Ah yes, Motley Crue.... a band who I absolutely idolized in my teens and who released what I consider one of my favorite rock/mainstream metal albums of all time. This would be, "Shout at the Devil." An album so utterly kickassingly great that even the band themselves never came close to topping it. Of course, sadly, every band has their shelf life and when you see footage of Motley Crue today, tiredly gyrating around on stage to pre-recorded versions of their songs, you realize their shelf life is long expired. That's okay though. No, I probably wouldn't go pay money to see them (or what's left of them) live these days, but I will always reminisce... Yeah, everyone gets older, but the flame that burns brightest burns fastest and during their prime, they lived an excess of debauchery and partying that nobody could touch- and as expected, that kind of living catches up to you eventually.
When "Shout at the Devil" came out in 1983, it gave a loud boot to the head of the mainstream rock scene. Here was music that was dangerous, edgy, and dirty, but accessable to pretty much any mall-rat kid, cool enough for the rock kids, but edgy enough to piss off their parents. And unlike, say, Venom, who used the same shock-rock satanic imagery (to a much greater degree than Motley Crue did to be fair) Motley Crue were better musicians, more polished, and simply a far better band. I mean, almost every song on this thing kicks ass. From the simple anthemic pounding chorus of the title track, to the headbanging catchiness of "Looks that Kill" and "Red Hot," to the dirty scuzziness of the Beatles cover and "Ten Seconds to Love" this is an album that grabs you by the balls and makes you want to grab your tennis racket and form an air guitar band. There was enough genuine grit and energy here to satisfy the most devout rockers. And it catapulted them to stardom. But sadly, it seemed like they fell victim to their own debauchery, because pretty much everything they did afterwards sounded jaded and half-assed, or at least, never really sounded like they had the same hunger. They just wimped out. After a while, many people turned to the harder edged stuff like Metallica, Slayer, and Exodus to get their fix, as bands like this were heavier and more abrasive than the Crue ever were.
So that brings us to today's hard rock. I turn on the radio and hear a ton of bands that all sound like they want to be either Linkin Park or Breaking Benjamin. Heavy, abrasive guitars but boring riffs, emotional singy-songy vocals mixed with baby-tantrum screams, all kinds of mechanical skronking and just overly whiny music. And just way too many cookie-cutter bands doing the same thing: Pop Evil, Killswitch Engage, Falling in Reverse, Blackveil Brides, I Prevail, Wage War, Hollywood Undead, Sleep Token, Sleep Theory, Token Theory, I could go on but just naming these bands makes me sleepy. They all pretty much sound alike to me. Maybe because I'm older now and don't feel the angsty emotional thing and can't connect with the music anymore. That may be PART of it, but the simple truth is, none of them have anywhere near the grit, catchiness, energy and sense of subversive danger that Motley Crue did with "Shout at the Devil." It's just too feely-angsty-whiny for me. Now to be fair, there is still some good millennial hard rock out there. Ghost are pretty slick sounding but they do remind me of old Blue Oyster Cult, in a good way. Volbeat still keeps the flame of old-school traditional metal burning, so does Avenged Sevenfold (to a lesser extent.) And I've always kind of liked Chevelle for some reason, even though they do have a bit too much in common with some of the above bands.
And also, to be fair, by the end of the 80's, the whole glam rock thing was pretty played out. Motley Crue were still making music but none of it was very interesting, and there was, much like today, way too many cookie cutter hair metal bands clogging the scene. Things were ripe for a change in the 90s. Maybe that will happen soon in the 2020's, and a new set of bands will reinvigorate things with some fresh musical energy.
But before that happens, I'm gonna give Motley Crue's classic and much loved 1983 LP "Shout at the Devil" another spin. "So come now children of the beast, be strong and SHOUT AT THE DEVIL!"