Mötley Crüe’s third album is dedicated to the memory of Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, who was killed in a speeding car driven by drunken Crüe vocalist Vince Neil in December of 1984. Incredibly, that was just one of the dark clouds that hung over the band when they started recording Theatre of Pain in early 1985. Bassist and songwriter Nikki Sixx was deep in the throes of drug addiction—at least one eyewitness claims Sixx didn’t play bass on the album—while he, Neil, and drummer Tommy Lee were seriously discussing the possibility of replacing guitarist Mick Mars. The album was originally named Entertainment or Death, a line from the song “Keep Your Eye on the Money.” In retrospect, that would have been an apt title, given the record’s stylistic and thematic shifts. Gone were the danger, faux-satanism, and sex that permeated previous records Too Fast for Love and Shout at the Devil. Instead, Theatre of Pain relied upon a power ballad (“Home Sweet Home”) and a cover (of Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ in the Boys Room”) to move units. It worked: Theatre of Pain went multi-platinum, and “Smokin’” was the band’s first chart hit. While those songs certainly helped cement the group’s star status—Carrie Underwood covered “Home Sweet Home” in 2009—they didn’t really sound like Mötley Crüe. Instead, it’s Theatre of Pain tracks like “Use It or Lose It,” “Keep Your Eye on the Money,” and especially “Louder Than Hell”—a leftover from the Shout at the Devil sessions—that capture the attitude and righteous riff-mongering of the band’s first two albums. Meanwhile, “Save Our Souls” finds Sixx reflecting on his worsening heroin habit: “It’s been a hard road/Edge of an overdose.” (Within a few years, Sixx would actually overdose, and later claim to have been dead for a full two minutes.) Despite the album’s success, at least half the band aren’t Theatre of Pain fans. Neil has said it’s his least favorite Crüe record, while Sixx has called it “a pile of rubbish, the whole fucking record, with a few moments of maybe brilliance.” And yet it was massively influential: Theatre of Pain is credited with ushering in the pop-metal era that came to be defined by Poison, Cinderella, and Bon Jovi.