Welcome back to the Motley Crue edition of the Brainfart’s “Album by Album Challenge.” So you obviously made it through that first part and because you’re a glutton for punishment decided to come back for more. It’s hard to believe that band can have so much fail in such an extensive catalog. Just feel lucky that you weren’t the one having to listen to these albums IN FULL AND BACK TO BACK! Oh well, it’s all downhill from here with the exception of one album but once again, I digress. Read on folks, read on!
Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood
Release Date: September 1, 1989
The Good: Dr. Feelgood, Kickstart My Heart
The Bad: Slice of Your Pie, Rattlesnake Shake, Without You, Same Ol’ Situation, Sticky Sweet, She Goes Down, Don’t Go Away Mad, Time For Change
The Indifferent:
This challenge is really starting to piss me off. Once again we have Crue album that opens with one of the best songs of their career only to completely pulled down to a firey death of mediocrity. Ok guys. We get it. You like sex and you like us all to think that you’re a bunch of bad mother fuckers. Well, this album once again makes you look like a bunch of schmucks. With the exception of the title track and “Kickstart My Heart”, this album just flat out sucks. “Rattlesnake Shake” with such amazing lyrics, as “Shake Shake Shake, make my body ache” is just too much to handle and much like “Girls, Girls, Girls”, crappy pop like “Same Old Situation” and ballads like “Without You” add fuel to the fire. The most ridiculous moment is Nikki Sixx’s attempt to be socially conscious with “Time For Change.” Boy, he’s a real Nelson Mandella… NOT.
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Motley Crue – Motley Crue
Release Date: March 15, 1994
The Good: Power To The Music, Uncle Jack, Hooligan’s Holiday, Misunderstood, Till Death Do Us Part, Welcome to The Numb, Smoke The Sky, Droppin Like Flies,
The Bad:
The Indifferent: Loveshine, Poison Apples, Hammered, Driftway
It’s hard to believe that THIS is Motley Crue for many reasons. First off, I remember my reluctance to even get behind a Crue without Vince Neil but at 20 years old, I was open to a change and the minute “Power To The Music” kicked in, I was floored. Heavy ass guitars (yes, plural), bombastic drums and a production that actually made you able to call them “Metal.” John Corabi came in and totally owned the position of lead singer with a soulful, voice that totally lent itself to this new chapter of heavy songs. With the exception of “Loveshine” and “Poison Apples”, gone was the cheese that we had seen before and even those two songs were far better than previous shit they did. “Misunderstood” is an amazing “ballad” of sorts while songs like “Droppin’ Like Flies”, “Till Death Do Us Part” and “Smoke the Sky” maintained this dark heaviness. This album really had the band being creative and doing some really great things. My biggest gripe was that they closed the album out w/ the ballad “Driftaway” which I found to be extremely weak. I wish they would’ve gone out with a huge ass bang since unfortunately, this is the last song we’d hear with Corabi on vocals. For the first (and probably only) time, Motley Crue sounded like a band ass band that was capable of doing some amazing things. Unfortunately, this only lasted for this album. Ugggh, here we go again.
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Motley Crue – Generation Swine
Release Date: June 24, 1997
The Good: NOTHING
The Bad: Find Myself, Afraid, Flush, Generation Swine, Confession, Beauty, Glitter, Anybody Out There, Let Us Prey, Rocketship, A Rat Like You, Shout At The Devil ’97, Brandon
The Indifferent:
I’m still not quite sure what the fuck is going on here. So for Motley Crue’s first album with Vince Neil back in the fold, they decide to be an alternative punk band. There is absolutely nothing good about this album. NOTHING. I mean, I listened to this whole album in full and it was so fucking painful. I’d rather listen to Dr. Feelgood on repeat for a day. Hell, at least the songs, while weak as fuck, are listenable. They even did an industrial metal version of “Shout At The Devil.” L-O-L. Guess what. FAIL. “Generation Swine” just proves that there is ZERO artistic integrity to this band. They made one of the best albums of their career with John Corabi and it was a great metal record. It was a commercial failure so they can him, re-hire Vince and decide to do an alternative/punk album in order to get some mainstream notoriety? It didn’t work and they’re stuck with this craptastic album in their discography. The album closes with a ballad called “Brandon” sung by Tommy Lee. HAHA! I snooty laugh at you!!!!
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Motley Crue – New Tattoo
Release Date: July 11, 2000
The Good: NOTHING
The Bad: Treat Me Like The Dog I Am, Dragstrip Superstar, 1st Band on the Moon, Porno Star,
The Indifferent: Hell on High Heels, New Tattoo, She Needs Rock N’ Roll, Punched In The Teeth By Love, Hollywood Ending, Fake, White Punks on Dope, Timebomb
So here’s the deal. Motley Crue managed to progress from the previous release and instead of creating a totally unlistenable album, they managed to make an album that is chock full of cliches and mediocre to below subpar songwriting. The thing is that with “New Tattoo”, Crue once again realized that a change in formula backfired on them causing them to retreat back to their “sleezy bad boy” image. The biggest problem with this is that the majority of these songs sound like songs that were done by other bands only done not nearly as good. It’s kind of sad when you’re doing a song like “She Needs Rock N’ Roll” and you’re thinking, “Wow, Poison can write better songs than this.” All in all, the album wasn’t unlistenable but it was less than mediocre.
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Motley Crue – Saints of Los Angeles
Release Date: June 24, 2008
The Good: NOTHING
The Bad: Mutherfucker of the Year, The Animal In Me, Welcome to the Machine, Just Another Psycho, Chicks = Trouble, This Ain’t A Love Song, White Trash Circus, Goin’ Out Swingin
The Indifferent: L.A.M.F, Face Down In The Dirt, What’s It Gonna Take?, Down At the Whiskey, Saints of Los Angeles
Can you hear the palm of my hand hitting my face? You should be able to because this is one of the most ridiculous of albums I have had to sit through. In all honesty, “Saints of Los Angeles” would have been a great album in 1996 or so. This should have been the Vince Neil “comeback” album because at least at that point this would’ve been somewhat acceptable. All in all there are 5 “listenable” songs on this album. Listenable as in not bad but totally forgettable. It’s just so hard to take these guys seriously as Nikki Sixx continues to try and call himself an artist while coming up with lyrics like, “This ain’t a Love Song, this is a fuck song, don’t have to sing along,
this ain’t a love song, It’s just a fuck song, yeah!” Man, how prophetic and poetic. Edgar Allan Poe would be proud. These guys should just call it a day and quit trying to convince everyone that there is any modern relevence to Motley Crue. Face it Nikki. You’re band is a nostalgic band but you’re ego is so over inflated that you can’t seem to see that nobody cares about new music from you. Nobody! Not even your fans care and if they did care, you’d be pulling in platinum albums left and right. It’s just that maybe they realize that you guys just aren’t a good band but a good time and a good memory of the good ol’ days.
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