Motley Crue Red, White & Crue CD

Clean version. 2 CD Set. 37 tracks. A nicely packaged collection of the band's greatest hits that commemorates their reunion and 2005 world tour. All the essentials are on disc one, which is generously crammed with choice cuts from the Aqua Net years - from the sleek glam rock of 'Too Fast For Love' and strip-club anthem 'Girls, Girls, Girls' to the runny mascara ballad 'Without You' and comedy hocus-pocus of 'Shout at the Devil'. Having just barely survived the '80s, the band gets inexplicably serious on the second disc, delving into 'Planet Boom' and 'Generation Swine'. But there's no reason to fret--the compilation is merely doing its job and succeeds brilliantly in tracing the rise and fall of a band whose legacy is turning out to be far greater than anyone ever imagined. Universal.

Mötley Crüe: Vince Neil (vocals); Mick Mars (guitar, background vocals); Tommy Lee (piano, drums, percussion, background vocals); Nikki Sixx (bass guitar, background vocals).
Personnel: James Michael, Scott Coogan (background vocals).
Audio Mixers: Bob Rock; Randy Staub .
Liner Note Author: David Wild.
Recording information: Cello Studios, Los Angeles, CA.
Photographer: P.R. Brown.
Despite not having had a hit since the late '90s, Mötley Crüe remained impossible to ignore. Tommy Lee's high-profile romances, court dates, and television appearances -- he got his own reality show -- kept the group theoretically active well past their creative due date, and Vince Neil appeared on VH1's Surreal Life, where he shed tears with MC Hammer and endured a celebrity "makeover" complete with a face-lift, while the rest of the band chronicled their decadent heydays in the best-selling tell-all book The Dirt. The two-disc Red, White & Crüe is a far better companion to that book than 2003's exhaustive two-installment, eight-disc retrospective, Music to Crash Your Car To (was it really necessary to hear three versions of ex-vocalist John Corabi's "Hooligan's Holiday"?), and despite the addition of three new cuts (only one, the blistering "Sick Love Song," manages to recapture the group's original intensity), it's the most definitive collection yet. At their best, the Crüe were the audio equivalent of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. "Live Wire," "Looks That Kill," "Kickstart My Heart," and even the monstrous "Walk This Way" rip-off "Dr. Feelgood" showed a group that not only loved the scene but lived it like Vikings storming a sleepy village. When they were hot they were smoldering, and despite the occasional embarrassing lyric like "forward my mail to me in Hell" ("Wild Side") and misguided attempts at jumping on the punk revival bandwagon ("Anarchy in the U.K.") and the nu-metal gurney ("Planet Boom"), Red, White & Crüe serves as a crystal-clear window into a blurry world that only the Crüe could have constructed. ~ James Christopher Monger
In the 1980s Motley Crue established themselves as heavy metal's reigning bad boys. If Elvis Presley's debauchery was merely suggested by his swiveling hips, and Led Zeppelin's was mythologized at teenage basement parties, Motley Crue's wanton excesses were celebrated right out in public for everyone to see. Combining the over-the-top theatrics and pop-savvy instincts of Kiss and Alice Cooper with the gutter-boy sass of the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols, the Crue forged a new brand of stripped-down, radio-friendly hard rock that came to define the "pop-metal" (or "hair-metal") genre.
RED, WHITE & CRUE collects the band's greatest moments in grand style, including the lean, razor-sharp guitar and vocal hooks of the breakthrough hit "Looks That Kill" and the shout-along chorus of '80s testosterone anthem "Girls, Girls, Girls." The 2005 double-disc set also addresses the Crue's later personnel-change years (excluding any misfires), and presents three songs ("If I Die Tomorrow," "Sick Love Song," and a cover of the Stones' "Street Fighting Man") by the reunited classic lineup of Vince Neil, Mick Mars,Rolling Stone (No. 967, p.80) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "Don't even suggest that the world was not desperately awaiting a Motley Crue reunion. Because it was, and they knew it..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.128) - 4 stars out of 5 - "The good stuff '80s stuff's on CD1....Raise that index finger and pinkie; you know you want to."