Track #17: “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” by Mötley Crüe (1983)

Welcome to Track Chatter, where with each post we choose a different song to discuss in depth. This entry is part of an ongoing series in which we approach the 1980s through examinations of Heavy Metal and Indie music.

Lew: As we turn our attention back to the heavy metal music of ‘80s, we’re taking a look at one of the more hotly debated eras of metal – the so-called “hair metal” of the 1980s LA scene. In his book, Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman states that he’s not a fan of the term “hair metal,” and prefers the term “glam metal.” I have to admit that I agree. LA bands had big hair for certain, but the look that was commonplace for bands of the scene had plenty of precedent in the glam rock of the ‘70s. Marc Bolan was looking like a Sunset Strip ex-pat well before Bret Michaels ever thought about putting on eyeliner. The relationship of LA metal to ‘70s glam rock and power pop can’t be easily overstated. Also, the term hair metal is applied in such an overwhelmingly pejorative way that it’s not conducive to balanced discussion. When you’ve essentially sided with its harshest critics in your choice of terminology, it’s hard to give the genre a fair shake, which I hope we’ll do here, for better or worse.

Twisted Sister at their glammiest

With that said, I should say that I don’t intend to provide an apotheosis for glam metal, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to do so (if Appetite for Destruction didn’t manage it, I don’t think that I can!) However, in the early 1980s, when I first became aware of glam metal, there was no need for an apotheosis, because I was pretty sure it was the greatest thing the human race had produced. As I noted earlier, my first exposure to metal in the ‘80s was “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, which became my favorite song almost instantly – so much so, that the music that I’d heard up to that point seemed bland by comparison. It was a pretty great three-and-a-half minutes! (I didn’t realize it at the time, but Twisted Sister, for all their drag queen affectations, were more of a ‘70s band than an ‘80s glam metal band. If anything they were “glam metal” in the truest sense of the word; much more indebted to T.Rex, Mott the Hoople and so on than any of their peers, excepting Quiet Riot.)

My exposure to “glam metal proper” came the following year, when I acquired a copy of Mötley Crüe’s Theater of Pain. The difference between Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe was immediately apparent, and almost as quickly as the bands they had replaced earlier, Twisted Sister seemed square, and a little goofy. Mötley Crüe sang about sex and street crime, had better production quality on their albums, and looked cooler on the album cover. Beyond that, Mötley Crüe created an awareness of Sunset Strip, not just as a location, but as an idea – a sort of beautiful decadence that transcended societal rules; a place that was simultaneously more fantastic and more real than anything I’d ever experienced.

For this entry, we’re going to be listening to a track from Mötley Crüe’s second album, Shout at the Devil. As blown away as I’d been by Theater of Pain, I loved “Shout at the Devil” that much more. It was meaner, and more streamlined (not that I’d have used those words at the time). Even thrash metal fans dug it, if you could get them to admit it. The track we’ll be talking about is “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid,” which is definitely a high point on the album.






Aaron, I realize that I’ve just started this discussion with what is, for intents and purposes, a significant digression, but I thought maybe you could talk a little about your time spent as an ‘80s metal fan, since I can only assume that Mötley Crüe must have figured into it somewhere.

Quiet Riot Metal Health (1983)

Aaron: Did Mötley Crüe figure in there somewhere? This is the one band, perhaps from this entire series, that I can say with certainty I got into as soon as they broke and loved as a fan – albeit briefly – during their first big run. The fall of 1983 was a game changer for me when it comes to music. Before that, I was into what I considered hard rock, mostly AC/DC whom I’d loved for a couple of years at that point, and a bit of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, whom my other AC/DC-loving friends would play for me on occasion. At the same time, though, I was happy to listen to Styx or REO Speedwagon, and I thought “Eye of the Tiger” was one of the rockingest things going.

Then, I woke up one morning in the fall of ’83 – I was in seventh grade – and I heard Quiet Riot’s version of “Cum on Feel the Noize” on the radio. I can no longer really say what it was about that song – it filled a hole? it spoke to me? it just plain rocked out? – but whatever it was, by the time its three minutes were up, I had a new favorite song.

Now, I’m sure events didn’t proceed as I remember them, but I feel like I got to school that day all excited to tell my friends about the song, only to have them tell me about this awesome new tune “Photograph” by some band called Def Leppard. Second favorite song of the day. And I’m pretty sure that night I threw on one of those early ‘80s late-night video shows and saw the Crüe’s video for “She’s Got the Looks that Kill.” And I’d found my musical niche. I was a metal kid. I didn’t know anything at the time about NWOBHM vs thrash vs glam vs Classic. All I knew was loud guitars, jeans and black leather, sex and the streets and a little bit of danger. And somehow it spoke to me. This just happened to be around the time that I and my friends started getting boom boxes and being able to afford the occasional $5 cassette or album from the mall, so all of sudden we were trading and taping everything we could that even remotely smacked of metal. We bought Hit Parader, transcribed lyrics, debated guitar prowess. And it was awesome. Something about the young teen mind, I guess, craves categorization, and I was thrilled to dive in to the metal category.

Then, almost as soon as it began, it was over. Sometime about two and a half years later, somebody played me a Led Zeppelin tape, and things would never be the same. Metal (or the metal that I knew) seemed tame, seemed simple by comparison. Who was Mick Mars in the face of Jimmy Page . . . or Jimi Hendrix. And so, in that way that teenaged brains have, my first real musical love became my first musical embarrassment.

While I’ve long since returned to AC/DC and many of the metal bands that could be considered classic rock, it wasn’t until this project started that I sat down and listened to Shout at the Devil in its entirety again, for the first time since the mid-1980s. Sure, I heard the hits all throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s, kept track of what was up with the band. But I never had the desire to really get my Crüe on until now. So I’m coming to this entry with a mix of excitement and trepidation, wondering which me will latch on to the band – the one who thrilled to every second of this album for nearly three years, or the one who spent the next ten pretending I’d never listened to it.

I guess I’ll get into that more once we start to talk about the music, but I’ll throw it back at you, Lew, with this question: why “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” and not one of the better-known songs from Shout at the Devil?

Lew: That’s a fair question, and it’s one that I’ve turned around a little. I guess, at the bottom of it all, I chose “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” because it’s always been my favorite song on Shout at the Devil. It’s one of the songs on the album that I still sometimes get into in the way that I did when I was 14 and hearing it for the first time, and I think there are things to recommend it that my (comparatively) adult mind enjoys as well. So, I guess in a way, I chose it for two reasons – both for what I loved about it back in the day, and what I enjoy about it now. I’m not sure if I can convincingly recapture my teenage perspective about it, but I can say a few things about how I hear it these days.

For starters, there’s the riff. It has a great hypnotic quality and the guitar tone is monolithic – by itself, it’s almost Sabbath-y. But, the stoner vibe is immediately destroyed by the vocal performance, which has to be one of Vince Neil’s best – it’s got a sort of controlled violence to it that really sells the song, for me. And, I think that the lyrics lend themselves to that impression, as well. The images aren’t always strongly connected, but they’re vivid, and they seem to project a sense of youthful alienation that, from a more defiant stance, isn’t too far removed from some of the themes that we’ve explored in the other songs throughout this series so far.

I also wanted to take a minute and acknowledge your remark about your first musical love becoming your first musical embarrassment, because it’s so on the money when it comes to my experience of ‘80s metal (not just the glam stuff, but all of it). Like you, I turned away from metal in response to hearing more classic rock stuff – mainly Zeppelin, but Hendrix, The Doors and The Who to a lesser extent. In retrospect, it’s an interesting dynamic, but it’s also a fairly logical move – for one, metal is always pretty open in its recognition of its own origins, and two, metal, and especially the L.A. bands, was the subject of general ridicule, despite being wildly popular. Plus, as you say, how could Mick Mars compare to Jimmy Page or Hendrix?

Mick Mars

Truthfully, he couldn’t even come close. He certainly didn’t have the improvisational skills often employed by Page or Hendrix (not that they’re really in the same class), and he didn’t have the nuances in his playing that allowed Hendrix to write “Castles Made of Sand,” or Page to write “The Rain Song.” One might almost wonder why Mötley Crüe felt compelled to put guitar solos in almost every song, when they seem so obligatory, and sadly, sort of pointless. But, that’s one of the ‘80s dynamics that probably deserves to be mentioned – they did that, because at the time, that was what you did if you were a rock band! Your guitar player might not be able to hang with Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads, but with metal kids, you’d be better received by having lackluster guitar solos then not doing them at all (Kirk Hammett is another striking example that we’ll get into later).  Quality rhythm guitar players couldn’t catch a break in the ‘80s, which is too bad. Whatever his other deficiencies might have been, Mick Mars could definitely write a riff, and play it convincingly.

So, with all that said, I guess this is as good a time as any to get your reaction to “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” on listening to it for the first time in a while. How does it strike you?

Aaron: I’m going to try and pick up or run with three threads here. First, I’ll start with the last point you make, on Mick Mars and riffing, and all I can say is damn! I wasn’t really quite prepared for how many cool, heavy riffs there are on this album. As I looked back at glam metal through the years, through the filters not only of classic rock, but ‘70s metal, punk, grunge, and so on, I always tended to think of it as light-weight. Sort of like the bands were more into image than music and were just playing at being heavy metal. And I think, in spite of a somewhat hushed-up love for the songs “Dr. Feelgood” and “Kickstart My Heart,” I lumped the Crüe in with Poison and Warrant and so on.

So I’ve really been happy about how much I’ve loved Mars’s guitar playing this time round. I think my happy surprise is further compounded by my not having cared all that much about Mars back in the day. I don’t know if it was because he was the “old” one or the short one or the “ugly” one, but I always sort of thought of him as the “lucky” one who got to hang out with these other three cooler, younger, sexier guys. But listening again, it’s become so totally obvious how much of the sound of MC has to do with his playing. And I guess part of that has to be his age, having lived through the ‘70s as an adult, he seems to me now to have a really obvious familiarity with not only the sounds of NWOBHM, but also straighter classic rock and punk, not to mention the stuff that Van Halen and Randy Rhodes had been getting up to.

Tommy Lee and one of his rotating kits

In a similar vein, and maybe we can get into this more later, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how much I’ve been liking Tommy Lee’s drumming. For a brief while in my teens, I thought he was the BEST DRUMMER EVER, then somebody told me he sucked and played me some Zeppelin. It’s nice to listen to his playing now and hear how much he doesn’t suck. He’s certainly not as dynamic or imaginative as the best classic rock drummers, but he’s really tight and he’s got a knack for surprising rhythmic gestures that I’m really into. He and Mars form a really cool rhythm section, which, I guess is compounded by Nikki Sixx’s bass often being mixed pretty low.

The second thing I wanted to touch on, and perhaps only briefly, is Vince Neil’s performance. Even back in the day, he was never one of my favorite singers, and I think it’s fair to say that his range is pretty limited - tell me if I’m wrong, but he seems flat a lot and relies a lot more on showiness than on actual singing. But sometimes he’s really got a way with his delivery which really makes the lyrics stick, and that randomness you mention above (I guess what you call a lack of a strong connection), well, he makes it work. The opening lines of “Shout at the Devil” really stand out to me (“he’s a wolf screaming lonely in the night / he’s a blood stain on the sta-a-age”) or the way he delivers the “you’re not gonna fuck with me!” scream at the end of “Bastard.” I don’t want to go crazy and compare his singing of Sixx’s lyrics to the Townsend/Daltry duo, but he does have a very good way with Sixx’s words.

The last thing I wanted to come back to, and I’ll try to keep it brief for now, is the way I got so embarrassed back in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s about having previously been a metal fan. Part of it, I know, was just youthful insecurity. But it might be worth talking about the dynamic of “cool” and how it percolates under the surface of so many people’s musical choices. Glam got SO big by the end of the ‘80s, that I think part of my initial aversion to it was just that I didn’t want to be lumped in with all the “new” metal heads everywhere - the guys blasting “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” down at the lake. But also, I think grunge and ‘90s alternative music, whatever we think about it now, was so adamantly positioned as “cooler” than metal, more authentic, less commercialised. And I have to admit, I bought into that mystique quite a bit. By ’93 or so, with Nirvana and hip-hop reigning supreme,  Clinton in the White House and Seinfeld on TV, the ‘80s just seemed so incredibly uncool to me in so many ways, and glam metal was central to that uncoolness. It’s made it really really hard for me to go back to it with anything other than disdain. So the fact that I’m enjoying Shout at the Devil so much right now has been a really really nice surprise.

Lew: I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I want to respond to the last paragraph of your post, but let’s hit the simple things first:

Without repeating myself too much, I’ll say that I never really thought that much of Mick Mars back in the day, either, but I’d agree that listening to Shout at the Devil now, he’s responsible for a lot of the “sound” of Mötley Crüe, musically speaking – solos and all. And, the more I listen to SATD, the more I think that his rhythm tone is less dated sounding than some of his contemporaries. As you suggest, it seems likely that the thick, warmer sound of his guitar on SATD, in contrast to what you hear from a lot of other ‘80s LA players, might have to do with his age – both in terms of his time spent with ‘60s and ‘70s rock, and the time he’d spent tinkering with amps to get the sound he wanted.

I also won’t hedge about saying that I think Tommy Lee is a great rock drummer. You’re right to say that he doesn’t have the dynamics or finesse of some of his predecessors, but even if he had, it probably wouldn’t have been very appropriate in the context of Mötley Crüe. He’s probably the best drummer for that band, in terms of being enough of a Bonham-esque’70s-sounding drummer to make the songs groove, while still able to add some double-bass to a section when it was necessary. And, no question – he and Mars make a killer rhythm section. Nikki Sixx is barely audible, and there’s speculation that he was too messed up to play some of the time, so it’s unclear as to whether he actually played all the bass parts on SATD or not. Either way, it’s not a make or break for the album, sonically or musically.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge your remarks about the cool factor of grunge and ‘90s alternative, as opposed to the seemingly outdated frivolity of glam metal, and really, metal in general. There was a strong perception of bands from Sunset Strip as being fake or superficial by 1991 or so, while bands from Seattle were guaranteed a certain amount of good will - whether they made good on it, or not. The bands share some of the blame for that perception. Bands like Trixter, Steelheart, The Bulletboys, et al., traded on the popularity of Poison (who were already pretty far down a path of diminishing returns), increasingly draining the originality from an image and stance that had already been bled dry (I admit, that’s subjective). And obviously, there’s a lot that to be said about the role played by record companies, in terms of which bands they chose to sign or whether they were looking for bands to sustain careers vs short term payouts. 

Alice in Chains Facelift (1991)

 To go a little further, at the risk of being paranoid, it seems possible that the presentation of Seattle bands as darker and more “real” wasn’t strictly a result of artistic evolution, but on some level, a deliberate move to provide an “alternative.” Case in point - one of the earliest examples of the Seattle scene that I ran across was Alice in Chains’ album Facelift. It’s not a bad album by any stretch, but a quick comparison to some of the heavier LA-styled bands of the time – Guns N' Roses, Skid Row, and definitely SATD-era Mötley Crüe shows that AIC weren’t doing much new, other than tuning down a little further, slowing down a tempo here or there, and moving the lead vocal to a lower register. They were definitely aiming at being rock stars, one of the primary criticisms of glam metal bands, and they definitely weren’t aiming for the level of personal expression that you’d find in a song like The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” (more ‘90s than ‘90s!). I’d say more, but I may be getting ahead of myself, so I’ll pass it back to you.

Aaron: I reckon there will always be a significant and vocal rock listenership that is obsessed with “authenticity” – the idea that, at any given cultural moment, certain aspirations and certain outward expressions of image, style, etc., are somehow “real,” while others are phoney, or pre-packaged, or examples of “selling out.” Grunge, at least in the early days, did a great job of claiming authenticity for itself and draping the sell-out cloak over most of ‘80s metal. I’d agree with you that record companies and promoters had a lot to do with it, but the grunge guys themselves played a role, too.

Axl Rose in his Nirvana cap

Kurt Cobain’s public mocking of Axl Rose wanting to make friends with him seems a case in point – Cobain wasn’t only avoiding the metal guy, by repeatedly talking shit about Axl in public, he was making it clear to his fans (and everybody else) that there was a clear dividing line between them. I totally bought it at the time, while today it seems pretty juvenile and dickish (as do most “more authentic than you” spats in the pop/rock world). But just as in the early to mid 1990s grunge seemed authentic and real, by the end of the decade it had become just another marketing gimmick. But I guess I’d have to admit that in my late teens and early twenties, I still wasn’t a savvy enough listener/fan to to distinguish the many filters between an artist or band’s initial concept and the producers, marketers, media outlets, radio dj’s, plus the whole cultural context, all of which sort of intercede between that initial concept and my listener’s ears.

So, where Mötley Crüe is concerned, circa 1989-1995, it wouldn’t have mattered if somebody had sat me down and played some of the deep cuts of SATD – “Bastard,” or “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid,” for example – and just got me to listen for the songs themselves. No matter how heavy, how edgy, how dark, how riffy . . . nothing, I’m pretty sure, could have convinced me that the Crue were, in any meaningful (to me) sense, “good.”

But listening to “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” now, I’ve blown past all that stuff (or I like to think so, at least) and I can let myself rock out to it. And also hear how grim its story is. When you mentioned earlier that Mötley Crüe was the first band to switch you on to the idea of Sunset Strip as something more than just a geographical place, I think even reading that sentence, the first thing that popped into my mind was the “glam” side of glam metal – airbrushed chicks, big hair, decadence (even now, the stereotype has a strong hold of my imagination). But listening to some of the songs on SATD, including this one, you really see how rough and nasty that world could be. I tend to think of “Welcome to the Jungle” as the big “LA is a dark and dangerous place for newbies” song. But that vibe is all over SATD. The random, almost impressionistic, lyrics only really hint at a story, but at the same time they do paint a very vivid picture – I love the line about “another sidewalk’s bloody dream,” which seems to give some agency to the very streets of LA, as if the place itself demands some sort of sacrifice. I guess that’s not really a novel concept, either in terms of music in general (“I went down to the crossroads”) or LA as a place where one must “sell one’s soul.” But I like the way Mötley Crüe depict it on this album as a necessary struggle, and one of survival as much as selling out. It might be posturing and braggadocio, but they do manage to make it more authentic sounding than I’d given them credit for for a very long time.

Lew: I agree that the issue of authenticity is an ongoing concern in rock music, and probably always will be. It’s an unfortunate attachment to any artistic moment, I suppose, in that it really moves the target away from perceiving art on its own terms, and instead allows it be judged by contemporary trends. Which, in turn, points to the question of whether art is functioning as a means of communicating personal experience, or interacting with the world, or is merely a commodity for short term consumption. And, considering that late-stage capitalist society casts ideology and perspective as commodities, it’s sort of inevitably both – hence the ongoing quest for new levels of authenticity, I guess. I’m not sure if there’s a better example in recent history of economics and consumable ideology aligning to create an unholy union (as well as some great music) than in the early ‘90s, and the Kurt Cobain/Axl Rose dichotomy is probably the perfect example.

In any case, when you get down to it, “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” definitely captures the dark LA vibe that you mentioned, and places the protagonist against that backdrop pretty effectively. Where “Welcome to the Jungle” plays the role of a barker pointing out the sights and attractions to a new arrival, “Knock ‘Em Dead” comes from inside the city – within the maelstrom,  so to speak. It’s a powerful, “I’m here!” – a sort of statement of Ego within an Id-dominated landscape. It’s a valid point to note that Mötley Crüe weren’t exactly living the dark side of LA in the way that NWA were, but, at the risk of getting overly philosophical about Mötley Crüe, I still think Knock ‘Em Dead Kid makes a strong existential statement, and one that would probably be diminished by a clearer narrative.

So, given that we’ve opened the can of worms on Nirvana, and the Seattle scene (two different things, really), and kind of set glam metal and grunge in opposition to one another, at least in terms of social perspective, I’m curious how you think the narrative of rock music moves from one to the other. Obviously, it can’t be as disjointed as grunge, or Kurt Cobain, would have had it. Leaving aside context, or cultural currency, do you think that “Knock ‘Em Dead” could have existed at the same time as Smells Like Teen Spirit, or do you think there are some clear signifiers that place it in the ‘80s?

Aaron: I’m going to resist the urge to continue with the “authenticity” issue – not because it’s not interesting, but rather because it’s too interesting and I can see myself getting easily bogged down in it – particularly the issues you raise about capitalism and commodification. I would like to raise one point, if I could though. I do think sometimes as critics of music, art, film, etc. get older we tend to look back on our own youthful stridency and bemoan the ghettoization that comes with the authenticity wars. On the flip side, however, I guess that the question of authenticity (or originality, or some mix of them and other potentially self-righteous terms) also serves the positive function of pushing art itself forward. Many young and otherwise new artists are, after all, fans themselves. Often times their own sense of urgency and the creative energy that fuels it come from the tension that exists in both admiring the authentic and trying to improve upon it. For example, and vastly oversimplified, Mötley Crüe trying to out-Aerosmith Aerosmith, or Nirvana trying to improve on The Pixies. But yeah, when it overlaps with and then dominates fandom and all the other baggage that comes with that (style and fashion, attitude, even the approaches to musicianship that we’ve earlier touched on in the metal vs. punk conversations we’ve had), then it can be both annoying and very limiting.

Hugely influential during 1st run ('87-'95)

As to your final question - I’ve thought about it a lot and listened to the song over and over, trying to find a way to nestle it into the grunge era and I just think it doesn’t fit. You know much more about the post-‘80s metal scene and how it moved on after MTV lost interest (and also, I guess, it began its massive splintering), so perhaps you could say something about whether “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” could have existed and thrived in a 1994 metal world. But it’s just so far from grunge in so many ways, that I can’t imagine any self-respecting grunger having thrown it (or anything that sounded much like it) on at a party at the height of the Nirvana/Pearl Jam era.

First, it just sounds different. You can probably explain the basis for this more clearly than I, but Mars’s guitar, as much as I’ve come to admire it during the course of working on this piece, just has that staccato, riffy vibe that screams ‘80s to me. And Neil’s vocals have that ‘80s reverby echo that sounds very different from the kind of effects that were used on grunge and other ‘90s vocals.

Even more though, and I think this is important, is the lyrical content. In some of the ways we’ve discussed, “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid” does have some similarities with grunge in its broad-stroke ambiguity. But I think its description of external experience, it’s almost complete lack of introspection or other type of internalization marks it as different. I don’t mean that in any qualitative sense - that introspective lyrics are somehow “better,” not at all (you know how much I love AC/DC!). It’s just that part of grunge’s allure, it seems to me, was the way it confronted or gave voice to a set of complex internal thoughts and emotions that were very appealing to the youth of the time.

I’ve grown very wary of generational classifications in the last few years, but I do think grunge benefited from being “Gen X” music in that the first real generation of divorce, of post-civil/women’s rights, environmentalism etc. was coming of age, and during a time when media was changing rapidly. In addition to MTV, which we’ve talked about, there was CNN and the 24-hour news cycle, the concept of political spin with Clintonism. Plus there was that horrible horrible, death-grip sense of irony and cynicism that was so inescapable for so long. Those things were all certainly bubbling under the surface of the ‘80s, and a lot of people switched on to them way before I did. But I think a song like “Knock ‘Em Dead Kid,” as well as it does what it does, was more about simplifying the external threat and dealing with it in a bravado sort of way, as opposed to grunge’s very confused internalization. Do you buy that?

Lew: I think your observation about introspection in ‘90s bands’ lyrics is really good, and definitely applicable to “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid.” I agree that it’s a dividing line between ‘80s metal bands, and grunge bands of the ‘90s – at least as a rule of thumb. There are noteworthy outliers on either side, but, for the most part, Mötley Crüe was not one of them. I was initially ready to say that “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” is lyrically based in punk, but truthfully, it has as much to do with classic rock and metal songs – “My Generation,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Back in Black” and the like – that, as you said, externalize some kind of establishment other, and position the protagonist as a rebel who won’t submit to the subjugation that other brings, through physical violence, or social/financial pressure.

In terms of your remarks about changes to media, and heightened perception of social justice (or lack thereof) in the ‘90s, it’s interesting that those changes to the external world accompanied a greater degree of introspection – to some extent, I’d expect the opposite. Do you think that an increased awareness of images, information, and spin tended to create a feeling of powerlessness, or a sense that the rebellion of songs like “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” ultimately didn’t amount to much? I can’t say for sure, although I’d guess that part of the change also relates to an increased desire for confessionalism in pop culture, which found a new footing in the ‘90s.

I alluded to outliers earlier, and I think it’s worth mentioning again, because at the start of the ‘90s, the first wave of grunge – Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and so on – wasn’t that far removed from what other metal bands were doing. Metal itself was changing – death metal was developing in Florida and in Europe, and other metal bands that were neither thrash or grunge (Prong, Living Color, and Faith No More as just a few examples) were becoming well-known, so the sounds and songwriting structures that AIC and Soundgarden were using weren’t initially indicative of any kind of sea change.

Alice in Chains/Van Halen '91

And, in point of fact, Alice In Chains got one of their first big breaks as a touring act opening for Van Halen, while Soundgarden opened for Guns N' Roses. In general, I think grunge – minus Nirvana, and to a lesser extent Pearl Jam – might have turned into something closer to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, in the sense that it would have been an influential, but not culturally dominant, movement. In that scenario, I think a song like “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” could have remained a factor in the timeline, albeit as an earlier moment in the evolutionary chain. But, without returning to the question of authenticity, Nirvana, and the accompanying sense of newness that went with the iteration of heavy music that they were presenting, created such an abrupt split in musical taste, that I think you’re dead right in saying that “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” has way too many of those ‘80s artifacts to be considered relevant in the grunge climate.

Aaron: It seems to me that all three of the major points you raise in your last response circle around what I think is sort of the driving subtext of this entire series: how did strains of ‘80s metal and indie eventually mesh - or, maybe, braid - into the “alternative” music of the ‘90s. A very simple equation might be something like metal’s hard rock + indie’s confessionalism = Nirvana.

Why or how that came about, I don’t know for sure. As I’ve indicated before, I tend to be wary of generational oversimplification. But I do think that Gen X coming of age in the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s has something to do with it. To keep it overly simple, along with all the great pop of the ’80s, metal and indie were part of our youthful soundtrack - and as unpopular as they may have been in the early ‘80s (in terms of wide-spread listenership), they also probably represented two of the larger “anti-establishment” cliques in music fandom for ‘80s teenagers. I think it’s pretty clear that the grunge musicians of the ‘90s also grew up listening to Black Sabbath, NWOBHM, Aerosmith, etc. But, as Kurt Cobain made so clear, they also grew up listening to REM. Eddie Vedder is famously a big fan of Pete Townshend’s songwriting – very introspective.

When you look at a song like “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid,” I think that externalization that we’ve been talking about is important because it can seem (not that I’m saying it is) uncritical, or unreflective. It’s me against the world and, well, fuck it, I don’t care! Whereas as grunge and other ‘90s alternative developed, it wanted to reflect on the situation, or deal with internal reactions to it. And to a certain extent (or, at least, in my case), I do think that music was appealing because it took what I liked about metal – distortion, loud guitars, driving rhythms, etc. – and meshed it with what I’d been finding so appealing in indie music. By the time I was in my “slacker” early 20s, “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” just didn’t seem to have enough meat on its bones for me, if you know what I mean. I was trying to “find” myself or what have you, and the music that really spoke to me back then had at least some amount of emotional or introspective content.

On the other hand, I think I can appreciate “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” so much more today because, while I still enjoy the hell out of introspective music, I don’t feel the need to ensconce myself in it almost exclusively. I think that also accounts for my enjoyment of the Mars and Lee parts so much – in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, I would have let the lyrics drive me away almost completely so I wouldn’t even have given the awesome rhythm the time of day, and now I just really love it.

Mötley Crüe in their mid-'80s glory

Lew: Right, I agree. Where my listening in the ‘90s was more about searching for music that fit with my interest in hearing heavier stuff, while also satisfying my intellect or need for music that was closer to expressing my experiences, I find now that I’m much more capable of setting my expectations in different places for different approaches to music. I’m sure that in 1995, I would have thought that my taste was pretty inclusive, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been saying the same things about “listening to music on its own terms” for a good part of my life, but the truth is – as we’ve discussed – that a lot of my taste at the time was bound up in what I liked, what I perceived other people’s expectations to be (accurately or not), and what was generally trendy at the time. Which I guess is a long way around to say that at this point in my life, I can cut Mötley Crüe a kind of slack that I probably would have reserved for Led Zeppelin or AC/DC in the ‘90s.

There’s a lot more that we can say about the relationship between the ‘80s and the ‘90s, and I’m sure we’ll get to quite a bit more of it as we continue. However, for now, I think we can grant “Knock ‘Em Dead, Kid” its status as a kick-ass rock song, with the pros and cons that that designation implies, and turn our attention back to the indie side of things.

Next up: We travel back across the pond to take on one of the icons of ‘80s indie music: The Smiths