Best of Ballads and Blues

Like many of its lite metal peers, Poison attracted its initial audience of young males with hard rock and salacious lyrics, but expanded its appeal to young women with apparently heartfelt ballads, scoring a major breakthrough with the chart-topping "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" in late 1988. Since the band's reign of success was relatively brief, really only lasting from 1987 to 1990 and spanning only three albums, 1986's Look What the Cat Dragged In, 1988's Open Up and Say...Ahh!, and 1990's Flesh & Blood, Capitol Records has been hard-pressed to turn out an unending succession of hits compilations on the group -- the type of compilations that usually keep record company bottom lines healthy long after an act goes into commercial decline. Best of Ballads & Blues is a clever idea, however, since it isolates the group's power ballads and midtempo numbers for all those former hair-teased honeys now driving mini-vans with baby seats in the back.