Mötley Crüe, "Shout at the Devil"

CJ puts us through hell

CJ’s Pitch:

In the beginning, good always overpowered the evils of all man’s sins.

But in time the nations grew weak and our cities fell to slums while evil stood strong.

In the dusts of hell lurked the blackest of hates.

For he whom you feared awaits you.

Now many, many lifetimes later, lay destroyed, beaten down, only corpses of rebels, ashes of dreams and blood-stained streets.

It has been written that those who have the youth have the future.

So come on now children of the beast, be strong and shout at the devil!

That is the spoken-word intro to Mötley Crüe’s quadruple platinum firestorm of an album, Shout at the Devil. I didn’t need to look it up because when I bought the album in the fall of 1983, I recited it every day for the next month as if I were memorizing the Gettysburg Address. Penned by the band’s mastermind and resident heroin addict, Nikki Sixx, “In the Beginning” is the Crüe’s mission statement. It declares, in no uncertain terms, that you are about to experience the ultimate in pretend Satanism. And then they spend the next 35 minutes delivering on that promise.

I chose this album for two reasons. It’s predecessor, Too Fast for Love, was dirty and mean and excellent, but poorly produced. It’s follow-up, Theatre of Pain, was slick and shiny and wildly successful, but sounded like it was written by drunken children (which it was). Shout is the apex of Mötley Crüe’s music and production value.

The other reason is that no other album captures the sleaze and grit of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip in the early ‘80s like this one does. It was the capstone of the hard rock that blasted from the Whiskey and the Rainbow in the late ‘70s and the launching pad for the hair metal that dominated the mid-to-late ‘80s. On Shout, the Crüe were able to glam up their look—high heels, makeup, teased out hair—while maintaining their metal credibility. A nifty little highwire act. It’s why Shout is a cultural touchstone for teenage dirtbags everywhere, myself proudly included.

The album is unflinchingly relentless from the title track’s standoff with the Prince of Darkness to an account of Sixx’s ill-fated encounter with the LAPD in “Knock ‘em Dead, Kid” (Nikki got the shit beaten out of him by LA cops who were posing as Hell’s Angels. Sounds about right.) to the classically-tinged instrumental track called “G-d Bless the Children of the Beast”. It’s Mötley’s “Lick My Love Pump”.

And then there’s the scintillating cover of “Helter Skelter.” I mentioned during our Abbey Road review that “Helter Skelter” was my favorite Beatles song. And this is why. It’s actually a glam metal song in disguise. Makes me wish Paul and John had handed it over to T-Rex and let them run with it. Marc Bolan would’ve sexy-ed the fuck out of the song. Damn.

Mötley Crüe isn’t necessarily one of my favorite bands. Although he’s an exceptional songwriter, Sixx can barely maintain a bass line and Vince Neil spits out lyrics like Randy “Macho Man” Savage hyping a match. The actual talent in the band, penile boat captain Tommy Lee and Cousin Itt stand-in Mick Mars, is what holds the music together. But what keeps me going to Crüe shows, even today, is the opportunity to hear songs like “Looks that Kill” and “Too Young to Fall in Love” one more time.

Shout at the Devil is an album that was made by and for the denizens of the Sunset Strip’s sordid and debauched underworld. Even if you don’t enjoy the music, you can’t deny its impact on the metal genre in specific and the greater music scene of the 1980s in general.

So come on now, Mïtch and Kën, be strong, and shout FOR the devil!

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Mitch’s Response:

As I dropped the needle on Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil I was quite excited to shout at the titular devil myself, but my excitement soon turned to confusion when I couldn’t figure out if I was shouting at the devil in support or rejection. In my despair I turned to the seminal Crüe text (“In The Beginning”) for answers. Alas, only more questions were raised. Are the so-called youth the evil devil kids that have defeated goodness or are they the next generation of good rebels? It appears that I’d have to go further back into the history of devil music to find answers to my devil shouting-related questions.

The devil is first suggested in Robert Johnson’s "Cross Road Blues" in 1936, when Johnson allegedly sold his soul to Ralph Macchio in order to learn karate. The devil lays low and then reappears in the early ‘60s with a double shot of misogyny in Elvis Presley's “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise” and Mitch Ryder’s “Devil with the Blue Dress On” - a real low point for devil music, but a high point for rockers named Mitch. 

By the late ‘60s/early ‘70s the devil smartly rebranded, first with the Rolling Stones' “Sympathy for the Devil” and then with the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil”. His comeback tour was wildly successful, and just a few years later, we’re all having a great time “Running with the Devil” and Van Halen. This appears to be the golden age of fun devil music (think Hot Stuff from the Casper comics).

But this is the devil we’re talking about, after all, so he decided to make a heel turn in ‘79 and turn soul-stealing from a boring legal drama into an exciting fiddle competition in Georgia. Next comes the Crüe, just a few scant years after Satan lost that golden fiddle, shouting at the devil, mocking him for his poor life decisions and his Dave Matthews Band-level fiddle skills.

Which brings us back to the curious case of Mötley Crüe and Shout at the Devil and whether it deserves to be in the Newbury St. Collection. In retrospect, Tommy Lee is a better drummer than I remembered and Mick Mars is as talented a guitarist as I remembered. Nikki Sixx is a better songwriter and a worse bass player than I remembered and Vince Neil is just awful in every way. That said, this deeply silly, deeply ridiculous album kind of kicks ass and songs like “Looks That Kill”, “Too Young to Fall in Love” and “Ten Seconds to Love” are great and I agree with CJ that they’re obviously better than The Beatles.

• Pitch Successful (the devil made me do it)

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Ken’s Response:

I’ve never made a distinction between the early ‘80s metal scenes in LA vs. any other city, and I’m not about to now.  Once the platform boots, the Spinal Tapian pants, and the makeup went on, it didn’t matter to me where you called home.  Having said that, a little album called Pyromania came out in January of 1983 (Shout was released in September of the same year), and that album is the one that set the stage for the rise of Hair Metal, not Shout At The Devil.

Everything about Def Leppard’s Pyromania is better, save for Tommy Lee’s drumming.  The composition, the execution, and the production are all light years better than the Crüe at this point (everything about the Crüe gets better with their next release, Theater of Pain).  As CJ said, Neil’s vocals and Sixx’s bass work are awful, and Mars’ guitar is competent and nothing more.  The saving grace on this album is Lee, and as I’ve said previously, if you’re looking to your drummer to be your shining light, then you’ve already lost.

I don’t particularly care about the band’s pioneering use of the pentagram (sorry Satan worshippers, it’s just stupid and childish), or that they glammed up their look with trashy women’s wear...that novelty act had already been done to death by another band named Kiss.  For me, there is just nothing about this album that is aurally pleasing, academically interesting or important, or musically sophisticated or original.

While I certainly see the importance of bridging ‘70s metal to the hair era, I think you chose the wrong album.  

• Pitch unsuccessful (don’t go away mad, just go away)

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CJ’s pitch was not successful and Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil has been exiled!

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Girls, girls, girls, and boys, boys, boys, come home, sweet, home to the comments section and let us know if Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil brings you to Dr. Feelgood or just makes you go away mad.

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Please join us next week as Mitch turns on, tunes in and drops out with Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s Psychedelic Pill.

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