#16 Motley Crue - Dr. Feelgood: Sober and It Feels So Good

ROCKTOBERFEST: A Most Excellent Countdown of the 31 Most Bitchin Glam Metal Albums

#16 Motley Crue – Dr. Feelgood (Released 1989) 6x Platinum #1 Billboard Albums

Vince Neil (Axl, your ass is grass and I am going to smoke it. Does that violate soberity? )– Vocals 

Mick Mars (Silent Badass) – Lead Guitar

Nikki Sixx (People will recognize my brilliance) - Bass

Tommy Lee (Still boning Heather Locklear and millions of groupies) – Drums

Sober and it Feels so Good: The Most Over-rated Album in Glam Metal

That title will definitely generate some controversy. O wait, no one reads this, lulz. Clearly, I don’t think this album is bad otherwise I would NOT have ranked it #16. It is a great album and the best Second Wave of Glam Metal album in my opinion (Appetite for Destruction is not a Second Wave album, it is a sleaze album). Yet, Nikki and fans insist this is their best album, which I think is a total crock of shit. This album finds Nikki finally writing his major crossover album hit that he was searching for after achieving true genius with Shout At The Devil. The entire band came in sober and Bob Rock did a masterful job producing a real slick, metal record. Tommy’s drums on this album sound amazing and Vince’s voice which was pretty much shot at this point is re-created with such power and soul that I never thought he had. (O wait he doesn’t. I LOVE Vince, the guy should be screaming and sneering. All this good singing is so weird.) Mick’s guitar is always a bitchin treat and without Mick, Crue would never had a shot. He is far and away the best on his instrument in this band and just does not get enough credit or respect. Nikki has a couple song-writing duds. Without You is such a formulaic power ballad and just so un-Crue. Seriously a fuckin orchestra, Nikki, what the fuck happened to street, sleazy rock n roll. This would be their worst song ever, but then Nikki penned Time For Change, which is just a God-awful, wretched song. Then of course, when you write Dr. Feelgood and Kickstart My Heart well then you more than just completely redeem yourself, you fuckin make sure everyone knows that glam metal is your genre and Guns N Roses can bring it anyday of the week and we will compete. 

When I was 16 years old, I was on the prowl for new anthemic rock/metal songs to satiate my desire to kick ass. As I was branching out, I heard two songs that I love to this day from bands that I have really grown to love, the two monster rock songs of 1991: Metallica’s Enter Sandman and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. That’s right people, I could have become an alternative lame-ass, but then something came out of the shinning light. I was on youtube and heard of this band called Motley Crue. So I searched to see and the first song that came up was Dr. Feelgood. Let’s just say the rest was history. For the uneducated, Metallica (the world’s premiere thrash band) was looking for bigger, more polished sound and upon hearing their arch-nemeses’ album, Dr. Feelgood, they found their man, Bob Rock, Crue’s producer. Lars’ drums sound oddly similar to Tommy’s drums on Dr. Feelgood and Metallica would use other glam production techniques to create their monster Black album that crossed them over to the mainstream. At the time, I was like wow this is a more kick-ass version of Enter Sandman, little did I know Enter Sandman is actually the lamer version of Dr. Feelgood. It also helps that Motley Crue looks helluva a lot more bitchin than either Nirvana and Metallica. So after a couple listens, I wondered could Crue follow up this hit with another. O Hell Yeah was the response in the form of the glam speed metal track, Kickstart My Heart. Right then, Motley Crue became my favorite band (they would be unseated by Led Zep about a year later), glam metal was my genre and I was going to rock like it was 1989 for the rest of my life.

Ogle Ogle Ogle Ogle *drool*

Unfortunately from my perspective, Crue lacks one transcendent song that puts the over the top like Poison, Guns N Roses, Def Lep and Whitesnake. Dr. Feelgood, which as a song charted at #6 is incredibly impressive. Most of the time, the only top ten hits from glam metal bands were the power ballads, for a legitimate metal banger to reach that high is quite an achievement. However, it has not transcended as well because it is not a big party anthem or a power ballad, which is an unfortunate because it is one of their best songs. The rhythm section is bouncy in the beginning before settling into a shoulder-popping, grinding pace. Mick’s guitar sound is unique as always, hell even finger-taps on the solo. Vince’s sneer is at its best singing about drugs, street life and decadence. The complementary guitar hook on the gang-shout of “Dr. Feelgood” is excellent. Is that even some vocal harmony, I hear on the chorus, wow how times have changed what happened to barking “Looks That Kill”. The boys in Crue have really grown up. lol.   I love this music video as it stays truer to glam metal than most from the time period with Vince and Nikki still wearing make-up. The hair is gigantic and outfits look killer. 

Kickstart My Heart, my favorite Crue song until heard the Shout At The Devil record. Great memories from this song including singing it this past New Year’s Eve with Dan “the Man” Maser at some bar. This song finds Crue re-connecting with their roots on a fast and furious burner that is as heavy as it is fast. The chorus on this song is fuckin huge and I love it. I love how Nikki knows that he and Tommy cant handle doing harmonized backing vocals (Mick aint fuckin singing) so he hired two chicks to do it for him. I cant believe it is not bigger today, but hey that’s just how it goes sometimes. The chorus is my inspiration for the "Woah" rule, you just can't go wrong with the word, "Woah". The talk-box solo is entertaining as all and I always thought the ending was "Give back my eye", which honestly makes no sense until Dan pointed out it is "Kickstart My Heart" just really distorted. The breakdown is my second favorite in all of glam metal (Livewire’s better) and is great set of lyrics for reminiscing with friends. Enough chit-chat, go bang you head to this classic.

So yeah, wait there are other songs on this album. Actually there are some pretty good pop metal songs on this album that rival the songs being produced by Def Lep and Poison. The big one that sounds quite different from your typical Motley fare (not that there really is typical Motley fare) is Same Ol Situation this one sounds like it was written by Poison, but with a way tougher guitar sound and Vince’s sleazy deliver. This is definitely one of Crue’s best party songs, which for a glam metal band they actually don’t have that many of. This song also features Vince on rhythm guitar, which I don’t really see him playing often. Probably just another gimmick to try to get Crue taken seriously, well Tommy’s haircut for the video was not helping on that front.   This is a really fun party song that doesn’t have the bite of the previous two songs, but still entertaining. 

The final choice cut is a song that has really grown on me since hearing it live, Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away), yeah the live concert will be mentioned in a subsequent blog. They actually did a really mash-up with Cee-Loo Green’s Fuck You on the chorus that really fit in well and demonstrated that Nikki is still hip to the scene. Originally, I lumped in the cheesy, candy-ass song category like Without You. I mean I always liked the vocal hook of “Turn the page”, but hearing Vince sing it live just really made me appreciate the incredibly catchy vocal melodies. This is very much like Def Lep’s Hysteria, this one is more of a mid-tempo rocker, but it does not have usual chugging riff associated with it that most mid-tempo rockers have . The ending kicks absolute ass and it took Mick’s distorted live guitar to tell me damn riff rules so hard. Then outro solo is type of great solo that Mick should be remembered for and then it is time for one of Motley’s most endearing traits, repeat the chorus non-stop. 

I love Dr. Feelgood, just not as much as other people. Look, there are two more albums for me to blow a bunch of smoke up Nikki and the boys' asses and trust me I will be giving them a verbal blowjob on those two. It is the album that permanently made me a glam metal fan and gave me an impetus to explore other glam metal bands. For that reason, Dr.Feelgood will always have a special place in my heart. Hell, it is Motley Fuckin Crue, so you knows it rocks harder than 95% of the shit out there anyways. CRUE! CRUE! CRUE! CRUE!