Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, Neil Strauss
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mick Mars, Neil Strauss, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince NeilEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-07-09
ISBN: 0060989157
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Book Reviews of Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
Book Review: The Rare Rock Bio that Pleases Fans and Non Fans Alike
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a big Mötley Crüe fan. In fact, watching the Looks that Kill video on MTV back in 1984 turned this average football loving eleven year old into a crazed headbanger and sent me on a lifelong quest for the loudest, heaviest, hardest hitting music possible.
So, fitting squarely in the target group this book's aiming for, I really doubt that I can write a fair, impartial assessment of the book.
For heshers like me, who grew up rocking endlessly to tunes like Looks That Kill, Shout at the Devil, Red Hot, Too Young to Fall in Love, Bastard, Ten Seconds to Love, Wild Side, Girls, Girls, Girls, and ...All in the Name Of yet still have a soft spot in their hearts for a schmaltzy power ballad like Home Sweet home, this book is like a dream come true.
The astonishing rise of the band, from local LA glam metal misfits to worldwide hard rock juggernaut is told both with graphic detail and candid detachment, keeping the narrative flowing and the reader hooked with these lecherous lunkheads' exploits, while their failings as human beings and subsequent fall from grace are dealt with a brutally honest style. The story is told by multiple narrators, most of the time the band members adding some important collaborators here and there. Even if this technique might bring contradicting versions on some incidents, it makes for a truly interesting and entertaining read.
This book is not for the squeamish. Much like Led Zeppelin, Queen and Van Halen before them and Guns and Roses after them, the Crüe built a bad boy reputation based on their sexually decadent behavior and drug excesses, but unlike the aforementioned bands, their music didn't prove to be strong enough on the long run to stand on it's own outside the band's image.
That said, Neil Strauss manages to weave the story in a way that it ultimately becomes a tale that anybody can identify with: a scarcely talented yet very driven group of misfits pay their dues and achieve their dreams of rock 'n roll stardom, succeeding despite their life threatening drug and alcohol addictions yet ultimately loosing it all to their own hubris and fighting to rise from their own ashes.
Yes folks, this is the formula both for a Greek tragedy and a Behind the Music special, and that's the main reason this book works so well regardless if the reader is interested in the band or not.
For big fans of the band like me, this book delivers most of the dirty details we already knew and delivers a few we missed over the years.
I mean, before reading the book I already knew that Vince Neil's a selfish alcoholic bum who's only in it for the girls and the money, that Nikki Sixx's an immature drug addict incapable of confronting his problems who will always blaming his failings on childhood issues and that Tommy Lee is little more than a stupid and violent manchild, but on the other hand, I didn't know about Mick's health or personal issues and was shocked about how much his fellow band members kicked him around over the years.
During its 80s heyday, fans perceived the band as an airtight unit, an unlikely yet unbreakable brotherhood of wild, unpredictable rock misfits united by music, tragedy and success. True, with Vince Neil's sacking in 1992, this perception began to crumble, but the author doesn't pull any punches at exposing the band's feuding and backstabbing, proving that said brotherhood was nothing but a carefully cultivated image.
One interesting point the book doesn't address is Mick's real age: despite the claim that he's about five years older than the other guys, there's a persisting rumor among hardcore Crüe fans that he was actually in his early forties when the band fame's exploded, which doesn't seem that implausible after all if you look at old band photos.
In the end, The Dirt is that rare rock biopic that not only delivers all the sordid details the band's fandom expect, but also manages to build an engaging human interest story that can appeal to anyone interested in rock music.
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Summary of Motley Crue: The Dirt - Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
The most influential, enduring, and iconic metal band of the 1980's reveals everything a tell-all of epic proportions.
This unbelievable autobiography explores the rebellious lives of four of the most influential icons in American rock history.
Motley Crue was the voice of a barely pubescent Generation X, the anointed high priests of backward-masking pentagram rock, pioneers of Hollywood glam, and the creators of MTV's first "power ballad." Their sex lives claimed celebrities from Heather Locklear to Pamela Anderson to Donna D'Errico. Their scuffles involved everyone from Axl Rose to 2LiveCrew. Their hobbies have included collecting automatic weapons, cultivating long arrest records, pushing the envelope of conceivable drug abuse, and dreaming up backstage antics that would make Ozzy Osbourne blanch with modesty.
Provocatively written and brilliantly designed, this book includes over 100 photos, many never before published, for the most exciting and insightful look ever into the Crue.
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