Although most of the original UK glam and glitter bands flopped in the US, they struck a nerve with hardcore fans who mixed the glam attack with more conventional memes from affiliated bands like Kiss and Alice Cooper and concocted a new strain of bubble-glam metal for the Material Age.
Mötley Crüe emerged when skinny-tied New Wave was still the rage on the Hollywood Strip. The Crüe may have dressed metal, but they were a '70s hard rock band at heart, drawing influences from British glam stompers like Slade and Sweet (Crüe's debut Too Fast for Love is a virtual remake of Sweet's Desolation Boulevard), as well as better-known acts like Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Queen.
Unlike the ranting NWOBM bands, early Crüe lived and died on catchy, shout-along melodies. Noting that the girls in the stands got prettier whenever bands offered up power ballads, the Crüe made sure they had one on hand for every album. And with Kiss out of uniform, the Crüe hijacked their old comic book villain outfits, adding just enough makeup to ring a bell without crossing Kiss's extremely-aggressive army of lawyers.
Their look and unintentionally humorous videos caught MTV's eye and helped spark a strip-mall rebellion against the androgynous Brits dominating the charts. The critics hated them, but Crüe fed on their disapproval, boasting of the bad reviews in their press kits.
Van Halen and Mötley Crüe inspired a battalion of lesser metallic Dionysii. Hot on Crüe's heels were Quiet Riot, who scored platinum with their sound-alike cover of Slade's "Cum on Feel the Noize." Ratt scored with "Round and Round," bolstered by a video featuring Milton Berle (who appears in drag, as he did on TV).
Other bands like Y&T, Autograph, and Poison repeated the formula, and New York's Twisted Sister made a mockery of it.
Led by Dee Snider, Twisted Sister was nowhere near as slick as their California rivals. Still, they scored big in 1984 with two catchy hits, "We're Not Going to Take It" and "I Wanna Rock," both of which were as punk rock as they were metal. The band produced two humorous videos for the hits, both of which were burnout revenge fantasies featuring Animal House star Mark Metcalf (who played the sadistic frat boy Doug Niedermeyer).
Sister quickly waned soonafter, but Dee Snider became an MTV VJ and a rock folk hero after testifying before Congress during the rock music censorship hearings called by the politically connected wives of the PMRC.
Snider kept busy with a new band, sporadic acting roles, frequent appearances on Howard Stern's radio show, his own DJ gig, and the inevitable Twisted Sister reunions.
Crüe's own fortunes took a turn for the worse when the entire band descended into addiction hell. Vince Neil's career was nearly ended in 1984 when he drunkenly crashed his car, killing Hanoi Rocks' drummer Razzle.
Incidentally, Razzle was soon replaced by Terry Chimes, who'd recently fled The Clash's own internal meltdown.
Neil got off with what many thought was a shockingly lenient sentence, and the Crüe cleaned up their act as best they could. They'd be major stars throughout the Eighties and early Nineties, their fame peaking with 1990's smash, Dr. Feelgood.
Things got complicated from there, with Neil and Lee coming and going, a new singer (briefly) taking over in 1994, and inevitably, an increasingly grim and reputation-shattering series of "final tours."
The Crüe's reputation was badly diminished by their reaction to guitarist Mick Mars' severe auto-immune disorder, which caused the bones in his spinal column to fuse. With big money at stake, Mars got the boot and was replaced by Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5.
