Poison Albums Ranked Worst to Best

This ranking of Poison‘s albums from best to worst paints a near-mythological portrait of an entire musical era through the lens of one of its biggest bands.

Although they were not quite the highest-selling or most musically accomplished band of the hair metal era, Poison perhaps represented the movement best. With their multisensory onslaught of neon-and-spandex clothing, androgynous makeup, Aqua Netted hair and loud, unapologetic party-metal anthems, Poison became archetypes of the dreaded glam metal pejorative.

But there is no denying that they wrote some damn good songs along the way. Poison’s first three albums — 1986’s Look What the Cat Dragged In, 1988’s Open Up and Say … Ahh! and 1990’s Flesh & Blood — are chock-full of catchy, riff-driven pop-metal anthems and bleeding-heart power ballads.

But then the ’90s happened and things got hairy for Poison.

The band fired guitarist C.C. DeVille after a drug-fueled implosion at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. They replaced him with young blues-rock virtuoso Richie Kotzen and released Native Tongue in 1993. But grunge and alternative rock had fully obliterated glam metal by then and Poison’s time in the sun was over.

The rockers floundered for the rest of the decade and finally released the previously shelved Crack a Smile … and More! in 2000 with Blues Saraceno on the guitar. DeVille returned to the band for 2002’s Hollyweird, and in 2007 Poison released the Poison’d! covers album, their most recent studio effort to date.

From dizzying, multi-platinum highs to dismal, rap-metal lows, Poison’s discography serves as a microcosm of the entire glam metal era. But despite their critical drubbing and misguided decisions, they’ve retained their fanbase and remained a top concert draw because the best parts of their catalog still hold up.

Revisit the good, the bad and the ugly in our ranking below.