Year Of Metal #066: Mötley Crüe - Generation Swine
Perhaps surprisingly given their incredible appetite for self destruction and general aura of being thick as shit, no hair metal band has managed to keep their name alive since the genre died a death like Mötley Crüe. Smarter still, they’ve done this without handling much of the heavy lifting, via the Neil Strauss-co-penned autobiography The Dirt, the absolutely awful Netflix movie adaptation of the same name, and more recently the high calibre miniseries Pam & Tommy. In recent years they’ve had a savant-like mastery of timing: had the book come out a little while later, the fact they literally admit to rape may have been treated more severely (though if this lot, Tommy Lee especially, haven’t been cancelled yet, it’s hard to see what would do for them).
The zeitgeist certainly wasn’t on their side in 1997, though. Pam & Tommy captures the scene, with Kurt Cobain and co having put paid to the schlock-rock of the ‘80s and the Nirvana frontman’s suicide leaving something of a cultural mulch to see out the decade. Generation Swine is seen as an embarrassment even for a group as shameless as Crüe, a death knell for the group. Is it that bad? Well, in my view, not exactly. There are some OK tunes on here, and while they do try to leap aboard the post-grunge bandwagon, they don’t always make a bad fist of it. But it’s also an utterly bizarre record that sometimes sounds like complete shit.
It opens on a promising, if stupid note. “Find Myself” is easily the best track on the album, for all its performative naughtiness. Nikki Sixx, pushing 40, croaks “I gotta find myself some drugs” over a nicely boneheaded riff, before the returning Vince Neil soars over a sugary chorus. This song is the best balance between the glory days of Sunset Strip glam-metal that made Crüe their name and the more complex songcraft that Soundgarden and Alice In Chains had brought to the table. There’s even an attempt at some introspection in the lyrics - at times Neil and Sixx are trying to convey that they’re maybe sort of ashamed of their delinquent ways, though they also want you to know they’re rad as fuck.
Lead single “Afraid” follows, and this isn’t half bad either! The guitars have a bit of choppy, discordant, industrial edge on the verses (how modern!), and the choruses are melodic and catchy. Sixx has evidently been studying the dynamics that grunge borrowed from Pixies et al - if it’s not quite quiet LOUD quiet, it’s certainly not quite as loud QUITE A LOT MORE LOUD. There’s a strange breakdown section where Sixx tries to get his Trent Reznor on and grind away at some visceral sounds which he doesn’t quite commit to. I don’t know if all this gear really hangs together, but there are some nice ideas and a solid chorus in there.
This lot’s as good as it gets. A few songs along, we’re into “Confessions”, one of the most remarkably horrible sounding tracks I’ve listened to in recent memory, certainly when we’re talking about a big budget, major label release. It’s the only song on here to have no creative input from Nikki Sixx (who’s the brains of the operation and seems the least objectionable), but I don’t think the songwriting’s the issue. The chorus is derivative but the melody’s fine. The guitars, though, are so unpleasantly harsh, and the drums are pure slop. Tommy Lee’s never going to deliver a subtle performance and he’s less suited to this Spacehog-esque pop-rock, but that splatting snare is ghastly stuff.
Second single “Beauty” has similar production issues, on the immensely dreary bridges especially. This is supposed to be a slinky, lusty number, but the piled up, dirge-like guitars make it sound like what it is: a bunch of gross, rapidly ageing dudes raging against the dying of the light, completely adrift in a new musical landscape. We can’t even blame Mick Mars for this one because apparently the majority of his contributions were wiped from the record - Christ knows what he was laying down if this was the better choice.
It’s a relief when we finally reach “Shout At The Devil ‘97”, a pretty pointless remake of one of the Crüe’s biggest tracks. They’re in their comfort zone here, and everything sounds great. The drums thump appropriately, the guitars are given just a touch of ‘90s polish, the tempo is ticked up the tiniest bit but it makes a difference. Good old Vince Neil isn’t exactly bang on the money with some of the high notes, but listening to the original version, he couldn’t hit them there either, so no harm done. It’s a fun, nostalgic if cheap way to pay off the record.
Except it isn’t. Generation Swine ends with “Brandon”, penned and performed by Tommy Lee in tribute to his eponymous son. Wowee. Containing lines like “You are the one, Brandon, my son” and the awe-inspiring “Your mother gave birth to you,” this is about as vulgar a display of power as I’ve ever seen on an album - one can only imagine that Lee played his Most Famous Member Of The Band card to demand that, not only was this included on Generation Swine, but that it was the last thing listeners would take away from it. The vocals are histrionic and, to be fair, heartfelt. There are swelling strings that must have cost a few quid. Lee was later sentenced to six months in jail for kicking Pamela Anderson (the aforementioned mother) while she was holding their second son, who didn’t get his own song as far as I know.
Generation Swine is an album of pure panic from a band who didn’t seem to get the memo when the first chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” ended their run six years prior. It’s not complete dogshit - it’s a more interesting listen than that - but at its best it’s chasing a movement it doesn’t quite understand, and at its worst it’s a viscerally unpleasant listen.
