Mötley Crüe aren’t a band: they’re a goddamn institution.
The ground-breaking hair metal group have an approach to songwriting that is workmanlike, to say the least. You can depend on aMötley Crüe song the way you can depend on a well-built car, or a B-movie flick. The band’s tunes set out to do one thing, and they do it well, with a kind of bloated efficiency that has the power to inspire even the most hardened of anti-cock rock types.
So, to that end, here are the six finest cuts the band have yet turned out, tunes with a ‘fuck-it-we’re-doin’-what-we-wanna-do’ attitude that will have you pumpin’ your first and popping your collar like the cool playah that you are.
1. ‘Girls, Girls Girls’
So, yeah, as you may have realised if you clicked play on the above video while sitting down at your desk in your open plan office while that nosy co-worker was peeking over your shoulder, that clip is pretty NSFW. But, to be totally honest, so is the song. ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ is a kind of paean to that very American form of excess, a reeking ode to sex and lust that sniffs of perspiration and yes, NSFW, fluids.
2. ‘Kickstart My Heart’
Who saidMötley Crüe aren’t diverse? I mean, who aside from literally everybody on the planet who has heard more than oneMötley Crüe song. Sure, the band aren’t well known for the range of their tunes, but if you’re good at something you might as well stick at it, andMötley Crüe have been sticking at their very specific brand of gutsy rock for some time now. ‘Kickstart My Heart’ is exactly the kind of raucous feelgood bash one might expect from the band, so drink up every minute of this particularly sweaty milkshake, wont’cha?
3. ‘Wild Side’
Has someone invented a Mötley Crüe random name generator yet? If not, someone should get on that, and if so, I bet it would spit out the title ‘Wild Side’ within about three seconds. Actually, someone should invent aMötley Crüe song generator: that way the machine can keep chugging out chum-soaked, spittle-flecked tunes while the band are enjoying their well-earned retirement.
4. ‘Too Young To Fall In Love’
Just ignore the strikingly creepy implications of that song title and dive straight into another example of the kind of tunage that has made the band the chart-toppers they are today. Every lick of the song draws you in, till before you know it, you are surrounded by the brawny, muscular members of theCrüe and they’re channeling their hearty rock tunes direct into your earholes.
5. ‘You’re All I Need’
Mötley Crüe might be your great-uncle’s favourite band today, but it’s easier to forget that back in their heydey they were a provocative, genre-pushing group. There was nothing approaching the muted or the mundane about their approach, as the above clip proves. It was actually so controversial that it was eventually pulled from MTV: execs were shocked by its gruesomeness. But really, such censorship only added to the band’s shlocky, subversive appeal.
6. ‘Dr Feelgood’
What are you even meant to say about a song like ‘Dr Feelgood’? It is the pinnacle of an entire genre: a gargantuan slab of good times that lollops and bolts around the place with a booze-addled brain entirely of its own. It is depraved, and it is delirious, and it is utterly unlike anything else you’ve heard before. Get into it, won’tcha?
Celebrate the genius of theCrüe viaThe End, a new documentary filmed during their last ever show. The film will be playing at Event Cinemas George Street on one night only, Wednesday October 12, so do make sure you hop to it, won’t you?
