''Flesh & Blood'' is the third studio album by

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

glam metal Glam metal (also known as hair metal or pop metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam ...

band Poison, released on July 2, 1990, through the Enigma label of Capitol Records. It peaked at number 2 on the Billboard charts and more than 7.2 million copies were sold worldwide. It peaked at number 1 on the Cash Box charts. The album was an attempt by the band to establish a more serious musical stance, more than just the hair metal party dynamic of 1988's '' Open Up and Say... Ahh!''. It spawned two top 10 singles, "

Unskinny Bop "Unskinny Bop" is a song by American glam metal band Poison, released as the first single from their third studio album, '' Flesh & Blood'' (1990), on June 18, 1990. The song peaked at number three on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100, number five on ...

" and " Something to Believe In" and three other hit singles, " Ride the Wind", " Life Goes On", and "

(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice ''Flesh & Blood'' is the third studio album by American glam metal band Poison, released on July 2, 1990, through the Enigma label of Capitol Records. It peaked at number 2 on the Billboard charts and more than 7.2 million copies were sold wor ...

". It was

certified Platinum Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

in 1990 and triple Platinum in 1991 by the RIAA. It has been certified 4× Platinum by CAN and Gold by BPI.

Production and marketing

The album was recorded and mixed at

Little Mountain Sound Studios Little Mountain Sound Studios is a music recording facility in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, it was the most successful recording studio in Western Canada and the home for many years to producers Bruce Fa ...

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

, Canada, with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn and mixer Mike Fraser. The front cover art features the Poison

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

and album title as a

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

on drummer

Rikki Rockett Richard Allan Ream (born August 8, 1961), better known by the stage name Rikki Rockett, is an American drummer for rock band Poison. The band has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide and 15 million records in the United States alone. Bio ...

's arm. The cover was originally planned to have a slightly different version of the tattoo after being freshly inked, with inflamed red skin with dripping ink or blood. The original cover was released for the initial pressing in Japan but was removed from all later pressings including those in Japan. The record's marketing reflected the end of Poison's glam image, including excessive make-up and teased, girlish hair as with ''

Look What the Cat Dragged In ''Look What the Cat Dragged In'' is the debut studio album by American glam metal band Poison, released on May 23, 1986 through Enigma Records. Though not a success at first, it steadily built momentum and peaked at #3 on the US ''Billboard'' ...

'', instead being similar to Guns N' Roses.

Songs

Parts of the album are darker and more serious, including overcoming hard times, missing loved ones, long-term relationships, and mass sociopolitical disillusionment. Fun topics include sex, exhilaration from music or motorbikes, and tongue-in-cheek poverty. Some songs have a blues rock style. The meaning of the album's lead single "Unskinny Bop", one of the band's most popular songs, is obscure. DeVille later confessed that the phrase "unskinny bop" has no particular meaning. He devised it as a temporary measure while writing the song, before vocalist Bret Michaels had begun working on the lyrics. The phrase was used on the basis that it was

phonetically Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

suited to the music. The song was later played to producer Fairbairn, who stated that although he did not know what an "unskinny bop" was, the phrase was perfect.

Accolades

''Flesh & Blood'' was voted Best Album in ''

Circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

'' magazine's 1990 Readers' Poll, and the album's second single "Something to Believe In" was voted Best Single. The album yielded three ''

Metal Edge ''Metal Edge'' was a magazine covering heavy metal music published by Zenbu Media. The magazine was founded in the summer of 1985, during the height of glam metal's success. Zenbu Media acquired ''Metal Edge'' in February 2007. Both ''Metal Edg ...

'' Readers' Choice Awards in 1990: Album of the Year, and "Something to Believe In" for Song of the Year and Best Video.Metal Edge, May 1991

Track listing

† The 2006 reissue contains a mastering error, as the last few seconds of "Poor Boy Blues" are missing from this version.

Video album

'' Flesh, Blood, & Videotape'' is the second video compilation released by Poison, featuring the music videos from ''Flesh & Blood''. # "Let It Play" (

Montage Montage may refer to: Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films * Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing * ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film Music * Montage (music), or sound collage * ''Montage'' (Block B EP), 201 ...

clip) # "Unskinny Bop" # "Ride the Wind" # "Poor Boy Blues" (Montage clip) # "Something to Believe In" # "Life Goes On" # "(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice" (Uncensored version)

Personnel

* Bret Michaels - lead vocals, rhythm guitar *

C.C. DeVille C.C. DeVille (born Bruce Anthony Johannesson; May 14, 1962) is an American guitarist best known as a member of rock band Poison. The band has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, including 15 million in the United States. In addition to ...

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featu ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

Bobby Dall Robert Harry Kuykendall, also known as Bobby Dall (born November 2, 1958), is an American musician best known as the bassist for the multi-platinum selling rock band Poison. The band has sold over 50 million albums worldwide and has sold 15 mill ...

- bass,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

- drums,

John Webster John Webster (c. 1580 – c. 1632) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies '' The White Devil'' and '' The Duchess of Malfi'', which are often seen as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and c ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

Production

* Produced by Bruce Fairbairn *Co-produced by Mike Fraser *

Mastered Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

George Marino George Marino (April 15, 1947 – June 4, 2012) was an American mastering engineer known for working on albums by rock bands starting in the late 1960s. Biography Marino was born on April 15, 1947, in the New York City borough The Bronx. He at ...

at Sterling Sound,

NYC New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flesh and Blood (Poison Album) 1990 albums Poison (American band) albums Capitol Records albums Enigma Records albums Albums produced by Bruce Fairbairn Albums recorded at Little Mountain Sound Studios Blues rock albums by American artists