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Mötley Crüe had made an album with new frontman
John Corabi—self-titled, released in 1994—that
moved the band in a darker, less frivolous direction that
fit a time when grunge and metal bands like Pantera were infiltrating
the mainstream. Naturally and for a variety of reasons, the
record was the biggest failure of the band’s career.
Despite that, they soon hit the studio with producer Scott
Humphrey to work on its follow-up. But chemistry that led
to the topnotch Mötley Crüe album was gone
and, before long, at the pushing and prodding of the bigwigs
at Elektra Records, Corabi was out and Vince Neil was back.
All is right in the world again, right? Not quite.
Generation Swine, released in 1997, features the
foursome that made Mötley Crüe what it is, but the
magic of Shout at the Devil and Dr. Feelgood
is nowhere in sight. Industrial rockers like Nine Inch Nails
and Marilyn Manson had risen to prominence, and the Crüe
spends much of the album riding the technological bandwagon.
It’s a shame because the beginning is filled with promise.
One word—“Destroy!”—starts the first
song, “Find Myself,” then Mick Mars’ guitar
comes crashing in. Bassist Nikki Sixx handles vocals on the
verses, half-singing about finding love and drugs. Vince’s
reintroduction comes in the first chorus with the great line
“I’m a sick motherfucker!” The old Mötley
attitude is back. Our heroes have returned!
Not so fast.
The next song, “Afraid,” features what sounds
like electronic drums; Mars’ guitar is virtually absent;
and Neil is singing lyrics like, “She’s so afraid
to kiss/And so afraid to laugh/Is she running from her past?”
This sounds like trouble.
Song No. 3, “Flush,” is no better, a mopey tune
that plods along without ever going anywhere. The title track
perks things up with a punk rock flair, but then comes “Confessions,”
which might as well be called “Flush Part 2.”
“Beauty” could have been a sleazy rocker in the
classic Mötley vein (it’s about a prostitute),
but electronics bury its groove, while Neil and drummer Tommy
Lee team up for maybe the worst vocal performance in Crüe
history.
We haven’t even gotten to the really bad stuff yet.
That would be “Glitter,” a spacey, schmaltzy love
song with lyrics that would be laugh out-loud funny if not
for the shock of Sixx being associated with something so bad
(“Let’s make a baby inside of you”). And
“ Brandon ,” a Tommy Lee special complete with
piano and a string quartet. The sentiment is sweet—it’s
about Tommy’s first son—but that doesn’t
pardon it from being an awful, awful song on every other level.
There are bright spots. “Anybody Out There?”
is a blast of pure punk rock, a refreshing change of pace
from the electronic sounds that permeate so much of the album.
“A Rat Like Me” comes closest to the classic Mötley
sound, the only song on which Vince Neil sounds completely
comfortable.
The inherent problem of Generation Swine is that
it was mostly written before Vince came back into the fold.
I don’t know whose voice they were hearing as they wrote,
but it wasn’t his. He sounds lost on most of the album,
whether it’s a heavy track like “Let Us Prey”
or a ballad like “Glitter.”
The greatest flaw, however, is the incredible disappearing
Mick Mars. The Crüe always has made stylistic changes
from album to album, but through it all, Mars’ tones
have defined the band’s sound. Here, the guitar parts
spend much of their time hiding in the background, lacking
personality when they manage to sneak out.
Mars places the blame on Humphrey.
The producer would “tell Tommy that he was a better
guitarist than me or he’d have Nikki, who’s a
bassist, playing my guitar parts,” Mars wrote in The
Dirt.
Humphrey, in an interview in The Dirt, acknowledges
Mars’ diminished role, though he insists he pushed for
the opposite.
“… I wanted to make a Mötley Crüe
record that sounded like the early stuff,” he said.
“What I really liked was pure Mick Mars raw guitar.”
Humphrey said it was Nikki and Tommy, each of whom has a
co-producer credit, who pushed the technological aspects,
while he kept telling Sixx to stop trying to be Trent Reznor.
There is, however, one shining moment in which past and present,
technology and classic Crüe collide in brilliant fashion:
“Shout at the Devil ’97,” an industrial-strength
reworking of the Mötley mainstay.
Generation Swine is a tremendously flawed effort
but not entirely disposable. If nothing else, it was at least
Nikki, Tommy, Vince and Mick. In the liner notes of the 1999
rerelease, Vince sums it up best: “It was us being back
together again. That’s what made it real exciting.”
®2009 Live-Metal.net
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