When Motley Crue Stopped Being Cool

With one masters stroke, Motley Crue, the pre-eminent musical influence of my adolescence became a lame joke. For a lot of people (including smart music journalists) the Crue was always a joke. The hair, costumes, faux devil worshiping and the lack of discernible talent were all catalysts for that reaction. But as a pre-teen, my buddies Sixx, Mick and Tom (and even Vince) were living the dream. Easy girls, easy to play songs and easy money.Dr. Feelgood was a landmark album for Motley Crue. Piggybacking on the success of Girls, Girls, Girls (did I mention living the dream?) the title track signaled the loud, thematic refrain of the album. Instead of girls, we had the drugs. So, I couldn't really relate to that side of things, but I enjoyed fiction and the story of rat-tailed Jimmy was compelling. "Kickstart My Heart" followed, and Mick Mars' fretwork was a fun reprieve from the (again) drug-fueled lyrics. My high school band played this song incessantly at practice. The whammy-bar gear-shifting intro is still a favorite.But then, things went sour. Depending on your familiarity with the album, it went one of two ways. The first is of the casual observer. You watch the videos on MTV, maybe buy the cassette singles. We've got a one-two punch so far, then comes the (now standard) ballad. For the die-hard fan, this tragedy hit much earlier, on your first spin of the full-length on your way home from Record Bar.It's debatable that the Crue created the hair-ballad, but minimally, they perfected it with "Home Sweet Home." It was the answer to Kiss' "Beth" - the sensitive rocker finally comes home. "Without You", the companion ballad on Dr. Feelgood was utter dreck. A watered-down facsimile of the song that they used to sit at the top of MTV's charts for weeks on end, it was influenced far more by the Saigon Kicks and Extremes ruling the airwaves.The lyrics are ridiculous. Climbing mountains, raging fires and being lost at sea hit on a few of the cliches this song perpetuates. The rhyming dictionary feel and "bouncing-ball" flow make it resemble more of a Nickelodeon sing-along than a mature expression of love. Topically, that's not what the Crue was about anyway (see Girls, Girls, Girls above). Wilting flowers and grey days were not their strength. The music leaves a lot to be desired, as well - but what else are you going to do backing up those lyrics? Mars' gently weeping slide guitar, Sixx's see-saw bass lines and Lee's barely-there backbone depressingly phone it in. The real nail in the coffin was the video. Words cannot describe the embarrassment I felt as a Motley Crue fan, the first time I saw this:Tommy Lee's (foreshadowing?) crotch-shots, the horrible intro CG and slow pans fed right into the utter disappointment this song embodied for the fans. A bad song gets a somehow even worse video.Because of "Without You", I would never buy a subsequent Motley Crue album. I've replenished my copies of Too Fast For Love and Theatre of Pain - but the only thing that remains of the Dr. Feelgood era in my collection are two dusty cassette singles for "Dr. Feelgood" and "Kickstart My Heart."