"Poison" marked a major comeback for Alice Cooper, becoming his first Top 10 hit in the US and UK for 12 and 16 years respectively, and remains one of his best known songs.
It is ranked by Billboard as the "91st top song of 1989", while Ultimate Classic Rock ranked it as the "7th best Alice Cooper song", commenting "Poison sounds like a typical '80s pop-metal number at times, but Cooper’s intensity brings it to a whole other level."