August 07, 2010

"Custom Built," the Poison frontman's first solo album since 2005's "Freedom of Sound," is a mixed-bag affair, with songs from his various reality TV pursuits sprinkled among new tunes, covers, remixes and a handful of previously released tracks. The fresh material isn't likely to expand your idea of who Bret Michaels is. The songs "Lie to Me" and "Wasted Time" adhere to Poison's familiar hair-metal style, while "Nothing to Lose" (with an admittedly unlikely Miley Cyrus cameo) is the kind of midtempo power ballad the singer has been using to seduce leather-clad ladies for more than two decades. But a bizarre grunge-rap take on Sublime's "What I Got" suggests that Michaels dreams of one day becoming a kind of trailer park Tom Waits. And a synth-heavy club mix of "Go That Far," the theme song from Michaels' hit VH1 series "Rock of Love," is just straight-up weird.—Mikael Wood

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