I know it might sound crazy, but I really feel that this is ALICE COOPER'S best work. I love Alice, and all of his work, but this album is so entertaningly cheesy and experimental that it just bowled me over when I finally got it a couple of months ago. The idea of production by Desmond Child (Bon Jovi), made me wary of what he'd make Alice sound like, but what he's managed to do is add the same hooky sing-along sensability that he did for Bon Jovi and Aerosmith. I know that might sound a little wrong for Alice Cooper, but give this album a chance. The big hit, "Poison", is a great, campy rocker, and virtually the entire album is wall-to-wall hooks galore. This album basically reflects Alice Cooper moving to a style somewhere between Motley Crue and Bon Jovi. The songs: "Bed of Nails", "Only my Heart Talking", "Hell is living without you" (a song co-written and backed by Bon Jovi), and "House of Fire" are all amazingly catchy, goofy songs. This album is pure trash (like the title), but trash that is supremely fun and entertaining. As great as all his early stuff is, this is the kind of album that, wall-to-wall, features songs that you will not be able to get out of your head after you listen to them. Trust me. This one may be more for 80's rock fans than ALICE COOPER purists, but anyone with an open mind will find a astoundingly catchy and fun album if they're willing to listen to it.

Old skool heavy rock fans hate this album. They hate the whiff of sellout, the guest appearances like the co-writing with Desmond Child, Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi. They hate the fact that people as varies as Stiv Bator, Steve Lukather and a whole heap of Aerosmith and girlie faves like Kane Roberts and Kip Winger were also features. Particularly in relation to the latter two mentioned, they take umbrage that such third tier types were in posession of bigger profiles than their teenage shock rock idol circa '89.

The simple fact is that this sort of collaboration is exactly what Alice needed to bring him up to date. To bring his legacy to a new generation and the plain truth is that since this album the Coop has never fallen off the radar as badly as he had with dross such as Special Forces and Da.

The worst things that could be said of this album are that it's a cop out with all the extra writers and that it's a shameless sellout. But even a sellout is better than what we'd put up with prior to this release.

But just cos I'm not someone who was 18 when Billion Dollar Babies came out and therefore feel obliged to hate everything that came after doesn't mean I find this album faultess. Far from it. So, IMHO;

- Poison is a great song and a great way to start an album. Other highlights would be Bed of Nails in a cheesy sort of way and Spark in the Dark and House of Fire scoot along quickly enough that you almost don't notice the shaky musical premises their built on. Nicely flowing chorus' on tunes such as This Maniacs in Love With You and the visceral vocal performance of Why Trust You (a little out of place on a disc so smoothly produced by Desmond Child) lift these tunes to at least bog standard level.

- However despite Alice trying to talk it up at the time, Only My Heart Talkin' was never gonna have much impact on the charts. And Hell is Living Without You is filler while I'm Your Gun - well they probably figured that if they tacked it onto the end of the album nobody would notice it. And given the calibre of the songwriters here it's pretty scary they couldn't come upwith at least ten decent tunes.

- Alice Cooper still has something about him on pretty much any release he touches. And his brand of shock rock that at times delved into art rock is here fairly streamlined into mainstream late 80's hard rock. The riffs are clean, the production nice and when it does work it works pretty darn well. For heavens sake even Barry Manilow loving housewives like my mother liked Poison the thing was so darn catchy!

This slice of corporate rock ain't the best Coop product by a fair margin. But it gave him back the commercial impetus to relaunch his career and he subsequently grabbed that chance with both hands so regardless of what the purists may think this is an important album in the mans cataluge, but not always for the music itself.

After being a Alice Cooper fan for many years this is the one album that I had neglected and never given a listen to. Mainly because the bad rap it's always gotten as being "sell out" or "corparate" So now that I finally have all of Alice's albums I figured I would give it a shot. I am listeing to it right now as I write this review and I have to say I like this album...Calling it a sell out is not the best way to describe it, But it is a very trendy album for 1989 Hard Rock and the move to include Desmond Child and Bon Jovi don't help matters much. I call this album his "Alice Jovi" period. Being the follow up to maybe my favorite Alice album ever "Raise Your Fist And Yell" it is disapointing, But some of the tunes are some of his best ever "Poison" "This Maniacs In Love With You" "Trash" "Hell Is Living Without You" are all excellent...But my favorite track on this album is "House Of Fire" which I think is a perfect Alice Cooper song. The only tune I don't care for is "Only My Heart Talkin" It doesn't fit Alice at all and could have been a song for any paint by numbers Hard Rock band of 1989, And the riff in "Spark In The Dark" is a total Bon Jovi rip off (yuck) I think any Alice Cooper fan can find something to dig on this album...Is it his best work ever? Nope but it is a good solid Rockin album...It's worth 5 dollars :)

Alice tried to go with the times, and produced this hair metal album, extremely glossy, slick and commercial. But come on, the choruses are infectious, the playing is highly competent and it resulted in fun music. Hey, a guy must pay his bills!

This is a great Alice Cooper album. Poison is a classic. Also, not only does it have great rock 'n' roll hits like the title track, Bed Of Nails, House Of Fire, and Spark In The Dark, but it also has touching strong love songs such as Only My Heart Talkin' and Hell Is Living Without You. A great come back album from Alice Cooper, released in 1989. I promise that you'll enjoy it too if you're an Alice Cooper fan! It's definately my favorite Alice Cooper album, and one of his greatest!