Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil

While Southern California punk bands were saying, “Our band could be your life,” Los Angeles’s hair metal acts were insisting, “Our band could be your fantasy.” They weren’t out to change the world as much as conquer it, and no one embodied that more than its breakout stars, Motley Crue. On their sophomore record Shout at the Devil, they invited listeners to let their ids run wild, propping the door open for gender play, sexual abandon, and a healthy distrust of authority. As more women entered the workforce — not only because upper-middle class white women had made this a central demand of their feminism but also because industrial job opportunities for men were declining. This book demonstrates how Shout at the Devil showed men rejecting manual labor in favor of being beautiful, entertaining, and sexually available. What followed were era-defining culture wars about gender roles, sexual expression, and freedom of speech.

While Southern California punk bands were saying, “Our band could be your life,” Los Angeles’s hair metal acts were insisting, “Our band could be your fantasy.” They weren’t out to change the world as much as conquer it, and no one embodied that more than its breakout stars, Motley Crue. On their sophomore record Shout at the Devil, they invited listeners to let their ids run wild, propping the door open for gender play, sexual abandon, and a healthy distrust of authority. As more women entered the workforce — not only because upper-middle class white women had made this a central demand of their feminism but also because industrial job opportunities for men were declining. This book demonstrates how Shout at the Devil showed men rejecting manual labor in favor of being beautiful, entertaining, and sexually available. What followed were era-defining culture wars about gender roles, sexual expression, and freedom of speech.