Mötley Crüe

I don’t care what they became.

Before the scandals, the reality TV energy, and the creative nosedive, Mötley Crüe actually ruled.

Let’s get this out of the way:

Too Fast For Love? Untouchable. Raw, wild, full of punk edge and sleazy swagger.

Shout at the Devil? Also iconic. More polished, but still snarling.

Kickstart My Heart? One of the greatest intro riffs of all time.

No notes. I’d kick down a burning church door to that song.

But the rest of their discography?

Yeah. You can keep it.

In the late ’70s, the Sunset Strip pulsed with glam rock, punk, and hard rock. But by the early ’80s, it had mutated into something shinier, sleazier, and way more commercial: glam metal.

Take heavy metal, add some hard rock riffs, throw in a splash of punk energy, and then douse the whole thing in pop hooks and questionable eyeliner choices—voilà. Glam metal.

Catchy. Radio-friendly. Easy to sing along to while spilling your drink. Lyrics? Sex, drugs, women, parties. Maybe love, if anyone remembered to put a shirt on. This was also the era where every band decided it needed one slow song per album. Just in case someone in the audience had feelings.

It didn’t sound like metal. But it looked the part—just with more glitter. Tight trousers. Backcombed hair. Lipstick. Leopard print. Everyone looked like they’d just been electrocuted in a sequin factory.

Biggest early influences? KISS – for the theatrics and hooks. Van Halen – for Eddie’s guitar wizardry. Bowie, T. Rex, and the New York Dolls – for the glam aesthetic and the “is this gender?”-energy.

Glam metal’s big break came in 1983, and after that, record labels were throwing contracts around like confetti. It was fast, fun, and profitable.

And right at the centre of it all? Mötley Crüe.

Alongside Dokken, Quiet Riot, Ratt, and Twisted Sister, they were among the first to go full glitter-hell throttle—and, for better or worse, the loudest.

Mötley Crüe’s discography is a timeline of chaos:

• Too Fast For Love (1981) – punk edge, sleaze heaven, iconic
• Shout at the Devil (1983) – heavier, tighter, still regularly on my playlist
• Theatre of Pain (1985) – their first proper glam album, power ballads arrive, fans divided.
  Yes, this one had Home Sweet Home and Smokin’ in the Boys Room.
  No, the band didn’t love it either. In hindsight, they call it their weakest.
• Girls, Girls, Girls (1987) – blues-rock leanings, more strip club than substance. 
  Boring as hell. I’m not even pretending to care.
• Dr. Feelgood (1989) – the comeback after rehab. Biggest seller. Five singles. Six million copies.
  Kickstart My Heart deserves an altar. That’s all.

At this point, everything started to unravel:

• Mötley Crüe (1994) – No Vince Neil. Hello grunge-adjacent confusion.
  John Corabi can sing, but the album didn’t hit.
• Generation Swine (1997) – Vince returns, but the spark doesn’t.
  Another attempt at staying relevant that fizzles.
• New Tattoo (2000) – No Tommy Lee. Even the drama started giving up.
• Saints of Los Angeles (2008) – A late-career gasp. Loud. Forgettable.

They released only nine studio albums in total—shockingly few for a band that big.But then again, music was rarely their top priority.

Let’s be real. The scandals often outshone the music.

• Vince Neil killed a man while drunk driving and got a slap on the wrist.
• The band released Music to Crash Your Car To Vol. 1 & 2. I’m not even kidding. That’s the title. Classy.
• Nikki Sixx was literally dead for two minutes in 1987.
• Tommy Lee had a tabloid marriage, a prison stint, and a camcorder he really shouldn't have owned.

There’s a difference between wild and reckless. Mötley Crüe? Mostly the second.

They weren’t rebels. They were a warning label in mascara.

Their 2015 “farewell tour” was supposed to be the end.In true Crüe fashion, it wasn’t.

In 2019 they announced a comeback tour with Def Leppard and Poison. Because of course they did.

Also: The Dirt (2001), their autobiography, became a Netflix movie in 2019.

Because scandal still sells.

And apparently eyeliner has no expiration date.

I don’t connect with Mötley Crüe the way I do with The Stooges. Or Dio.

There’s no heart here. No mystery.

Just volume, eyeliner, and testosterone with a death wish.

But Too Fast For Love and Shout at the Devil?

Those albums ripped the roof off the Sunset Strip.

They captured something real—before it all burned out.

Celebrate the riffs.

Forget the rest.