What sounds like the worst idea on paper - former glam band tries to curry favor with the alternative/grunge crowd - works surprinsingly well for Mötley Crüe on their self-titled album from 1994.
First of all, I love "Misunderstood". The acoustic beginning and the heavier middle part, the perfectly integrated orchestra and, last but not least, the chorus feat. Glenn fuckin' Hughes at his best - probably one of the ten best power ballads of all time. However, the last 1.5 minutes are completely unnecessary and that's the problem with many of the songs on here. "Power To The Music" and "Uncle Jack" are fantastic songs, but outstay their welcome by about two minutes ("Power To The Music") and 1.5 minutes ("Uncle Jack"). "Hooligan's Holiday" is easily the best Crüe song of all time, but again, it's about two minutes too long.
"Mötley Crüe" contains not only the best Crüe song, but also the heaviest (and one of the best as well), the incredible "Smoke The Sky", which leaves us with one more song to complete the brilliant half of this album, namely the good time rocker "Poison Apples". "Hammered" is also a good song, but not comparable to the aforementioned (the bonus track, if you will).
And the rest? Well, I never listen to the rest. "Droppin' Like Flies" is yet a decent song, but the remaining four tracks are completely forgettable and I'm sure they only landed on the album to stretch it to an hour.
The production should be mentioned as well, because "Möltey Crüe" was produced by Bob Rock and that means that the sound of this album is HUGE. It is as heavy as possible (see "Smoke The Sky") AND extremely transparent (see "Misunderstood"), plus it demonstrates how drums are supposed to sound. Skid Row, by the way, must have have been impressed by this album as well, because not only did their "Subhuman Race" sound very similar to "Mötley Crüe", but they even hired Bob Rock to produce it.
This album provides six great songs somewhere between Guns 'n' Roses, Ugly Kid Joe and Soundgarden's "Badmotorfinger" with the production of 90s Metallica, but it is also one of the worst examples of useless stretching. First off, four of these songs, as good as they are, are running too long for no reason whatsoever and the second half of the album is by no means on par with the first half. Nevertheless, in the end you get about 24 minutes of true brilliance plus one good "bonus track" which adds up to one of the best half hours of the 90s.