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Celebrating our love affairs with albums past, present and future
Daryl McIntosh
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Happy 30th Anniversary to Bell Biv DeVoe’s debut studio album Poison, originally released March 20, 1990.
There are certain albums that automatically help you understand an entire generation better.The impact they have is indelible, and they are remembered for contributing to a culture’s defining trends, as they relate to music, fashion or otherwise.
Psychologists refer to the period between the ages of six and eight years as “middle childhood.” It’s an important stage in childhood development when children are expected to achieve milestones with social interaction while building their confidence and independence. I still remember my own journey through this stage and can reflect on how music was impactful in shaping my worldview. Fortunately for me, it was during this period that the trio of Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe released the monumental LP Poison.As a kid who was beginning to understand my place in the world, and not just inside my home, artists like LL Cool J, Nice & Smooth, and Bell Biv DeVoe were essential in providing the slang, fashion, and attitude my friends and I could aspire to and often emulate.
My friends and I were so young that we really didn’t understand the importance of the popular group New Edition being splintered into solo artists (Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant, Johnny Gill) and the Bel Biv DeVoe trio.We primarily knew Brown as a solo artist and had been spoon fed his 1988 sophom*ore LP Don’t Be Cruel by our mothers and aunties since transitioning from our preschool stage.The same could be said for New Edition’s fifth album Heart Break, which featured Gill as a replacement for Brown during his solo career ascension.
As objective and impressionable children, all we knew when BBD dropped the song “Poison” that it was fun, and so undeniably catchy that it was arguably the first truly addictive song of the new decade.We weren’t sophisticated consumers who tore the plastic from the cassette tape to search for who laid the production for the hot track, and thankfully, we didn’t really comprehend the lyrics about an irresistibly curvaceous temptress.
All we knew was that there was something infectious about a beat that almost seemed better suited for Heavy D or Salt-N-Pepa rather than an R&B group offshoot. We didn’t carry over the previous decade’s experience to make us wonder how Tresvant would have sounded as the lead vocalist, had the song been released by the original New Edition quintet.We were unbiased, which helped us fully buy into the confidence of Bell, whose tenor soared on the track and throughout the album.
As innovative as the song “Poison” was in encompassing the brashness of hip-hop’s attitude, all three vocalists interchanged lyrics with smooth but almost unrecognizable transitions.And with rap lyrics incorporated to help drive the seductive narrative, there was nothing on radio at the time that sounded quite like “Poison.” Likewise, the song’s official music video added a new aesthetic to urban culture, as Bell Biv DeVoe would set trends by leaving tags on their baseball and bucket hats, mismatching Timberland and high-top sneakers, and helping to popularize the donning of oversized parkas and bomber jackets.
Adding some versatility to the LP, BBD slowed the tempo for their next single “Do Me!”The sultry lyrics which zoned in on the arousing phase of foreplay, where you might take in a moment to admire the satisfaction that awaits, was delivered by Belly who sang, “Girl let your hair down / take off your clothes and leave on your shoes / would you mind if I look at you for a moment / before I make sweet love.”The smoothness helped push the song to BBD’s second consecutive landing at number 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and played no small part in the album’s ultimate attainment of multi-platinum status.
Part of the group’s success and distinct sound was the enlistment of the Public Enemy production team The Bomb Squad, namely Eric Sadler, along with Hank and Keith Shocklee.The talented production trio used their signature brand of hip-hop/funk to add texture to the LP with three tracks in particular. “Let Me Know Something?!”, “Ain’t Nut’in Changed”, and “B.B.D (I Thought It Was Me)” all encapsulated what Bell Biv DeVoe would flaunt as their mantra: “Our music is mentally hip-hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip with a pop feel appeal to it.”
Dr. Freeze was another producer who left a huge imprint on the album, providing the beat for the song “Poison” and the LP’s final single “Dope! (a.k.a. She’s Dope!).”“Dope!” is a mid-tempo song that uses one of hip-hop’s most enduring slang terms to describe the song’s ubiquitous love interest. The lyrics “Definitely wanna make you scream / her body's like a built machine / everybody's asking if she's mine / girls like this / are really hard to find” may seem shallow on the surface, but upon further reflection, the sentiment captures the reality of those special moments when you are genuinely captivated by a tantalizing physical specimen.
Bell Biv DeVoe’s inaugural LP Poison was highly successful in every aspect; it went on to sell over 4 million copies and has impacted urban culture in ways immeasurable. Poison took what Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis began in the mid ‘80s, in merging hip-hop, funk and R&B, to construct a hybrid of contemporary soul music called New Jack Swing.This hybrid subgenre would be further popularized by Teddy Riley and others but reached a milestone in 1990 with the release of Poison.
Poison makes a convincing case as one of the most important albums within the R&B genre, because it is a bridge between the very important New Edition legacy and Michael Bivins’ ensuing career as a creative, talent-building genius.As a groundbreaking LP, Poison’s success helped give Biv the industry capital and credibility to stamp groups like Boyz II Men, who would go on to nearly redefine R&B for the duration of the ‘90s.
As a child learning how to navigate the world through the vehicle of hip-hop culture, Poison was one of my and my contemporaries’ very first compasses. It kept us aligned with slang, fashion, and attitude to traverse the ‘90s, and endures as a jewel from our personal Golden Era three decades on.
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