Classic Albums – Motley Crue – Shout At The Devil
Posted in Audio, Classic Albums Column, Feed on January 31st, 2012 by marsariesThis month’s Classic Albums Column focuses on Motley Crue‘s Shout At The Devil. Mars Attacks Podcast episode 56 features comments from Glen Drover, Gene Hoglan, Jon Schaffer, Alan Tecchio, Dave Reffett, author Martin Popoff, Mitch Lafon from Bravewords, Mark Strigl from Talking Metal, and John from Iron City Rocks. As we established with the previous podcast we also discuss why this album was selected. You will find the podcast at the bottom of this post.
Remember that you can go here index page to find out further details on everyone involved in the column.
Greg Prato – Shout At The Devil: The last album Motley Crue released that I can still somewhat stomach. They seemed to totally lose their minds after this album – bad glam metal, lame songs (“Girls Girls Girls”), idiotic behavior. Not a fan at all. But circa 1984, the Crue was one of my favs, and ‘Shout’ and ‘Too Fast’ were constantly being listened on my Sony Walkman. After that? No thank you.
Dave Starr – Don’t get me started…. Everyone had this record when it came out, but I always though these guys were way over rated.
Dan Lorenzo – Most bands first albums hit you the hardest. Shout At The Devil was Motley’s 2nd cd but it is STILL my favorite. I am not a fan of much of the Crue’s music that followed “Shout”. Yeah, each cd had a couple great songs, but Shout At The Devil is easily their best. And for some reason, other than Judas Priest, I’ve seen Motley more than any other band-because it was ALWAYS about more than just the music. Nikki Sixx has always described Motley Crue as a pseudo “punk” band. I worship Nikki…but have no clue what the hell he is talking about. I am in no means an expert on punk music….but I am pretty sure Motley has NOTHING to do with punk. Ok, so they stole the riff for “Ten Seconds To Love” from one of the best cds ever ( The Plasmatics Coup De E’tat), but this is glam metal with dropped tuning. The title track and “Bastard” are stunning. And I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that “Too Young To Fall In Love” gets me EVERY time I hear it on Sirius/XMs “The Boneyard”. Pure pop genius. Mick Mars deserves so much more credit than he gets. As simple as Motley’s music sounds Mick has some tricky moves on this cd. Vince’s voice was already done by the time he left the studio after this…but I’ll still go see them every time they pass through NYC.
Jon Leon – Solid album. The Crue are an attitude band and sell a look. They are the KISS of the 80′s…they have not really aged well though with the material that followed this album. They have lost me over time. As a kid I would rock this one hard and it has some great hooks by Mick Mars who is one of the most under rated guitar players in metal. He really had a cool tone and vibe that made those first 2 crue albums hold up. I would say after this one I would not ever seek out a later release when I am buying vinyl, and I have no desire to see them live. I would have loved to have seen the 84 tour with OZZY though.
Metal Mike – Killer album. Shout At The Devil has modern Black Metal roots all over it whether people are aware if it or not. Songs rock and you are listening to a real band, raw in the studio as you see them on the streets. I miss that sometimes. Crue is bad ass.
Erik Kluiber – The first 2 albums were their best, and then some good radio hits afterwards. Too bad they couldn’t keep the fire.
Phil Rind – They’ve got the looks that kill!
Ricky Armellino – Motley Crue was a big inspiration to me. After watching some of their tv special I just looked at my guitar and was like “maybe hip hop would be a more fitting place for my ideologies”. I literally had rape fantasies about these mongrels.
Mitts – This is definitely the most metal record this band ever released. The pentagrams and occult theme were a little goofy, but the songs are classic.
James J. LaRue – I was into ‘metal’ as a kid, and I did not include Crue, Poison, Warrant, etc in my collection as they were too glam and not really virtuosos, but the hooks were just too catchy on this one and it won me over. Which means it’s damn good. People from all walks of life know these songs. When I see old footage from those days, Crue were obviously there early in that scene and their live shows at the time were insane. You could say it was very derivative of a Kiss show, but more evil and satanic with all the pentagrams. A way heavier image than the music called for. They were on fire, literally, back then.
Kevin Estrada -Motley was one of the local bands in Los Angeles that I was lucky enough to have followed since their beginnings. Too Fast For Love was a great set-up and showed that Motley Crue was a serious force to be reckoned with. But Shout At The Devil was the TNT they needed to explode. The writings were on the wall when Motley Crue performed at the US Festival in 1983 – they were up against major metal bands with huge followings (Judas Priest, Van Halen, Scorpions, Ozzy, etc) – and Motley Crue outperformed most of these bands, while at the same time blowing away the audience and locking in 200,000 new fans. The band’s song writing had matured greatly with Shout – songs like Knock ‘Em Dead Kid, Red Hot, Looks That Kill and Too Young To Fall In Love display this maturity. But overall, it was Motley Crue’s hunger for success that wrote that album and broke that band. It was Magic and all the pieces were there.
Scott LePage – This album came out around the time I started playing covers in my first real band. Of course we covered Red Hot and Shout at the Devil. Great heavy driving songs. Probably one of the only “hair band” albums that I got into.
Jim Florentine – My fav Crue album
Gonzalo Leiva – I first heard of the band when Girls, Girls, Girls came out, at the time I went back and discovered their previous album (Theater Of Pain), and they instantly became one of my favorite bands. Shout At The Devil was even better, with its raw sound, and solid songs that fit really well with the band. Also, tracks like the intro In The Beginning and God Bless The Children Of The Beast give the album a special atmospheric touch. My favorite tracks on the album are Red Hot, Too Young To Fall In Love, Shout At The Devil, Danger (among others), also their cover of Helter Skelter is pretty good as well.
Sean Bryant – Oh, wow. While I as in grade school this album came out. We had to write a story in class and mine started out with walking up to a friends house and hearing the opening track “in the beginning”. In the story I remember how cool and frightening I wanted to make it feel. I really don’t think the teachers and the kids, in a SLC class really appreciated how dark my story was. That is all I remember to the story. So it goes.
Will Carroll – The last great Crue album which is kinda sad considering its only their second. This album was my soundtrack for 1984. They took KISS and added fake Satanism and buckets upon buckets of sleaze and I ate it up. Mick Mars’ guitar tone makes this album and let’s face it, at the time nobody looked cooler.
Steve Smyth – I was big on Crue for the first 2 albums, and this one to me defined them in many ways. Their sound was much tighter, and the songs were strong. Red Hot, Bastard, Danger and Shout stood out to me as strong songs, and showed the writing strength of the band, as well as chops of Tommy Lee and Mick Mars.
David Ellefson – In some ways Motley played up the Satanic image more than most and the mainstream bought it. This album was just heavy enough to be loved by the metal heads and just mainstream enough to loved by all.
Chad Bowar – The Crue’s second album saw them refining their sleazy Sunset Strip glam metal, although the sound was still pretty raw. “Looks That Kill,” “Too Young To Fall In Love” and the title track were successful singles, and they also did a cover version of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” Commercially it also did rather well, peaking at number 17 on the album chart. It symbolized the sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll vibe that the ’80s were all about.
Shawn Duncan – I enjoyed this CD when it came out. Motley Crue mixed Metal with glam rock and nailed it. From Shout at the Devil to Looks that Kill this album opened the door for an entire genera of music! You cannot deny the impact of this record.
Jason Bittner – Shout at the Devil was the best album by Motley hands down! At the time they kicked ass, I loved this record, and I was a big Tommy Lee fan when I was a kid (it was 1984 and I hadn’t discovered thrash just yet) of course years later when I met the guy, it was such a letdown that I can sum it up in one word…. A great art rock band from the 90′s – TOOL!!!!!
Scott Thompson – When someone mentions Shout At The Devil my mind always goes back to 1983 practicing in the garage and jamming on the title track. Our guitarist at the time happened to also be a very busy coke dealer and would invariably be late for practice…in his garage. There was this always eager Tommy Lee wanna be that lived next door and would take the opportunity to come over and try to sit in. So I would take the guitar, the drummer would take bass and “Tommy Junior” would hop on the kit. Problem was he only knew the opening part so the whole thing would be him playing that part accompanied by Tommy inspired stick twirls. As pointless as it was it did provide some humor while we waited for the guitarist to show up.
Sadly I don’t think that kid ever had the innate sense to explore the rest of the album. That boy missed a aural feast. This was a still hungry Crue with all the swagger of “Too Fast” but having the benefit of a better budget and some nicely gelling song writing chops.
Let’s start with the cover, I bought this bad boy on vinyl and that black cover with the pentagram was not be ignored. I will admit that a few months later I was also lured into buying the picture disc of Helter Skelter. Most people bought that disc because it was at the time their only way to hear the Leathur Records mixes of a two songs off of “Fast”. That wasn’t the appeal to me since I already owned the original Leathur version. I bought it on the strength of the tunes on “Shout”. I was just caught in the momentum.
To this day the tunes from this album continue to be the cornerstone of any Crue show. It’s almost guaranteed that they are going to play Looks That Kill , the title track, and at least one more. Even though Vince’s voice ain’t what it used to be these tunes always rock balls live.
No matter what else they release I think this album will remain the blueprint of what is considered the Cure sound. Even the title track from their latest release harkens back to “Ten Seconds ‘Till Love”.
There will always be the contingent that will say the Dr. Feelgood is their definitive release but for those of us who bought this own when it first came out, there’s no other Crue release that will ever come close.
Kirk Windstein – Shout At The Devile had a huge impact on me…at the time it came out, I already had Too Fast For Love. S.A.T.D. was much more abrasive sounding, and also took their look a few steps further!
The songs are very strong, and this record, in my opinion, encompasses everything Motley Crue are. It’s the perfect “Cure” record, and the last to still feature their “fuck the world” punk side! I give it 10/10 for sure…a record I never turn off when it’s playing!!!
Jorge Salan – They’re a great rock band, the issue I have is that they have some hits that I can’t profess to really liking, the chick thing, the being on the beach thing, is sort of on a different wave from where I’m at. That said, once Bob Rock got a hold of them things went to a different level, especially a song like Kick Start My Heart, which is such a great song, or something like Sticky Sweet, all of those songs, and actually that album (Dr. Feelgood) is more of my thing.
Domonic Rini – 1983, in my eyes the strongest push for thrash and the evolution of the big hair days. MC grabbed a record deal with Elektra and put this release out with Producer Tom Werman. It really showed in the production that this band could take their music to new levels and really make them musicians. Shout At The Devil really hit a chord in peoples heads and the youth ate it up. With an evil surrounding feel to this release they were able to really pull it off.
Doug Gibson – “Shout At The Devil” is classic Crue at their best. Not only does the album still stand the test of time, but it’s the best defense against the haters who try to lump the Crue in with lighter hair bands and claim they’re not metal.
The podcast portion can be streamed or downloaded from here:
