Girls, Girls, Girls

iTunes Review

By 1987, hair metal had taken over the music scene and the transformation that Motley Crue began when they signed to Elektra in 1983 finally came to fruition with Girls, Girls, Girls. You’d be hard-pressed to think of a more dumbed-down song than “Girls, Girls, Girls,” but a slippery riff and shout-along chorus somehow make it the Crue’s most appealing anthem. Same goes for “Wild Side,” “Dancing On Glass,” and “Bad Boy Boogie,” all of which injected Motley Crue’s signature lewdness and grit into the well-honed hair metal formula of huge hooks, tribal drums, and vocal preening. Ironically, as the band’s musical direction became increasingly commercial its subject matter became increasingly bleak. The upbeat refrain of “Wild Side” masks a relentless list of morbid, troubling imagery, while “Dancing On Glass” offers a chilling reference to Nikki Sixx’s heroin addiction. The gristly psychosexual murder detailed in “You’re All Need” would be entirely unacceptable were it not cloaked in such an innocuous and sappy song. Of course, Motley are at their best when they’re at their seediest, and even though it feels like a party, Girls, Girls, Girls finds the now-rich band testing the darkest corners of itself.