Home · Albums · Poison · Open Up and Say… Ahh!

Open Up and Say… Ahh! 1988
Album · by Poison ↗ View artist

Open Up and Say… Ahh!

Open Up and Say… Ahh! arrived in 1988 as Poison's second album and marked a shift in their sound. If their debut Look What the Cat Dragged In had put them on the map with raw, straightforward glam metal, here they loosened up the excess shine to bet on more polished melodies and lyrics that balanced between humor and drama. The record sounds like a band that already dominated the stage but, in the studio, decided to try different things: the riffs remain catchy, but there’s more room for clean arrangements and careful choruses, as if they had tuned down the shine without losing attitude. The production, though polished, keeps that live energy that characterized them, with guitars that cut through without overloading and vocals that swing between shout and whisper.

Year
1988
Songs
10
Duration
36 min 27 seg

About the album

Open Up and Say… Ahh!, according to DoReSol

The tracklist includes gems that defined their era. Nothin’ but a Good Time is the quintessential anthem: a riff that bursts in like a train and lingers in your head, with lyrics that seem made to sing at the top of your lungs at a concert. Every Rose Has Its Thorn, on the other hand, is the ballad that took them out of the party zone and into radios across the country; that acoustic guitar weaving with the electric in the chorus is pure studio magic. And we can’t forget Fallen Angel, where the band plays with rhythm changes that surprise, as if the track had two distinct personalities. The album also features Your Mama Don’t Dance, a song that mixes attitude with a groove that invites you to move your feet, and Love on the Rocks, which closes with a guitar solo that sounds like an epic farewell.

The reception was immediate: Open Up and Say… Ahh! became their best-selling album, with certifications surpassing millions in the United States. On the charts, it reached number one and stayed there for weeks, something few glam metal albums achieved with that consistency. What’s interesting is that, despite its success, it doesn’t feel like a calculated mainstream record: there are moments where the band sounds as if they’re improvising, as if the studio were just another stage. Even today, when you play it, you can tell that behind the polished choruses there’s an energy that can’t be faked.