A Users’ Guide to Motley Crue
By Chuck Klosterman
Motley Crue occupies a peculiar space in the media landscape: Despite selling over fifty million albums, at least three members of the band are more famous on their own than all of the songs they’ve recorded as a group. It’s hard to imagine another band who could publish three bestselling books about themselves without really mentioning their music at all. The Dirt is a 448-page oral history, but — in one of the only passages where chief songwriter Nikki Sixx talks about the group’s musical legacy — he dismisses two of their most well-known albums in virtual totality. The members of Motley Crue often seem vaguely uninterested in their own artistic achievements, which is unfortunate, because at least 30 percent of the material they’ve made over the past 30 years borders on exceptional. The key is accepting that Sixx exclusively writes pop music — he likes to filter it through a variety of idioms (gutter glam on Too Fast for Love, disco metal on Shout At the Devil, glitter blues on Theatre of Pain, etc.), but the foundation for everything is accessible, hook-driven power pop with stylized lyrics and torrential drumming. The Crue aspired to Aerosmith and competed against Metallica, but their best work is more like a harder version of T. Rex processed by Kelly Clarkson. It’s for non-metalheads, really.
Though they seemed generally nonplussed by Elektra’s decision to re-release it in 1982, Too Fast For Love has proven to be the band’s greatest collection, particularly when you include the bonus tracks off the 1999 re-mastered re-re-release (”Toast of the Town,” the b-side to an early single titled “Stick to Your Guns,” might be the best song the band ever made). Composed during the height of the L.A. punk scene, the songs tend to be short, unpolished and repetitive. But the softer tracks are more nuanced and likeable than anything the band did after — “Come on and Dance,” “Public Enemy #1″ and “On with the Show” are the leathery equivalent of a West Coast Cheap Trick.
That trajectory significantly changed on Shout at the Devil, a record seemingly recorded on a Columbian coca farm (you could probably get seven years in prison for carrying Shout at the Devil into an airport). The Antichrist Superstar of its era, it’s the defining artifact of Reagan-era glam metal, all the way down to liner notes which warn that the album “may contain backward messages” (even if you’re listening to it on CD). Every song is based around a singular, ultra-compressed riff, and they are generally the coolest riffs Mick Mars was ever allowed to unleash: “Looks That Kill,” “Ten Seconds to Love” and their cover of “Helter Skelter” are among the few authentically heavy songs Motley Crue ever made. Though the opening gambit “In the Beginning” has not aged well, Shout at the Devil is a theatrical, thematically complete record that will always be essential to pop historians — if you’re remotely interested in this kind of music, you need to be specifically obsessed with this record.
Considering how little work they put into it, it’s amazing that 1985’s Theatre of Pain somehow remains retrospectively semi-decent: There’s almost nothing on it that wasn’t preexisting. The lead single (”Smokin’ in the Boys Room”) was a cover of Brownsville Station. The third song (”Louder then Hell”) was a leftover from Shout at the Devil. “Use it Or Lose It” is almost entirely vocals and drums. Two songs (”Save Our Souls” and “Fight for Your Rights”) are indistinguishable; another (”Raise Your Hands to Rock”) was evidently written in less than three minutes. But the ballad “Home Sweet Home” is iconic and emotive, and the opener “City Boy Blues” nicely embodies the Renaissance-era gypsy vibe they were pursuing at the time.
Girls, Girls, Girls marks the Crue’s “dirtbag biker/public urination” phase, and — here again — drugs limited the effort directed toward songwriting (much of it was done on heroin and “zombie dust,” a concoction of cocaine cut with Triazolam) But the results are still better than Theatre of Pain: It’s their darkest album and the perhaps their most “real,” whatever that might mean. Sixx writes about his dead grandma and killing his girlfriend. They close the record with a live Elvis cover. “Bad Boy Boogie” is terrible, but “All in the Name Of…” and “Sumthin’ for Nuthin’” are consciously depraved and incredibly fun. One assumes the title track will remain the band’s greatest gift to mankind, at least in communities where exotic dancing plays a role in the local economy. The remastered ‘99 version also includes a discarded ballad titled “Rodeo” that will be of interest to completists.
By all critical and commercial accounts, 1989’s Dr. Feelgood is easily the most important Motley Crue album, although this is less true for longtime fans of the group. Sober and professional, Motley Crue wrote and recorded the album they always dreamed of making; influenced in large part by producer Bob Rock, it’s the only album that always sounds like radio fare. The top-shelf stuff is excellent — “Same Ol’ Situation,” “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away),” and even “Kickstart My Heart” prove that Motley Crue’s massive success was completely warranted. But there’s a lot of filler on Feelgood, and it’s hurt by the inevitable comparison with Appetite for Destruction (the other major L.A. hard rock album from the same period).
After releasing a greatest hits album that offered a surprisingly innovative single (”Primal Scream”), the group famously sacked Vince Neil — not the world’s greatest singer, certainly, but the main reason Motley Crue sounded like themselves. Profoundly wounded by the explosion of grunge, the band hired Scream vocalist John Corabi and released the eponymous Motley Crue in 1994, a transparent failure at making music that resembled Soundgarden. Fifteen years later, Motley Crue now comes across as interesting (”Smoke the Sky” being a particular high point), but it still seems disconnected from the rest of the band’s catalog. Vince Neil’s first solo record Exposed from ‘93 (recorded with Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens) is less musical but a more logical Crue extension.
When the original line-up reformed in 1997 to make Generation Swine, the hope was that this would become their version of Pump. That goal was not achieved. An awkward, schizophrenic album that employs technology in the worst possible way, Generation Swine has exactly one non-bad song, “Afraid.” A much better effort is the overlooked New Tattoo from the summer of 2000: Though the record lacks Tommy Lee’s distinctive drumming (he was temporarily replaced by the now deceased Randy Castillo), the songs are far superior to everything on Swine, most notably “Hell on High Heels.” Lee subsequently rejoined the band after his release from prison for several tours and the recording of 2008’s Saints of Los Angeles. This ninth Crue record includes a rote re-writing of “Wild Side” (now titled “Saints of Los Angeles”) and includes 12 other songs that sound as if they were recorded by a collection of other bands attempting to sound like Motley Crue.
I’m not a Motley Crue or even a metal fan, but I’m surprised they are on eMusic. Looks like they own the rights now and the music is on their own label?
Smokin’ in the Boys Room was originally done by Brownsville Station, not Brown Central Station. Good article. I’ve always enjoyed Klosterman’s music writing, even though I have limited appreciation for much of the stuff he loves (like Motley Crue).
Muggsy,
Noted/corrected. Thanks!!!
Considering the extent to which Klosterman raves about “Shout at the Devil” in his wonderful first book, “Fargo Rock City,” I’m quite surprised by his%
Used to listen to them when I was a kiddie, but they lost the plot after Shout at the Devil. Everything after that is craptastic IMO.
^^ and even the first 2 albums are very hit and miss. There are a few good songs though. Not sure I would listen to it now though LOL
I don’t see how Dr Feelgood could be their most important album. While it was certainly better than the previous two, it contributed nothing to artistic or commercial trends. Hair metal had peeked and was in decline by its release, so Dr Feelgood merely capitalized on a genre that the band helped break several years earlier. It neither re-established nor breathed new life into its scene. Is it a good album? Sure. One of their best? Yes, though a distant third to the first two. Does it rock? A bit, but in a rather safe way. It does derive energy from their new found sobriety, but lacks any “go for the throat” nature that fueled their first two albums.
SATD, on the other hand, was probably only a few months too early to be one of the biggest albums of the 80s. Aside from “In the Beginning” and “God Bless…,” pretty much anything could have been a single (okay, “Bastard” eliminates itself based on the title). Mutt Lange wanted Def Leppard’s Hysteria to be a hard rock Thriller and yet SATD was so close musically to be able to achieve that. However, it did open doors to more hard rock bands, so much so that their run-of-the-mill to poor follow-up albums were huge commercial successes. SATD and Pyromania really showed the majors that hard rock was poised for major mainstream success.
There are so many indie bands that the average user would love to see on this site… what angry mob in hell was clamoring to get the entire catalog of a hair metal band on here?
Calma te boygriv, is it hurting you or something that something that a) is many people’s childhood memory and b) is comendable that they now own their own music enough to place it on eMusic? Better yet does it change the chance for “indie bands that the average user would love to see” tro be on?
In short no no it does neither of those things. If you want a band to be on eMusic. . . GO TALK TO THEIR FUCKING RECORD LABEL AND GET THEM THE FUCK ON EMUSIC AND STOP WASTING MY TIME WITH YOUR BABY CRY BABY SHIT
just my honest opinion, thank you very much for listening
with much love, forever
Nergali di Cuthah
I will say they are/were better than Poison or. The more music offered here the better for we fans of music.
Long live eMusic!
I felt this was a pretty accurate description of the Crue’s catalog. I love independant music of every flavor but like most music nazis, I have a few skeletons in my closet and the Crue is one of them. It’s so easy for the average listener to despise the Crue and certainly the band gives you many good excuses to, but behind the 70% shitty songs and the ego and the spandex there’s a sweet, teenaged caveman spirit that makes you want to be retarded in the best possible way; it tickles that prehistoric fossilized funny bone that makes your head explode and fantasize about large breasted Amazonian women. It’s stupid music for the part of you that’s built to believe that life is short and there’re no second chances; if you let go of logic and reason, even just for three and a half minutes, there’s a form of lizard brained nirvana there that you can’t get anywhere else. Unfortunately most people are too afraid of the unknown to tear down rational walls and admit how absurd everything is. I feel like this music can enliven and enlighten you just as profoundly as Marvin Gaye or Cat Power or whatever, you just have to let go.
Huge gaping hole: No love for “Live Wire”? Fun to listen to, fun to cover.
yeah, i also will read anything klosterman writes even though i don’t much care for the crue.
Only heard this stuff on the radio (over and over and over…..), was never a ‘fan’ but always appreciate anything done well. As far as the catalog, when this band hit it they hit it bullseye, and I also am glad to see teh Crue on emusic. Also gotta agree w/ comment elsewhere that the “Motley Crue” album, sans Mr. Neil (sorry, Vince) is…pretty damn good. Now: how about some Husker Du, emusic?
For years I have tried to bite my tongue while the words “Motley Crue” and “music” are mentioned in the same sentence. No more.
Thank you, Motely Crue, for making me ill enough to be willing to check out metal with substance and balls.
I love all the old song from 80s that you guys put out back then.
:bites check while wondering if previous poster (#16) realizes that this is not Motley Crue who either wrote the article nor that run this site:
:bites other check wondering if Jayson or Chuck Klosterman might have also had an old song from the 80s that wuz put out “back then” that poster #16 might have been referring to:
I am the ultimate Motley Crue Fan always have been & always will be Probebally I think I have & know every song they have but its only “Right” when its those 4
Great Article. I’ve been a crue fan since the early days. They are by far one of the best bands to come out of the 80’s and contrary to popular opinion, I do not consider them hair metal. I think they time dictated the look but the music was solid all the way.
Scott