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Mötley Crüe > If I Die Tomorrow > Reviews
Mötley Crüe - If I Die Tomorrow

Dead before tomorrow. - 25%

hells_unicorn, January 26th, 2007

The years have not been kind to this band, that is all I can say about this song, which unfortunately can not really be associated with what was once the band that personified 80s sleaze. For the young teenager who is rocking out to “New Found Glory” or perhaps even “St. Anger”, this song might function as a token song from a once great 80s band for an I-Pod compilation, but that is sadly the extent of it’s usefulness.

Lyrically this song could have been written for the reunion of Boys to Men or perhaps even the Backstreet Boys. It can be summed up as some whiny words from a man begging to be noticed; a man that doesn’t realize that he’s singing a sappy love song at the ripe old age of 40 or so to a bunch of high school girls. The vocal delivery is equally uninspired with a flat range that doesn’t extend beyond an octave; this is the kind of song that Creed could perform if Scott Stapp had been a tenor rather than a baritone.

This song consists of one heavy riff that unfortunately sees no development whatsoever. You’ve got the already established grunge cliché of a quiet and gloomy, though extremely repetitive clean guitar drone for the verse, followed by the distorted riff during the chorus that was okay for an intro but has already become tiresome. That is the entire song’s structure, which completely defies any logical explanation when one remembers that this is the same band that wrote “Wild Side” and “Dr. Feelgood”. On top of this, we have absolutely no solo to speak of, we only get a few short blues licks at the end of the song, which are so low in the mix that they may as well not be there.

When left with this pile of garbage as the latest original offering from what was once a force to be reckoned with, the core fan of Motley Crue is left with one question, “How did this happen?” Unfortunately the bands who truly were destroyed by the changeover in the 1990s were the mainstream friendly glam and sleaze acts and many others whom were not directly linked to the NWOBHM. Dokken, Scorpions, Queensryche, Metallica, Dio and Iron Maiden all suffered heavily during that decade and many of them have yet to recover from it. I guess when your core principles are put to such an incredible test as potentially losing your audience to a bunch of no talent, flannel-wearing, cock-smoking halfwits you sometimes forget what your music is all about. Motley Crue was not at it’s best when it wrote mushy Power Ballads, perhaps with the exception of “Home Sweet Home”, but the attempt to marry one to their more heavy rocking sound is far worse, and that is what they have been reduced to here.

Although this band has been extremely off its game since the initial exodus of Vince Neal, this song is a stain on a brilliant career that need not have occurred. This song would have agreed with me a whole lot more if it were varied more, if Mars could rip out one of his short but sweet solos, and if Vince would sing like he means it, but it seems that one would be hoping against hope if he expected such things. I don’t plan to let this song tarnish my memories of this band, and I hope that few others will allow that to happen.

If I Whine Tomorrow. - 10%

PseudoGoatKill, March 5th, 2005

Can you see why I've so happily re-named this song? Just like OSS I too have been subjected to this song on the radio, or rather KRWN 92.9 to be specific. Now don't get me wrong this radio station can play some decent tunes. They also have a local rock show that plays some decent hardcore, hardrock, and metalcore. The station also plays alot of radio metal thrash.

Of course they also play a shitload of nu-metal, mallcore, and my personal favorate, whinecore.* So what's a person to do when a song such as that starts playing? Turn the station? No then I'd be subjected to Britney Spears or Outkast. Turn the radio off? That option is pretty tempting, but no like the sadist I am I actually had to listen to the song.

The first thing that came to mind was "This is an ok whiny song by Simple Plan." Imagine my dismay when I find out it's from Motley Crue. Now don't get me wrong though, I could never stand this band. I'm not like OSS that I'll defend this band to the death. Of course the only other song I've heard is "Smoking in the Boys Room", which is itself a bad song but not as horrible as this.

I'm not even sure how to describe the music in my usual manner. The vocals are extremely whiny, shit I'd take In Flames over this crap anyday. I have reason to believe that the guitar riffs were written around one string, and possibly for effort they played a few powerchords. The bass is non-existant, and the drums are, well good fucking lord I can drum to this and I'm by no means a drummer. It just sucks plain and simple.

There is another horrifying thing about this song too. I know I've heard this song before a few years ago. The lyrics might have been differant, but the guitar parts and drums were pretty much the same.

Now obviously Motley Crue is doing this so they can meet up with Max Calvara, In Flames, and dare I say Mayhem? in the land of Cash Grab. So because of this I'm offering some ways they can make lots and lots and lots of money.

1. Piss in a cup and sell it on EBay. There would thousands of people that would pay big money to own a cup of Motley Crue piss. Please, just don't ask what they plan on doing with this though. Money Earned: $0-$5000**

2. Perform the ultimate kvlt masquerade. This one's easy but requires some careful planning. Don't worry with my plan the band will make lots of money. First the band needs to secretly make a kvlt black metal band and record one album. One of the band members should fake a suicide. I suggest doing this by stuffing himself with harberino peppers and then puking and shitting blood all over the place. Have the other band member take a picture of this and put it on the album. Now give this to a very close friend and have them make very few copies on vinyl, and have them sell it on EBay. Cha-ching! You get the money and run, and no one is the wiser.*** Money Earned: $0-$20,000 (depending on the stupidity of the kvlt kiddies.)

3. Become total sellouts. Change the band's name to something like Blood Duds, Plastic Can, or Whine Sell Kill. Get other bands such as Linkin Park, Nickleback, Noise Therapy, Good Charlotte to write your songs. Perform these and tour these into the ground. Make merchindise and sell it like crazy! Money Earned: Wow like millions and millions of dollars!!

3b. Hell they should become the lowest of the bunch, they should become a boyband! No that wouldn't work, the Crue isn't boyband standards. Money Earned $0

Yep kiddies, MC have now gone to the land of Cash Grab. If this trend continues then wave bye bye to metal as we knew it.

Motley Crue "If I Whine Tomorrow" 10/100 for the sickenly catchy parts.

* No whinecore is not my favorate

** Estimated money earned. It really depends on the sheep-I mean the people

*** Yes I'm mocking Mayhem, shove off if you don't like it.

Depressing, but not surprising - 5%

OlympicSharpshooter, December 30th, 2004

Yeah, I've defended some of the most hated (supposed) sell-outs in metal, but I will not defend this. In fact, I will flat-out CONDEMN this piece of shit for existing. It ain't too kvlt to listen to the radio these days I know, but I do listen to it and thus I've been exposed to what passes for rock radio these days. As awful and as prevalent as Linkin Park and their imitators are (I'm looking at you Trapt), the most abundant forms of new rock on the radio are nu-metal and Nickelback-style toothless nu-grunge.

So you're Mötley Crüe. God knows you're rich (unless all of the hooker-beating has finally put Vince Neil's bank account into flatline), but you wanna make a “comeback”. You want the big arena tour, you want to ram yet another compilation down our collective throats. You decide that, in order to accomplish this, you will totally sell-out for what has to be the thousandth time in your career. At this point, it can't hurt. Your choice then is to go nu-metal or go Default. The kids won't buy you as tough, you can't come up with any convincing thud metal riffs, and you're way too fucking old to really go for the "I want to die because my crush ignored me" market. So, you go for the most soulless corporate trash since the heyday of hair.

Welcome to hell, fellow music-listeners.

Generally I don't review singles, but this deserves our attention. Look at it. Just... look at it. They hit the nail right on the head here kiddies. Unfortunately, it's one of those nails that is crucifying metal today. Watch the bloated beast bleed out it's last in the popular market as metal legends sell their souls one by one. Not that this is a surprise to anyone. After all, the guy pounding the skins has gone from “Too Young to Fall in Love” to releasing one of the most dreadfully generic solo records ever in 2002's Never a Dull Moment.

So what does it sound like? Well, have you heard Nickelback? Or Default? Or Theory of a Deadman? Or (later) Three Doors Down? Well, if you've heard anything from anyone of them, you'll know what this sounds like. Seriously, the only thing that separates this new/nu Crüe from the brat pack is the fact that Vince Neil cannot sing. Hey, no offence to the man responsible for Shout at the Devil and Too Fast For Love, but friends his voice has not aged well. At the very least Default has a frontman who can sustain long enough to fill the huge god-complex melodies or stay in key during the 'emotional' bits. Remember, Vince is so out of shape that he sings about every third word of "Dr. Feelgood" these days. So when the man flat-out whines in his most nasal voice over the most exacerbated 'big hook' chorus in recent memory, it made me just want to die and die today rather than tomorrow. At the very least the back-up vocals fit the music, but all they do is point out that Tommy and Nikki are actually much better singers than Vince is.

Oh, and watch out for some horrific abuse of dynamics. Granted, this thing was probably written on a grimly impersonal assembly line in some sort of massive dark tower labelled 'Hitmakers Inc.', guided by a nice thick tome labelled 'Formulaic Radio Rock for Dummies', but Jesus Christ at the very least Nickelback had something original (or perhaps only sparingly used) in the beginning. This mess is just striking in its absence of inspiration. Emotional intro, try too hard crunch riff, 'soaring' chorus melodies, inspirational lyrics, and horrid fourth-string power ballad soloing... this thing is about one foot shy of the 'whisper-scream' structure. In fact, it even manages to give off some pop-punk vibes. And that is a bad, bad thing.

Comeback singles tend to fall into two categories: pale shades of what once was and desperate attempts to stay current. Some manage to conjure visions of the band's best material (Iron Maiden - "The Wicker Man", The Who - "Old Red Wine"), but most crash and burn. In fact, although I didn't like it very much Van Halen's latest single "It's About Time" looks like a how-to manual on what you should do when placed next to this horror. It isn't obvious, it goes all over the place, and it manages to give flashes of what made the band so special in the first place. That song is positively buried in irritating crunch riffs, but for all it's shortcomings it at the very least it gives us the image of a band that is still putting out music for themselves.

Mötley Crüe on the other hand, has hit a new low. Where once they stood for insouciance and rebellion, they are now the avatars of the corporate system that pulls their strings. Disgraceful.