Dr. Feelgood (Bonus Track Version)

Dr. Feelgood arrived as easily Motley Crue’s heaviest, most-focused record since their debut, Too Fast For Love. Producer Bob Rock knew how to play to the band’s strengths, having previously engineered Slippery When Wet for Bon Jovi and Permanent Vacation for Aerosmith. With Rock onboard, the riffs became beefier and the hooks became sweeter. The result was the Crue’s first and only #1 album, bolstered by the singles “Kickstart My Heart,” “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away),” and “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.).” All are masterful blends of sugar and savagery, but the band was treading dangerously close to Poison territory, and it had always been a point of pride for hair metal’s original hell-raisers to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Sunset Strip pretty boys. The song that did that was “Dr. Feelgood,” which featured a monstrous riff and a sense of swing that rivaled Aerosmith’s prototypical “Back in the Saddle.” Even when the material becomes lightweight, Dr. Feelgood avoids the filler that marred so many of Motley’s previous albums, delivering knockout punch after knockout punch. Today the album stands not only as the fullest realization of hair metal’s potential, but as one of hard rock’s all-time great albums.