YMMV / Mötley Crüe

• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • Girls, Girls, Girls was recorded at a time when the band members were so addicted to alcohol and drugs that they could barely function, and it shows. Even Nikki Sixx has commented "If it hadn't been for the title track and "Wild Side", this album would have ended our careers."
  • The '90s were not a good time for the band, as the genre they spearheaded died overnight. Their attempts to update their sound in response were rejected hard:
    • The band's self-titled album released in 1994 with John Corabi on lead vocals and a more raw, "grungy" sound. The album was an attempt by the band to stay relevant at a time when the public had abandoned glam metal in favor of grunge and alternative rock. While a very good album on its own terms, the end result sounded nothing like their previous albums, alienating their longtime fans and failing to secure new ones.
    Corabi: My record was the first record that they had done that didn't go platinum, didn't make some sort of crazy noise, and everybody panicked.
    • Generation Swine in 1997. Although the album featured the return of Vince Neil, it was poorly received by critics and audiences and sold poorly. Vince Neil would later call the album "terrible" due to "too much experimenting."
• Badass Decay: In recent years, many fans, rock/metal publications, and even other musicians have noted that Vince Neil's singing ability and physical fitness have greatly deteriorated. This came to a head in 2021, when a string of disastrous solo performances led to questions of whether he would be capable of taking part in Mötley Crüe's stadium tour in 2022.
• Covered Up:
  • "Smokin' in the Boys Room", featured in Theatre of Pain, was originally from Ann Arbor, MI band Brownsville Station.
  • Their version of "White Punks on Dope" is significantly better-known than the original by The Tubes.
• Crazy Is Cool: The All Bad Things Must Come To An End tour featured a specially-constructed 'Drum Coaster', which carried Tommy Lee high above the crowd's head as he played, even slowly turning him upside down in the process!
  • Awesome, but Impractical: ... Unfortunately, at least a couple of times, it broke down with him stuck in midair, forcing stagehands to go up with ladders to fix it while he played.
• Dead Horse Genre: Glam, of course. Their resurgence in the Turn of the Millennium says maybe not so.
  • In a 1989 (!) interview with MTV that would be later used in the special "It Came from the 80s II: Metal Goes Pop", Nikki Sixx hangs a lampshade on the glut of copycat glam rock bands at the moment, and infers that this was the same type of "dinosaur music mentality that punk rebelled against in the '70s". He goes on to say that somebody has to do something original. Guess who followed in the Answer Cut in said special? The band responsible for the genre's eventual demise, Nirvana.
• Epic Riff:
  • "Shout at the Devil", full stop.
  • Though if you want to continue the sentence, "Dr. Feelgood", "Kickstart My Heart", "Girls, Girls, Girls", "Wild Side", "Looks That Kill" and "Live Wire" are the other most recognizable ones. Even their earlier stuff was full of kickass (if less well known) riffs, such as "Too Fast For Love" and "Piece Of Your Action".
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • For some reason Nikki seems to have one with Bruce Dickinson, likely due to Bruce's then-wife cheating on him with Nikki. Bruce wrote the song "Tattooed Millionare" as a Take That! to Nikki. Go to a video when he talks about the experience, and an overwhelming number of commentators will be expressing their bitter hatred for Nikki.
  • Due to the Vince Neil / Razzle car crash incident, fans of Hanoi Rocks don't like Mötley Crüe. While most of the band aside from Vince apologized for Vince's role in the car crash, his death effectively obliterated any chance of American success for Hanoi Rocks. Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy has also been very critical of Crüe's decision to include footage of car crashes in their music videos (and naming a compilation album "Music to Crash Your Car to") and has said he will never forgive them for this. This has gotten to the point where Mötley Crüe detractors will usually include "RIP Razzle" when bashing the group in YouTube comments sections, even if they've never heard a single Hanoi Rocks song.
  • Like with several other Hair Metal bands, Mötley Crüe fans and Grunge fans don't tend to get along too well.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Girls Girls Girls" mentions the Crazy Horse in Paris, France. Pamela Anderson would actually work there for a time years after her split with Tommy.
• Jerkass Woobie: Vince Neil. For all his arrogance, infidelity, violence, drunk driving, losing his ability to sing and - according to his bandmates - being a habitual liar, it's impossible to read about his daughter's death from cancer and not feel sorry for him.
  • Mick Mars. His daughter has the same crippling condition as him, yet has severed ties with her and does not help her out, financially or otherwise. He also makes vaguely dismissive remarks about his children in general in the band autobiography Dirt.
• Moment of Awesome: "S.O.S. (Same Ol' Situation)". Seriously. In Rolling Stone in 1989 to promote the release of Dr. Feelgood, Vince Neil described the song as a "kinda comedyish" song about lesbians. The chorus of "It's the same ol' same ol' situation/It's the same ol' same ol' ball and chain" is them saying that gay marriage would end up no different from any heterosexual marriage. This isn't Sonic Youth or L7 or Rage Against the Machine or Riot Grrrls or any other band known for Feminism/Political Correctness. This is Mötley Crüe saying this, all the way back in 1989. They were so far ahead of their time that nobody even realized what they were really saying.
• Narm: Generation Swine ends on "Brandon", a Parental Love Song written and sung by Tommy Lee about his firstborn. His questionable singing ability aside, the lame lyrics, which at times get Trivially Obvious ("Your mother gave birth to you with love inside\She had candlelight and songs of life\Brandon I love you, I love her, she is your mom") quickly turn a would-be Power Ballad into unintentional comedy. (many a Youtube comment on the song's uploads even ask if Brandon punched his father because of this song!)
• Older Than They Think: A trashy, cross-dressing, drug-addled hard rock band? Surely, you must be talking about the New York Dolls? The two bands toured together in 2011.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: Vince Neil and especially Mick Mars are overshadowed by Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee in the public eye. While Vince does get a bit of recognition due to being the lead singer, Mick remained mostly unknown until decades past their prime due to his departure/retirement issues.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Multiple times; the discography kept getting better, leading up to Dr. Feelgood. Between then and Saints of Los Angeles, not so much.
• Vindicated by History: The 1994 self-titled album has recently been getting more positive reviews for its experimental Grunge/Hair Metal combination as more and more fans praise it for the heaviness and the band's bold step to give the grunge movement a shot. The release of Generation Swine with an even more negative perception accelerated it further.
• Tearjerker: When reading the band's autobiography, The Dirt, just try to get through the story of Vince's daughter or Nikki's sister without getting choked up.
  • The song "Uncle Jack" from the self-titled album is this combined with Nightmare Fuel. It tells the real-life story of how John Corabi's uncle molested his sister and sold pictures of her to a child porn ring. When Corabi's mother went to the police, her extended family responded by turning their back on her. Corabi was homeless for several years as a result. The sheer BURNING rage in Corabi's voice and the lyrics is enough to take you aback.

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