At the same time as the great Genesis + discography I pored through the complete catalog of XTC and, to save my mental health, Motley Crue.
Motley Crue – Too Fast For Love – 1981
What do you get if you take The Ramones, ram them hard into Van Halen, strip them to their base eros core, dress them up like New York Dolls dip them in The Sweet and tell them “it’s okay. The 70s are over. It’s a new day. Go. Have fun.”
You get Motley Crue.
We’ve all read The Dirt, right? I don’t need to rehash that, do I? It’s one of the best rock biographies ever. Go read it. I’ll wait.
Psst. We’re not waiting. Fuck that noise. It’s time to bring the glam. And the riffs are pouring out on the debut album.
Vince Neil is only slightly more masculine than Cherrie Currie. In fact, she could have fronted this band except that Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee would have probably impregnated her before they could tour.
That’s what Too Fast to Love is about. Energy. Tons of bands (Ratt, LA Guns, Poison and 100s of others) would take up the make-up, spray can metal mantle but Crue was one of the first and they prove why they would last on this record.
It’s interesting to note that the sound of metal that I would come to know and hate throughout the 80s, the faux stadium drums, the deep anthem reverb, is nowhere to be found here. This is as raw a record as any other of its ilk of the style.
Pop metal is a lot different than the other metal that was brewing at the time. With Metallica and Pantera and Dokken taking up the pure metal mantle I actually prefer the party all the time glam of Crue. They aren’t making bold statements, just having a blast. With killer solos, ala Mick Mars. I mean, could “Public Enemy Number One” sound any more like Sweet? Except that Chinn and Chapman never had a lead guitarist to write for like this.
In fact, on empty calorie songs like “Take Me to the Top”, were it not for Mars solo it would be a waste of 3 mins. (I know, I know. Stop it.) And for every one of those there’s a “Too Fast For Love”, which could have just as easily been preformed by The Runaways but the testosterone treatment here is just as good.
A few of the songs overstay their welcome, to be sure, but I won’t nitpick this release. This was written, performed, produced and released by a group of young rock star wannbes, making it one of the best calling cards I’ve ever heard.
Grade: A
A Side: Live Wire, Too Fast For Love
BlindSide: Come on and Dance, Public Enemy Number 1, On With The Show
DownSide:
Motley Crue – Shout at the Devil – 1983
Ah, the early 80s, when just about every metal group opened one of their records with ominous mantras, orations or declarations. Remember Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast?
Those were the days.
And so opens Shout at the Devil. What are they decreeing? I have no idea. All I know is that leads into the sludgy-wannametal title track. When I name checked the band and the song in “Another Hoop”, I really didn’t know what I was talking about. Think Bret Michaels meets Kiss with jackboots. I don’t know why that came to mind. The song is a bit lock-step, dontcha think?
Fortunately we get back to riff-tastic metal-gum immediately after with top down sunset strip sleaze machine of “Looks that Kill”. If by now you are looking for any meaning beyond, “darrr, she’s hot”, you’re in the wrong place, bub.
While much of the album is generi-metal, there is also room for Spinal Tappish “brilliance” like the quasi- classical “God Bless the Children of the Beast”. I shit you not. And this record came out AFTER the movie. Classic!
And that’s followed by one of the ugliest covers in HISTORY! The band with no cred and limited musical ability gives us their take on The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” and, even though its uneven and desperate, I kind of appreciate just how earnestly the band wears their “influences” on their sleeve. Hell, if Gene Simmons can lay claim to Lennon/McCartney as muses, I’ll take Mars, Sixx & Neil as well. (Tommy’s an idiot. A monkey with a giant cock and a vague sense of rhythm with the ability to hit really really hard as he proves on the next track, “Red Hot”)
The beauty of Motley is that they are taking very seriously the fact that they don’t take themselves seriously, while taking themselves seriously and putting on makeup. If you are looking for, I dunno, songs that last the test of time, you’re in the wrong place. You gotta laugh at Motley while they are taking your money and fucking your girlfriend.
Cuz that’s exactly what they are doing.
Grade B+
A Side: Shout at the Devil, Too Young to Fall in Love
BlindSide: Red Hot
DownSide: Awww, come on.
Motley Crue – Theatre of Pain – 1985
Don’t let the title fool you, take a look at the cover art. This is more glamour than metal. Go where the money is, right?
Opening with the riff-tastic “City Boy Blues” this is the sound of a band finding the sweet spot. They’ve been on tour for a while and are ready to flex their muscles. Surveyed their surroundings and realized that MTV is of two minds, poncy hairdressers with keyboards and Michael Jackson. Crue brought the T & A.
In retrospect, “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room” makes perfect sense as a cover. When it came out I thought it was weirdly incongruous. Until I realized that Mars & Sixx are so fixated on early 70s glam rock/pop. This fit perfectly. I totally dig Vince Neil’s passable harmonica as well. The boys are going for rock cred here.
We don’t really get a solid Mars lead lick until the 3rd track, “Louder than Hell”. It’s kept to a minimum but it’s tasty.
“Keep Your Eye on the Money” is basically an AC/DC song that goes on about a minute too long. But at a time when AC/DC wasn’t doing anything worthwhile somebody had to pick up the grail.
If you think that Nikki Sixx didn’t in some way have his finger on the pulse of how to write a hit, check out “Home Sweet Home” and then listen to Carrie Underwood’s 2009 cover, which served as the sayonara song for American Idol that year. And a big hit on the country charts.
Yes. Crue. On Idol. Crue. On the country charts. Bret Michaels must have cried when that happened.
And, seriously, go Mick Mars!
Speaking of Mick Mars… “Use It or Lose It” is really just an excuse to let him go crazy. Here’s a guy who just really wanted to be in a rock band, grew up in the 70s, was coming to the end of his chances and hit the motherlode.
After the stadium ready “Save our Souls”, the band busts out the acoustic guitars, pair them with the crunch and give us another Anthem, “Raise Your Hands to Rock”.
I kind of wish the record didn’t end on such a uninteresting pander to fist pumping but, what can you do?
This is 80s metal/glam. I dig it.
Grade: A-
A Side: Smokin’ in the Boys Room, Home Sweet Home
BlindSide: City Boy Blues, Keep Your Eye on the Money, Use it or Lose It, Raise Your Hands to Rock
DownSide: Tonight (We Need A Lover)
Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood – 1989
Ripping a page from Kiss’s Destroyer, Crue’s monster hit opens with the sounds of, I assume, someone in an ambulance arriving at a hospital. Makes sense. Nikki Sixx nearly died of heroin overdose. Vince Neil’s car accident took the life of Hanoi Rocks’ lead singer. Slamming into the stadium ready single, “Dr. Feelgood”, a catchy pop metal beast if I’ve ever heard one, the album is a culmination of everything these guys had been working toward for the past decade. “Slice of Your Pie” is a mutant hybrid of Poison and Guns n’ Roses, as is much of the record.
“Rattlesnake Shake” could be any other Crue song but that’s fine with me because it sounds more vital due to that strong production and, anyway, I’m just not tired of the act yet. And then there’s that Sweet meets cocaine, “Kickstart My Heart”. For all Buckcherry lays claim to being the heir apparent to GnR, it’s obvious they were slaves to the Crue. “Kickstart” may be about Sixx’s brush with death but, if it is, it’s the most energetic one I’ve ever heard. “Without You” is the requisite ballad. Interchangeable with every Cinderella, Ratt, Poison, etc, hair metal balladry, sure. But, once you’re caught up in the record (and those minor chords help) you don’t mind. It’s only gonna be a couple minutes anyway. One minute their extolling the specific talents they love in a woman (“She Goes Down”) and the very next tossing her to the curb (“Don’t Go Away Mad, Just Go Away”). I even dig that last track, “Time for Change”. It’s not as aggro as the rest of the record, but it’s a perfect theme song to a prom in 1989.
Dr. Feelgood puts on airs of being “serious rock” but it’s just glam-pop gussied up in deeper kick drums and bigger bass lines.
Grade: A
A Side: Dr. Feelgood, Kickstart My Heart, Same Ol’ Situation, Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
BlindSide: Slice of Your Pie, She Goes Down
DownSide:
Motley Crue – Motley Crue – 1994
Waitaminnit! Kiss did this, didn’t they?!? Lemme see…no, no! Crue was there first! They were first to abandon their glam rock sound, the one that sold them millions of records and afforded them all the cars, homes and girls, to ditch that in favor of the emerging trend of grunge! What a bunch of maroons.
Vince Neil, jettisoned by the band (or leaving on his accord, depending on the story) leaves quite a vacuum in a rock band. You can replace the bassist. The drummer. Mayyyybe the lead guitarist. You might hire people to write new songs (hello, Aerosmith). But when you replace the voice of the band. What people sing along to. The human image of the band. You better be damn sure you got the right guy.
Crue did.
For what they were trying to achieve.
It’s obvious from the first song, “Power to the Music”, that Nikki Sixx has decided that the band needed to move on from the hair metal days. The writing was on the wall. And I think that’s smart. But, for a writer who’s steeped in 70s glam, ala The Sweet, I’m not sure if Sixx has what it takes to make that transition. Before I listen to the whole thing my first guess would be that it’s going to be most difficult on Mick Mars. Mars’s entire oeuvre is blues guitar. All his riffs come out of the Ace Frehley handbook. What’s he gonna do with an idiom that is all minor power chords and sustain?
I like that first track, by the way.
By the time we get to “Hooligan’s Holiday”, the 3rd track, it’s obvious we’re not here for a good time. This isn’t pussy, jack and coke. It’s…something else. “Misunderstood” sounds like an interpretation of a Mother Love Bone song for the first 3 minutes and then when it kicks into high gear, essentially becoming another song entirely, like 3rd rate Buckcherry. Maybe none of this is fair. After all, this is NOT Motley Crue. It’s another band. Corabi didn’t just come in and lay down vocals. He’s brought songs with him. Songs that are not Crue songs as we know them. But they’re songs.
“Poison Apples” comes closest to harkening back to the Crue of yore. It’s energetic and designed to be a crowd pleaser. The riff heavy “Hammered” is a Corabi piece that gives a pretty good indication of what kind of band Crue might have been had he been with them from the start. They wouldn’t have been as successful but they might have been taken more seriously by rock purists.
Taken as not a Crue album, Motley Crue is fine for what it is. There are moments that I actually enjoy. The headbanging of “Welcome to the Numb”, for instance. I can get into that kind of generic grunge metal. The same goes for “Smoke the Sky” a metal-fest that owes more to Metallica than 70s glam. I don’t mind this record. I even like the closing power ballad.
To rate it in comparison to the predecessors would be stupid. It would get an F. But, as a stand alone of it’s kind, it’s no worse than many that came out at the time and its certainly better than Kiss’s Carnival of Souls.
Grade: C
A Side: Power to the Music, Driftaway
BlindSide: Poison Apples, Hammered
DownSide: Hooligan’s Holiday
Motley Crue – Generation Swine – 1997
I really don’t know what the fuck this is. Yeah, yeah, I get it. The Corabi led band was a disaster. Metal was pushed off the airwaves by grunge. Get Neil back to lead on vox and put the whole shebang out as a reunion of sorts.
Trouble is, right from the start, with “Find Myself”, I’m not totally convinced that they could have put any singer on the tracks. It’s the first time we’ve heard Nikki Sixx sing any part as a lead vocalist (he shares the song with Neil) but that’s no help. The songs are awful. There’s nothing to hold onto. It’s as uninspired as I’ve ever heard. Case in point the turgid “Afraid” some weird ass hybrid of metal and Sonic Youth droning where they ask “are you afraid of change?”. It’s not change we are afraid of, guys. It’s crap. And this is crap. John Corabi sued the band, claiming that he had a hand in co-writing most of the record. Dude, after listening to “Flush”, you want the credit for this? Take it.
The title track tries to infuse some energy and emergency into the proceedings but it fails as it flails around in 20 different directions. It’s just a sad record.
There isn’t much to enjoy here. I’m not sure if I dig “Is Anybody Out There?” because it kicks like old school Crue in overdrive or cuz it clocks in at under 2 minutes or that it sounds like it could have been on the soundtrack to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, you haven’t heard anything if you haven’t been privvy to the psychedelia-infused, acousti-balladeering of “Rocketship”. It’s Love & Rockets sans talent and skill.
Why they felt the need to redo Shout at the Devil at all, let alone to give it the Nine Inch Nails industrial feel, is way beyond me. It sounds terrible.
I’ve heard the album closer, “Brandon”, the song Tommy Lee wrote and sings for his son, described as “mawkish”. Yep. That’s about right. It’s sick-makingly bad. You have no idea how bad this song is. It’s horrible.
Like this whole record.
Grade: F
A Side: Nothing.
BlindSide: Is Anybody Out There?
DownSide: Afraid, Flush, Rocketship, Brandon
Motley Crue – New Tattoo – 2000
If it ain’t broke and you broke it go back and fix it. In the case of Crue we need to forget that eponymous record with John Corabi. The next one, Generation Swine, as well inasmuch as the boys were still in some edgy, dark place and just having Vince sing over songs they had originally intended for and co-wrote with Corabi.
New Tattoo is supposed to be a return to form. Hair Metal is dead. The party’s over. By the time this came out Alternative had been replaced by bubblegum, teen-pop and boy bands. Tommy Lee was gone by this point, too. But, does that really matter? As I’ve said before, not nearly as much as the lead singer. It’s not like Tommy was John Bonham. He hit hard and kept a beat. Replacing him with Ozzy Osbourne’s drummer, the late Randy Castillo, made no difference at all.
On the first track, “Hell on High Heels” is exactly the right call. Mars’s solo is explosive. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. He’s pretty explosive on “Punched in the Teeth by Love”, too.
The title track, which is actually a ballad, sounds like it would have been right at home on Dr. Feelgood. In fact, this album plays like the sequel to that album that never was.
I’m pretty sure that, even if they put this out in 1991 instead of almost a decade later, it would have been a smash. If they waited til 1994 like that Corabi led album, it would have tanked. The times had changed.
There’s a lot of second rate junk on this record, but complaining about that is not to really understand Crue at all. It’s ALL second rate junk. If you get past importance in rock you get it.
Crue, when they get it, the get it. Take “Porno Star” for example. Is it a great song? No. Can you complain about the content? Sure. But, then you’d have to complain about most of Crue’s early work. It’s stupid to do that because the songs are stoopid to begin with. And they get a chunk of points for covering The Tubes’ “White Punks on Dope” and not fucking it up.
If you love old school Crue, like Girls, Girls, Girls or Dr. Feelgood, this record will fit right in.
Grade B
A Side: Hell on High Heels, Porno Star
BlindSide: Treat Me Like The Dog I Am, White Punks on Dope
DownSide: She Needs Rock and Roll
Motley Crue – Saints of Los Angeles – 2008
I haven’t liveblogged an album in a while. Let’s remedy that with the last Crue disc.
Following on the heels of his soundtrack to auto-biography, Sixx employs Sixx:A.M. Vocalist James Michael as producer and they write (with others) the soundtrack to the book, “The Dirt”.
1.L.A.M.F. – a spoken word welcome to the cess pool of sleaze, Los Angeles, set to an ominous soundtrack of almost industrial noise bleeds into
2.Face Down in the Dirt – I’ve read “The Dirt”. I have it in hard back. It’s one of the greatest rock band books ever written. This is the soundtrack. From the lyrics this is about the early days. When Sixx met Mars. It kicks ass a bit, I must say. Reminds me of “Life is Beautiful” in it’s outsized glory.
3.What’s it Gonna Take? – Okay. So the boys are down on their luck and they aren’t sure they’ve got what it takes. Or at least that’s what they’re told. Radio Stations turn them away. So they “take it to the street”. Mediocre song. Mind melting guitar work.
4.Down at the Whisky – An ode to the good old days playing at the venerable club on the Sunset Strip. It’s a big tune. As big as the rep of those days. Catchy, too.
5.Saints of Los Angeles – So, then they signed a contract with Elektra. And became the Saints of Los Angeles. I’ll say this for this record. It’s the best sounding Crue record in, like, ever. Play it loud. I dig it. (Josh Todd, among others, on backing vox!)
6.Motherfucker of the Year – I’m guessing that, at this point in the story, they are sowing their oats. This is only a Motley Crue record in that the four guys played on it. It’s really a Sixx:A.M. Album. With Martin Frederickson to co-write the tracks and make them even more radio friendly. That’s a good thing, by the way. The Heroin Diaries is a slamming record.
7.The Animal in Me – Sex. Sex. And more sex. Lord knows they got a LOT of it. Read the book.
8.Welcome to the Machine – Sixx is pretty clear in The Dirt that the record industry is a machine. A series of gears. Each one requiring that you jump to the next or be ground up and destroyed. For an industry that gave these guys the mansions, the cars, the girls, they really hate it and are intent on biting the hand that fed them. This is a standard issue middle album cut. Not bad. Not good.
9.Just Another Psycho – Finally Mick Mars gets to really cut loose. Lord only knows who the song is about. It could be any of them. The insanity that Kiss laid claim to is a kiddie show compared to the circus of Crue.
10.Chicks = Trouble – You’d think with this title it would be a crapfest. It’s a screed against all the women that took the guys for money and other stuff. Sixx’s Brandi. Mars’s Emi. Tommy’s Pam. Vince’s Sharisa. It’s pretty on the nose. But the music hits as hard as the anger. And one thing about the guys, they always blame themselves. They like pussy. They are little boys. They want love. They have money. They like pretty things. They deserve what they get. And they know it. I appreciate that.
11.This Ain’t a Love Song – Pretty much the same theme as the previous. Only it’s more callous. “This ain’t a love song, this is a fuck song.” man, talk about bitter. (Also the only track with co-writing credit to Tommy (The dumbest man in the world) Lee.
12.White Trash Circus – A swinging metal anthem reminiscent of Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People”. It’s also about the time that they started to really hate each other.
13.Goin’ Out Swinging – It plays like an “us against the world” song, but we all know better. There’s much more to the story. Oh, yeah. This is almost speed metal meets Metalli-glam.
This is the record I’ve been hoping that Crue would have recorded. Understanding that they are a brand, not a band. A concept more than a conceit. I only wish that it was, get this, longer. I want to hear the soundtrack to the bad times, the Corabi days. The days of divorce and jail and death. I want more, guys. Give me the sequel!
You’re not gonna believe it but…..
Grade: A-
A Side: Face Down in the Dirt, Saints of Los Angeles
BlindSide: Down at the Whisky, Chicks = Trouble, Going Out Swinging.
DownSide: The Animal in Me
