”
According to the statement, the group formed in March 2021 and Michaels said despite the more than three-decade gap between the 1989 dissolution of the short-lived Op Ivy and the formation of Optix, his creative connection with Armstrong has only gotten stronger. The band was birthed when Michaels and Armstrong reconnected to hang out and Armstrong played his old friend some tracks he’d been working on.
“As soon as we started writing together, we found that we had the same collaborative energy that we had in the past, so it was natural and fun just to keep going,” Michaels said of the immediate lyrical/vocal inspiration he felt. “It came back, just like that. Like when we were kids,” Armstrong added. “There is a special chemistry between us and I don’t take it for granted.”
Armstrong and Michaels performed together for only the second time in 33 years last February to play the Op Ivy song “Sound System” at the Musack Charity Concert in Los Angeles.
Armstrong nodded to his long association with Michaels in an Instagram post, writing that they’ve been friends since they were teens in the early 1980s. “We formed Operation Ivy in 1987 and 2 years later we broke up. Jesse and I both continued down our own musical journeys through the years,” he said. “I always felt a little sadness that Jesse and I stoped making music together. But we never lost touch. And then it happened. A few years ago we started writing songs again! A couple of the songs ended up on Grade 2’s record. Jesse and I just stared writing again a lot. It came back. Just like that. Like when we we were kids. There is a special chemistry between us and I don’t take it for granted.”
Armstrong also had high praise for Castillo, who he called “one of the best drummers in the world and a dear friend,” and Pollard, who he met a few years ago when Castillo brought Trash Talk to record at Armstrong’s studio. “The rhythm section of Joey and Spencer is as good as it gets and their respected styled has added another element to the song writing,” he wrote.
In an Instagram Story, Michaels elaborated on the inspiration for Bad Optix and what’s to come, writing, “It’s funny how life happens because I had been sort of thinking about anything and everything besides doing music at that time but that’s the way it always works. Anyway, we kept writing songs over the last year and we have more to share, which we will do over the coming months.” He also teased some live shows (“eventually”), but said for now they’re just taking things slowly and having fun.
While “Raid” has a vibe that fits with both men’s musical lane, Michaels promised that they’ve also written “a lot of punk stuff and some stuff that is hard to even categorize. Really excited about this project and hope you guys dig it,” he wrote.
Listen to “Raid” and see Armstrong’s post below.
Even Tom Morello isn’t sure when, or if, Rage Against the Machine will go back on the road. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, the guitarist said that after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees were forced to cancel their planned 2022 European fall tour due to the serious foot injury suffered by rapper/singer Zack de la Rocha on the second show of their North American tour things were thrown into a state of flux that continues to this day.
Asked if the tour could be re-booted once Zack is healed up, Morello said, “We’ll see. If there is to be any more shows, we will announce it as a band. I don’t know. I know as much as you do, honestly. Right now we’re in a time of healing.”
Rage’s eagerly anticipated reunion tour hit a snag in Chicago on July 11 when de la Rocha suffered a severe tear of his left Achilles tendon four songs into the set. He soldiered on through the rest of the North American dates by rocking out while sitting down on the band’s first extensive tour since their last reunion wrapped in July 2011.
Morello said the energy on stage during the dates that went off was “great,” which he knew it would be from the moment they got back together to practice. “I knew pretty early on in rehearsal that we were going to sound fu–in’ great,” Morello said. “We’d never sounded better. It was a reaffirmation of the power of Rage Against the Machine, and the transcendence of Rage Against the Machine as a live act.”
Ironically, he added, he had just recovered from a ruptured Achilles before the tour and was on crutches in rehearsals, so when he saw de la Rocha go down in Chicago he knew it was bad. “I recognized the gait,” he said. “But Zack toughed it out that night. And for the next 17 shows, he was more compelling as a frontman sitting on a box in the middle of the stage than 99 percent of the frontmen in the history of all time.”
As for why the European dates had to be scotched after Rage successfully toured the U.S., Morello said it was doctor’s orders. “I don’t know all the details, but there’s dangers of flying. There’s danger of blood clots and all that,” he said. “I wasn’t in the room. But it’s not the optimum care to be on the road with a newly-ruptured Achilles.” The injury also resulted in the band cancelling their planned 2023 North American tour.
Morello also weighed in on the band’s fifth nomination for the RRHOF, saying he’s a “big proponent” of the Hall. “I like the idea there’s somewhere on the planet that celebrates music,” he said. “The thing I share, with many fans of many bands, is that if the Rock Hall is going to be inducting artists of so many diverse genres, there are a lot of artists from multiple genres that deserve to get in. It would be a great place to be. I certainly think Rage Against the Machine, among a lot of other bands, deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
The guitarist also touched on the controversy over the “awful idea” of dynamic ticket pricing, saying that every ticket for the shows they played cost $125, except for the 5-10% that were dynamically priced; Morello said the band “gave away every cent” over $125 on those tickets to charities in the respective cities, with a total of $6-$7 million raised on the entire tour.
As for the most pressing question: is Rage on yet another open-ended hiatus? Morello said the current state of Rage is “there is no term. Rage Against the Machine is like the ring in Lord of the Rings. It drives men mad. It drives journalists mad. It drives record industry people mad,” he said. “They want it. They want the thing, and they’re driven mad. If there are Rage shows, if there are not Rage shows, you’ll hear from the band. I do not know. When there is news, it will come from a collective statement from the band. There is no news.”
Faced with endless re-iterations of the “will Rage tour again/Is Rage on hiatus again?” question, Morello practiced his principled group’s steadfast omerta and declined to elaborate, offering up a perfectly zen answer to the thorny question: “We just don’t operate like other bands.”
Boygenius are hitting the road. On Tuesday (March 28), the supergroup made up of Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers announced their upcoming headlining tour of North America.
The nationwide trek will start with a show on April 12 at the Pomona Theatre in Los Angeles. The concert serves as a precursor to the band’s stop at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which they’re slated to play Saturday (April 15 and April 22) before headliners BLACKPINK turn the Indio, Calif.-based fest into BLINKCHELLA for the night.
Following Weekend 2 at the Empire Polo Club, the threesome’s tour will pick back up in the month of June, with intermittent stops in Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Toronto through the summer. Eventually, the 14-date journey will conclude with a show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on Aug. 5.
Carly Rae Jepsen, Broken Social Scene, Bartees Strange, Claud and Illuminati Hotties are all confirmed as opening acts on select dates of the tour. Meanwhile, Boygenius will also be touring in tandem as headliners for the inaugural traveling Re:Set Concert Series during the month of June along with LCD Soundsystem and Steve Lacy.
Each of the shows throughout the summer will be in support of the band’s long-awaited debut album The Record, which is set to be released Friday via Interscope Records — the same day tickets for the tour go on sale to the public. Leading up to the full-length’s drop, the indie rockers have already unveiled the tracks “$20,” “Emily I’m Sorry,” “True Blue” and, most recently, “Not Strong Enough.”
Check out the full list of Boygenius tour dates below
Everything you need to know about Poison was summed up in the title of their 1988 hit “Nothin’ But a Good Time.”
Since forming in 1983 in Mechanicsburg, Pa., the stalwart glam-metal quartet has made music for literally nothing but a good time. Sure, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” may have dampened a hanky or two, but Poison’s raison d’rock has been to get the party started and keep it going until dawn and beyond. And the good times rolled to the tune of four multi-platinum albums and eight top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
Poison laid any doubts about its staying power to rest with its performances during 2022’s The Stadium Tour, warming up for Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe with an ebullient greatest set that had thousands of fans rocking each night like it was 1988.
“I never knew what would happen, but I never thought it couldn’t happen,” frontman Bret Michaels tells Billboard. “We just found a way to get it done and enjoyed it. My pot of gold is the journey. I’ve met incredible people, I got to play incredible places and travel the world and play music and have a great time doing it. I think that’s something everybody who comes to see us relates to.”
During its tenure, Poison released seven studio albums, from the triple-platinum blockbuster Look What the Cat Dragged In in 1986 up to the 2007 covers set Poison’d! The classic lineup of Michaels, guitarist C.C. DeVille, bassist Bobby Dall and drummer Rikki Rockett has remained intact since 1996, and the frontman says the group is looking at 2025 for another tour and possibly some new music.
From Billboard chart hits to deep cuts, here are our picks for the group’s 10 best songs.
“Unskinny Bop” (1990)
There’s often ambivalence over this song because it’s so silly. But that’s the point. There are no artistic pretensions to “Unskinny” — it’s just a good-time romp with a chorus that sticks in your ears after the first pass. You can feel conflicted about it on principle, but when you hear it, you know you’ll be bop, bop, bopping along. Listen here.
“Stand” (1993)
Heartland rock wasn’t exactly within Poison’s milieu, but the group did a creditable job on this lead single from Native Tongue. Co-penned by new guitarist Ritchie Kotzen, the rootsy flavors of mandolin and acoustic guitar (along with a gospel choir) took Poison somewhere different — think John Mellencamp in the last half of the ’80s. It certainly raised a few eyebrows among the faithful, but it gave the group one final appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 50). Listen here.
“(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice” (1981)
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo
Poison’s collective libido did not necessarily make for poetic lyrics, but nobody really comes to this band looking for Shakespearean sonnets, do they? The title track from Poison’s third album leans toward the band’s grittier side, making for some guilt-free headbanging thanks to Rockett’s muscular wallop and a steady bottom pulse provided by Dall.
“Fallen Angel” (1988)
Poison tells its own story here — about moving west to find success — by creating the character of small-town girl (not that small-town girl) who takes the bus but doesn’t find the City of Angels to be quite so welcoming. The song won big, however, hitting No. 12 on the Hot 100. It’s not the last we’d hear of the Angel in question, either. Listen here.
“Shooting Star” (2002)
A sequel of sorts to 1988’s “Fallen Angel,” this chugging rocker from Hollyweird has a thicker, heavier tone than much of the band’s previous material with an opening riff that straddles ‘80s glam and ‘90s alt-rock. This time, Angel is fist-pumping throughout a compact, tightly executed track. Listen here.
“Look What the Cat Dragged In” (1986)
Image Credit: Courtesy Photo
The title track from Poison’s debut album sounds like the group found a Runaways/Joan Jett outtake in a back corner of some club and latched onto it like an unexpected Christmas present. “Cat” scratches just the right blend of punk, metal and personality to give a new band its sense of identity, and Poison drives the message home in a tight three minutes and 10 seconds.
“I Want Action” (1987)
The third single from Look What the Cat Dragged In is bouncy fun dipped in the glammy trough of Slade and Sweet — right down to the spoken exchanges after DeVille’s guitar solo. Like so much of the group’s oeuvre, “I Want Action” wears its message on its sleeve, and the video is four-minute calling card for all things Poison. Listen here.
“Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (1988)
“Every Rose” was the king of the power ballads at a time when power ballads were king. Heartbreak makes hits, of course, and Michaels’ spun Poison’s only Hot 100 No. 1 hit from hearing a male voice in the background of a phone call with his girlfriend while he was drying clothes at a laundromat in Dallas. His pain, our gain. Who knows how many Bic lighters or cell phone batteries have been drained while this was being played in concert. Listen here.
“I Won’t Forget You” (1987)
It’s been eclipsed in the power ballad department by “Every Rose” and “Something to Believe In,” but it sounds fresher because it hasn’t been played into the ground. It was an early highlight for DeVille as a guitar soloist, and its gentle, earthy production (especially compared to what came in its wake) makes it an easy, timeless listen. Listen here.
“Nothin’ But a Good Time” (1988)