Mötley Crüe: Everything wrong with hair metal in one band
For many, hair metal is one of the greatest genres, and it’s quite easy to see why at times. When you look at the hair of bands like Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, and Cinderella, paired with their extravagant clothing and the big choruses that make up all of their songs, it makes for a genre that is completely insane but also a lot of fun.
Go to a record store now and head to the hair metal section. When you begin rifling through the albums, it doesn’t look like they belong to this world. It appears as though they have slipped through the cracks in the universe, falling to Earth from another world set in a rock opera, where people are caked in spikes and make-up, and rules don’t matter. When you apply that look at the catchy and energy-packed choruses, it’s easy to see why so many people love it.
However, the genre also receives a lot of criticism. On first inspection, this feels unwarranted. Given everything said about it, what’s wrong with a genre of music that is cemented around having fun? However, the problem lies in the unseriousness of the sound itself.
Sure, you could argue there is a problem with the fact that the genre lacks a great deal of depth. The whole thing sounds a bit repetitive; there are a few notes to hit, and so long as you manage that, you’ve got a hit on your hands. There should be plenty of power chords, as much distortion as you can handle, and a big belting chorus with very few words that people can pick up after one listen. So long as all of this is included, there will be a fan base willing to lap it up, and this kind of transparency never went down too well for music lovers.
However, the major problem with the genre is much deeper than that, and it’s the consequenceless nature of so many of the songs written under the guise of glam rock. Because of the flamboyant nature of so many of these bands, it can be hard for people to take what they’re saying seriously, resulting in lyrics and behaviour which are all kinds of inappropriate. Mötley Crüe is a good example of this; for instance, consider their song ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’.
The track is one which is laced with depictions of violence and sexism, with a chorus that focuses on, as you might guess, girls. “Girls, girls, girls,” it sings, “Long legs and burgundy lips, girls, girls, girls, dancing down on sunset strip.” It’s not the most offensive song in the world, but it’s quite tasteless and horribly objectifying.
Eddie Vedder once spoke about his disdain towards the band. “You know, I used to work in San Diego loading gear at a club. I’d end up being at shows that I wouldn’t have chosen to go to (from) bands that monopolised late-1980s MTV. The metal bands that, I’m trying to be nice, I despised,” he said, “‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, and Mötley Crüe, I hated it. I hated how it made the fellas look. I hated how it made the women look. It felt so vacuous.”
It wasn’t just Mötley Crüe who subscribed to this ideology; the majority of hair metal bands did. Acting as if they had come from a parallel universe, they essentially created their own, one filled with animalistic behaviour and objectification. Hair metal remains a genre that can be a lot of fun when done right, but it is often used as a front for awful language and themes, given bands believe they can get away with it.
