Motley Crue

I've written about Motley Crue a lot. I'm also on record that saying that the Crue's best record is the one they made wihout Vince Neil - the John Corabi record from 1994. I still believe that, but I have to admit, Saints of Los Angeles is up there. It surprised the heck out of me.

When Vince returned in the mid 90's, there were two really rather bad studio albums with him, and I really felt Crue was done from a studio standpoint. So it was with some trepidation that I heard they were doing a new studio album for 2008. When it got close, some entertainment website had the full album up for streaming. So I decided to give it a listen.

WOW! This is by far the best thing they've done in ages. It's not even funny. Really - that sounds like a joke, but it isn't. Saints of Los Angeles is probably right up there with Shout at the Devil for best album with Vince Neil. I still like the Corabi album better, but Los Angeles is QUITE good. There's no real filler tracks, which is a surprise. This is the point where I usually list a few tracks I like, but there isn't one I want to skip when I listen to it. Major thumbs up!

If you're a Motley Crue fan at all, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

ANOTHER repackage of Motley's music; however it's a good one,

/me rolls eyes.. another band releases a greatest hits album. This is now the third such release by Motley Crue, following 1991's "Decade of Decadance" & 1998's "Greatest Hits". There was also 1999's "Supersonic & Demon relics" album, which was a greatest hits (sort of) of a bunch of oddball songs scattered all over the place on soundtracks, bsides, etc.. Then there's the Music to Crash Your Car to box sets, so Motley has really been releasing their old material over and over again, as there's been only three actual new albums of material since the 1991 greatest hits albums (those being 94's brilliant yet underappreciated "Motley Crue", 97's mostly awful "Generation Swine", and 00's "New Tattoo", which was dreadful). So in the last 14 years, we have gotten 3 studio albums, 3 greatest hits albums, one live album (99's Entertainment or Death), and a box set. Not a lot of new output, and an awful lot of recycling of material.

What's my point in bringing all that up you might add? It's that I feel that Red White & Crue might be the best of the group. Sure it was put together to have something that the "reunited" Crue can tour behind (although it's just Tommy Lee coming back, the rest were already there). However, if you don't have any Greatest Hits motley crue albums, this is probably worth it. Over time I had bought all of these albums, but as I sit here in 2005, the only actual Motley Crue album I still own is the one they did with John Corabi, I dumped all the rest of them, as I never listened to them. I'd want to hear the hits, and that's about it. So that's what this package is. It covers all their best hits from all their albums. Surprisingly, they include John Corabi material (unlike some bands who ignore things like that - I speak of Van Halen ignoring the Gary Cherone album). Disc 1 is a bit more solid than Disc 2, but overall, it's a wonderful collection of songs marking the progression of Motley Crue from their earliest days to what they've become. It even covers the atrocious New Tattoo album, which does have two decent songs on it (one is included here), plus there's the usual "three new tracks" (which are OK, nothing terribly groundbreaking, and one is a Stones cover anyway). As usual with a Greatest Hits package, there will be songs that people are mad that are left off, and this is no exception (I actually would have liked to have had "First Band on the Moon" from the New Tattoo album, as well as couple more songs from the Corabi album (Loveshine, Uncle Jack), but it is a very good selection of songs overall.

So in summary, I give this package a 4 out of 5. I was originally going to give it a 3 due to Motley re-releasing their stuff a lot, but that's not really the fault of this package, which is what I'm reviewing, not Motley Crue the people. :) As I said above, if you don't own any Motley, you should get this, it should do you quite fine.

And one last final note. This is a two CD package at a price that a lot of single CD's are sold for. As I write this (on Feb 12, 05) , Amazon is selling it for $14.99, which is a decent deal for about two and a half hours of music.

When I made the decision a few months back to dump all my Motley Crue albums except the Greatest Hits one above, this one survived that. It's by far and away - no comparison the best Motley Crue album. It's really a shame they didn't stick with John Corabi as vocalist - the record label forced 'em to get back together with Vince Neil, and the two albums they did since Neil returned (Generation Swine & New Tattoo) sucked ass. This album however, is brilliant. It's surprisngly full of intelligently written songs and lyrics - not your usual Crue staple. Not just a great Motley Crue album, but a great album period.