Pros: Solid hard rock from Crüe-abi days of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band®.
Cons: Life's not always fair, or so they say.
The Bottom Line: Decent single release from an under-appreciated, often misunderstood Crüe record relegated to bargain bins everywhere... until it was re-released that is. Worth the small chuck to pick it up.
sleestakk's Full Review: Misunderstood [Maxi Single] by Motley Crue
With the buzz surrounding the new Mötley Crüe tell-all autobiography The Dirt hitting the shelves, I've kinda had a little Mötley on the brain lately. So the other day when I saw this single at Metal Haven (heavy metal record store in Chicago) four bucks used I couldn't pass it up. The older Mötley singles aren't all that easy to come by these days especially from their ill-fated self-titled disc from '94.
Also by picking up this single I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to write up my first CD single review since that seems to be a current fad around here. I'm just wondering how much there is to say about this maxi single with only four songs. This could get pretty boring but I'll give it a go.
Misunderstood was originally featured on Mötley Crüe's MC94 disc (track 4) and released as a single sometime in mid-1994 supposedly w/b-sides Smoke The Sky and Hammered (demo) but I've never been able to prove the existence of that one. Later the song would be mass distributed as a maxi-CD with three different tracks; Hooligan's Holiday (Extended Holiday Version), Hypnotized (Previously Unreleased Demo), and Hooligan's Holiday (LP Version). That's the one I picked up.
As an individual tune, Misunderstood is decent track that teeters between hard rock ballad and mid-tempo rocker. Written as a collaboration between the three original members of the Crüe (Sixx, Lee, and Mars) and newcomer, John Corabi, the vocalist that replaced the departed Vince Neil, the tune is a solid piece of music. Yet even with Corabi's influence, Misunderstood sounds like it could've been on their previous studio effort, Dr. Feelgood, five years earlier; it has that kind of vibe reminiscent of Don't Go Away Mad but not quite as poppy. Not that I dislike Corabi's microphone work but had Vince sang on this, I think it would've been crazy good.
As with much of MC94, Misunderstood is a grungier sounding track than what the band did on Feelgood, and I attribute this to the alt.rock influence during the early 90's and Corabi's raspy singing style, which was made for this kind of music. The tune opens with Corabi's folksy swamp box vocals over Mick Mars strumming a sweet 12-string with a string quartet providing backup, "Little old man contemplates suicide twice a day/life's passed him by/little old woman scared and blind, left alone in desperate times/life's passed her by." The strings really do add a nice touch to this intro.
Right after Corabi sings, "Oh life, it's misunderstood them, so they close their eyes and dream of better days/oh life, it's misunderstood, yeah/life's not always fair, or so they say," the Mötley RAWK kicks in as Nikki's big bass and Tommy's bigger drums crash into a hard groove led by Mick's distorted six-string. The violins and cellos are now barely audible in the background, as John becomes a bluesier singer leading into the dirty guitar solo, heavy on the wah-wah yet melodic and well suited for the song.
Misunderstood ends on the same note as it began with careening ballad-like textures; Corabi's light approach with soft backing vocals, the mini-orchestra, and Mick's simple 12-string rhythm. Altogether, it works well albeit a bit long at nearly 7 minutes. You might say that this in particular was another reason the track was never embraced by radio or the fans; it's just too damn long.
Despite the length, the song sends a clear message of coming to grips with what life deals out yet having hope that things might be better out there for someone. Chalk it up as another introspective Nikki Sixx tune. Overall it's not my favorite from MC94 but it's good. Oh yeah, for what it's worth, Glenn Hughes, ex-bassist from Deep Purple, shows up in the song as a backup singer. He's a friend of Mick Mars so I've heard.
The other tracks on this maxi-single include the Skinny Puppy Extended Holiday remix of Hooligan's Holiday which is an eleven minute much-ado-about-nothing track, a snoozefest really, and the Black Widow sessions demo of Hypnotized, a loud cockrock tune that would find its way onto the re-release of MC94. Also the LP version of the first single from the record, Hooligan's Holiday, shows up for no explainable reason.
Even though MC94 never went over well with Mötley Crüe's core fans, it's often hailed as one of the better Crüe records in their catalog by those more critical of band. And I would be one of them. It's not easy looking past the absence of Vince on vocals, but the band still put out a serious metal record in 1994. It's just too bad the fans misunderstood it.
If you want solid rock and a solid tune, pick up this three and half star single... if ya can find it.
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