Shout at the Devil

Shout at the Devil
Studio album by Mötley Crüe
Released	September 26, 1983
Recorded	April–July 1983
Studio	Cherokee Studios, Hollywood, California
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	32:54
Label	Elektra
Producer	Tom Werman
Mötley Crüe chronology
Too Fast for Love (1981) Shout at the Devil (1983) Theatre of Pain (1985)
CD cover
Singles from Shout at the Devil
"Helter Skelter" Released: 1982(promo) "Looks That Kill" / "Piece of Your Action" Released: January 4, 1983 "Too Young to Fall in Love" / "Take Me to the Top" Released: April 30, 1983

Shout at the Devil is the second studio album by American hard rock band Mötley Crüe, released on September 26, 1983.It was the band's breakthrough album, establishing Mötley Crüe as one of the top selling hard rock acts of the 1980s. The singles "Looks That Kill" and "Too Young to Fall in Love" were moderate hits for the band.

Overview

Shout at the Devil was Mötley Crüe's breakthrough success, bringing them to international attention. The album's title and the band's use of a pentagram brought the band a great deal of controversy upon its 1983 release, as Christian and conservative groups claimed the band was encouraging their listeners to worship Satan.^[1]

The album was one of the breakthrough releases of what was to become the 1980s "hair metal" movement, and was very influential in that regard.^[2]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Martin Popoff	[4]
Rolling Stone	[5]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[6]
The Village Voice	D[7]

In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau panned Shout at the Devil and felt the band's commercial appeal lies in false braggadocio on an album that is poor "even by heavy metal standards".^[7] Rolling Stone magazine's J. D. Considine found their style of rock music formulaic, innocuous, and unoriginal in his review of the album: "The whole point of bands like Motley Crue is to provide cheap thrills to jaded teens, and that's where the album ultimately disappoints."^[5] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), he later dismissed the band's music as "a distressingly mild-mannered distillation of Kiss and Aerosmith clichés".^[6]

AllMusic's Barry Weber was more positive in a retrospective review and viewed Shout at the Devil as their best album, which "displays Mötley Crüe's sleazy and notorious (yet quite entertaining) metal at its best."^[3] Canadian journalist Martin Popoff considered Shout at the Devil inferior to Mötley Crüe's debut album, but found its music extremely addictive if unoriginal and called it "punk rocking lobotomy metal".^[4] Adrian Begrand of PopMatters called the album a "timeless L.A. metal classic", which "people often forget how dark, how sleazy, how menacing ... really is". In his opinion, it contains the band's best singles and "remains to this day Mötley Crüe's finest hour".^[8]

Shout at the Devil peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard 200 album charts.^[9] "Looks That Kill" and "Too Young to Fall in Love" were released as singles to promote the album; they peaked at No. 54 and No. 90 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984, while "Shout at the Devil" peaked at No. 30 on the Mainstream Rock chart.^[10] Shout at the Devil was awarded 4x Platinum (reaching the four million mark in shipments) on May 15, 1997.^[11]

Track listing

2003 remastered edition

In 2003, the band re-issued their albums on their own label Mötley Records, including added bonus tracks from each album's specific era. The bonus tracks of the remastered edition of Shout at the Devil are mainly composed of demos, but include also the previously unreleased song "I Will Survive", which was recorded in the same sessions. The song "Black Widow", included in the Red, White & Crüe compilation, was also recorded and left off this album. The track "Hotter than Hell" was later renamed and re-recorded into "Louder Than Hell" on the Theatre of Pain album. This edition also sports a warning that the album may contain masked backwards messages. This is in reference to Sixx and Lee chanting "Jesus is Satan" as an underdub on the title track.^[12]

A limited edition "Mini-LP" Compact Disc version of the album was released in the Japanese market, featuring the original cover that was previously available only on the vinyl LP release.

Cover versions of songs

In 1997, Darlington covered the song "Red Hot" (under the band name MESS). This version was released on the compilation CD Come On Feel the Metal. Singer Christy Darlington kept the original arrangement of the song.^[13]

In 2007, indie rock band 12 Years Coming recorded their version of "Shout at the Devil" for Too Fast for Love: A Millennium Tribute to Motley Crue.^[14]

Personnel

Mötley Crüe

• Vince Neil – lead vocals
• Mick Mars – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals
• Nikki Sixx – bass guitar, bass pedals, backing vocals
• Tommy Lee – drums, backing vocals

Additional musicians

• Geoff Workman aka Allister Fiend - narrator on "In the Beginning"
• Jai Winding, Paul Fox - keyboards
• Tom Kelly, Richard Page - additional background vocals

Production

• Tom Werman – producer
• Geoff Workman – engineer
• Doug Schwartz - assistant engineer
• George Marino - mastering at Sterling Sound, New York
• Bob Defrin - cover art

Charts

Certifications

References

1. ↑ Jarriel, Tom (May 16, 1984). "The Devil Worshippers". 20/20. 
2. ↑ Shout at the Devil http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/M%C3%B6tley_Cr%C3%BCe/Shout_at_the_Devil/4780/Shout_it_Out
3. 1 2 Weber, Barry. "Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil review". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved December 7, 2014. 
4. 1 2 Popoff, Martin (November 1, 2005). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2: The Eighties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. ISBN 978-1-894959-31-5. 
5. 1 2 Considine, J. D. (February 16, 1984). "Shout At The Devil". Rolling Stone (New York). Retrieved August 22, 2013. 
6. 1 2 Considine, J. D. (2004). "Mötley Crüe". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York City: Simon & Schuster. pp. 562–63. ISBN 978-0743201698. Archived from the original on December 27, 2010. Retrieved December 4, 2014. 
7. 1 2 Christgau, Robert (June 12, 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide: Turkey Shoot". The Village Voice (New York). Retrieved August 22, 2013. 
8. ↑ Begrand, Adrien (December 14, 2003). "Mötley Crüe: Shout at the Devil". PopMatters. Retrieved December 7, 2014. 
9. 1 2 "Shout at the Devil Billboard Albums". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved December 7, 2014. 
10. 1 2 3 4 "Shout at the Devil Billboard Singles". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved December 7, 2014. 
11. 1 2 "RIAA Searchable Database: search for Motley Crue". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved December 8, 2014. 
12. ↑ Lee, Tommy, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx and Neil Strauss. The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, Regan Books, 2002. ISBN 0-06-039288-6
13. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/Come-Feel-Metal-Various-Artists/dp/B000005HUT
14. ↑ http://www.12yearscoming.com
15. ↑ "Top Albums/CDs - Volume 39, No. 26, March 03 1983". Library and Archives Canada. March 3, 1984. Retrieved December 8, 2014. 
16. ↑ "Gold Platinum Search for Motley Crue". Music Canada. Retrieved December 8, 2014. 
17. ↑ "ARIA Charts - Accreditations - 1997 Albums". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 2014-12-15.