Latest Release
- APR 26, 2024
- 1 Song
- Dr. Feelgood (Deluxe Edition) · 1989
- The Dirt Soundtrack · 1985
- Girls, Girls, Girls (Deluxe Edition) · 1987
- Too Fast for Love (Deluxe Edition) · 1981
- Dr. Feelgood (Deluxe Edition) · 1989
- Girls, Girls, Girls (Deluxe Edition) · 1987
- The Dirt Soundtrack · 1989
- Shout at the Devil (40th Anniversary Remastered) · 1983
- Dr. Feelgood (Deluxe Edition) · 1989
- Dr. Feelgood (Deluxe Edition) · 1989
Essential Albums
- 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.
- At first glance, Mötley Crüe’s second album is incredibly misleading. The pentagram on the sleeve trumpets satanic panic and virgin sacrifice, but the iconic title track is a warning, not an invitation. That part about virgin sacrifice, though? Well, let’s just say that parents of teenagers in 1983 were well advised to lock up their daughters. The deception continues on the sci-fi spoken word intro “In the Beginning,” which positions Shout at the Devil as a concept album. But the members of Mötley Crüe were never that cerebral. The album is all animal magnetism, street fights, and naked lust. The lead single, “Looks That Kill,” tells the real story. Replete with nasty riffs and deadly women, it’s not only the album’s thematic linchpin—it’s a preview of the band’s entire career. The caged models and warrior queen featured in the song’s video popularized the concept of video vixens and all the scantily clad gyrating the term implies. Mötley Crüe didn’t invent this busty trope—or even perfect it—but they showed their hair metal peers and minions where the smart money was in the early MTV era. Released as the third single, “Too Young to Fall In Love” doubles down on all of the above and pays off huge. Propelled by a monster Tommy Lee drumbeat—and a killer riff by guitarist Mick Mars—it might be the best song Crüe bassist and ringleader Nikki Sixx ever wrote. Though the Crüe was largely defined—musically, at least—by its decade-long string of hit singles, Shout at the Devil has more satisfying deep cuts than any of their subsequent records: “Red Hot,” “Bastard” (a favorite of Tipper Gore’s PMRC), “Knock ’Em Dead, Kid” (about the time Sixx got his ass kicked by undercover cops), and “Ten Seconds to Love” all bang hard, even after 40 years.
Albums
- 2000
Artist Playlists
- There are bands with debauched pasts—and then there’s the Crüe.
- The L.A. bad boys helped put the sleaze in hair-metal videos.
- L.A.'s sultans of sleaze play with their hitmaking alchemy.
More To Hear
- Tommy Lee and John 5 on “Dogs of War.”
- Nikki Sixx & Tommy Lee discuss making the Mötley Crüe biopic.
- The origins of the Monterey Pop Festival and Coachella FAQs.
- Mötley Crüe fears, Seinfeld love.
About Mötley Crüe
Formed in 1981, Mötley Crüe epitomized the hunger and grime of Sunset Strip rock; at the peak of their fame, the quartet’s offstage antics garnered nearly as many headlines as their music, which fused the high energy of punk with the squealing guitars of metal and the audacious attitude of glam rock. Their 1981 debut, Too Fast for Love, melded metal’s larger-than-life presence with power pop’s hookiness; on Shout at the Devil, released in 1983, the band spread their wings and flaunted their darker side, as menacingly catchy tracks like “Too Young to Fall In Love” and “Looks That Kill” combined with the group’s outrageous looks—and a touch of occult imagery—to make Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy Lee some of the early music-video era’s best-known faces. Theatre of Pain, released in 1985, turned up the glam, and its piano-led ballad “Home Sweet Home” remains one of hard rock’s most potent lighter-raisers; its follow-up, Girls, Girls, Girls, saluted the harder edge of rock-star living, strip clubs, and life on the bad side of town. After Sixx had a near-death experience in late 1987, Mötley Crüe took a break, re-emerging in 1989 with the towering Dr. Feelgood, which threaded the commercial aspects of metal and rock on the storming title track, the breezy “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away),” and the careening “Kickstart My Heart,” which addressed Sixx’s brush with mortality in full-throttle fashion. Mötley soldiered on during the decades that followed, releasing the tell-all autobiography The Dirt in 2001; Neil and Lee took breaks from the band’s relentless touring before the core four members reunited in 2004. Mötley Crüe may be elder statesmen of rock—The Dirt became a movie in 2019, and they’ve headlined multiple Vegas residencies—but they blazed a trail for bad boys from all genres.
- ORIGIN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- FORMED
- January 17, 1981
- GENRE
- Hard Rock