Mötley Crüe: Every Album Ranked Worst To Best

While Generation Swine was certainly seen as an embarrassment in retrospect, there was still plenty to look forward to down the road. After all, the band were at least back together again ready to kick ass both on the road and in the studio. So where to now? More infighting and Tommy Lee leaving to have a rap career.

Whereas the departure of Vince Neil was already a heavy blow to a bunch of longtime fans, Tommy not being behind the kit is something that is much more felt than heard on New Tattoo. Though drum monster Randy Castillo does a fine job at making these tracks leap, there's just something missing from the trademark punch of the group's sound. The songwriting also doesn't really do them any favors on this album, with much of the track listing being just a by the numbers version of what they had been known for since their beginnings on the Strip.

That's before you even get down to the fact that James Michael shares co-writing credits on a lot of this album, making most of it sound like a SIXX: AM record disguised as a Motley outing. New Tattoo doesn't necessarily have too many faults, but if there's one thing that's worse than being just plain bad, it's lackluster, which this record has in spades.