#221/873
June 21 1985
Motley Crue
Theater of Pain
Genre: Glam Metal
3.5 out of 5
Highlights:
City Boy Blues
Smoking’ in the Boys Room
Keep Your Eye on the Money
Home Sweet Home
I really thought there was a crowded sea of hair metal bands in 85 but, I guess there wasn’t. There was thrash metal. And demon metal. But, as far as blues based glam? Not a helluva lot. Motley Crue seems to have the lane to themselves for the most part.
While this has that breakthrough cover “Smoking’ in the Boys” room, and I guess it was needed to get them on the radio, the lasting hit has been the ballad, “Home Sweet Home”, which has been covered over and over, most notably by Carrie Underwood (and it’s excellent).
This is the sound of a band stepping into the theatrirock space abandoned by Van Halen.
For all their theatrics and bad boys antics, they didn’t need it. Theater of Pain is a pretty good entry into this genre. I was surprised by how much I liked it during my first Crue retrospective and side one hasn’t lost any of the fun. They really do wear out the trope on Side Two and I’m perfectly fine with it ending even before it does but, even so, it’s better than most of this type of music.
I wish it was remastered to remove all the 80s echo. But, then again, I kind of love it for that as a reminder of that time.
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