"Poison" (Bell Biv Devoe)

I hated this song when it came out.  With a big ol' passion.  And it was for one reason alone: that cheesy beat.
Every time I heard it, it reminded me of this crappy late 80s toy called Hit Stix.
If you're not familiar with said toy, it was an electronic "instrument"--I use the term loosely--with two drumsticks attached to a mini amplifier.  The selling point was that you didn't have to strike anything to make a sound; the drumsticks somehow sensed when you waved them around, which meant you could drum in mid-air if you wanted to.  Pretty cool, right?
Ah, if only they had worked as well as the awful commercials claimed they would.  Instead, the "drum" sounds more closely resembled blips of static from a CB radio rather than a real electric drum kit.
So you can see how my ire for this crappy gyp of a toy might have colored my opinion of the song a little bit...
But after hearing "Poison" a few (thousand) times on MTV and radio throughout the spring of 1990, I began to see how genius it was: it was essentially an R&B song with smooth vocals, yet it had this Public Enemy/Bomb Squad production style that felt hip hop, right down to the Kool G. Rap "Poison" sample that repeats throughout.  It really didn't sound like anything else at the time.
Anyway, I think it was a calculated move on the part of producer Elliot Straite (aka Dr. Freeze) to create a rhythm track that sounded like a kid's toy.  The song itself is about being wary of gold-digging groupies and skeezes, but it's delivered with a knowing wink and wry sense of humor.  I mean, you can't take a song too damn seriously with lines like:
So she's a winner to you, but I know she's a loser
(How do you know?)
Me and the crew used to do her...
I think the cheesy beat and laugh-out-loud warnings about not trusting "a big butt and a smile" were all part of the formula to create something that made everyone from radio programmers to kids (like me) watching MTV say, "Yeah, it's those three guys from New Edition, but you've gotta hear this song."
Even now, when you hear this song come on--be it at a club, wedding, bar mitzvah, funeral, etc--you can guarantee that everyone and your grandma is eventually going to be on the dance floor, doing the running man.
Classic.