Poison - Bell Biv DeVoe (CD 1990)

It's inevitable that groups split up. The temptation is too great not to follow your own artistic muse, or-more practically-the money looks a lot better when it's all yours instead of being split four or five ways. In most cases, the lead singer is the first to bolt. If you're a vocal group, maybe one more dude out of the band makes a solo record. The rest of the group generally fades into obscurity, only to show up years later in a "Where Are They Now" profile, or, in some cases-a police blotter. It's very rare for all of the members of one group to have some kind of solo success. Matter of..

It s safe to deduce that out of all of the members of New Edition, the least was expected out of Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe in no particular order. Lodged between the New Jack superstar (Bobby Brown) and the stone-cold gentleman of a lead singer (Ralph Tresvant), the three background singers didn t stand a chance on their own either one of them. Even the D.C. oddity in a sea of Bostonians, Johnny Gill, had a better shot at solo stardom than they did. So they must have considered the suggestion from Jimmy Jam

The new-jack swing period of music in the early '90s was a scene of imitators and duplicators. It seemed like everyone wanted to replicate the early success of the I-beg-because-I-want-you Keith Sweat or tried to collaborate in groups to match the popularity of one of Teddy Riley's constant manifestations (the group Guy) to bless/corrupt (you decide) the current music scene. However, this era of music is mainly remembered by a spin-off of the super group New Edition with their major hit which made guys everywhere start singing "that girl is poissooonnnnnn....." when they met girls who had...