Best of 1982

YEARS

← THE BEST OF 1982 →

-1-

Too Fast For Love

Motley Crue

When I was ten or eleven years old, the metal scene was starting to build, but even though I was developing a big interest in music, I was still pretty much unaware of it. But I was getting closer. Survivor's Eye of the Tiger was huge for me. I played that album constantly and knew it backward and forward. Asia's self-titled classic was also in heavy rotation. It was a smoother sound with all the keyboards and less aggressive singing, but the musicianship and the structuring was pushing me in the right direction. Looking back, Motley Crue was my first real love, so this is another retroactive placement. I got Too Fast for Love after hearing Shout at the Devil a year later. I know I will take shit for putting this one in 1982. It’s easy to remember the Crue's discography as 81, 83, 85, 87 and 89. Every two years through the decade, but honestly, under 1000 copies of Too Fast for Love were pressed on the band's Leathur Records label at the end of 81 (and I have never met anyone that has one). The album was released and made commercially available by Elektra in 1982, so that is where I put it. Still, Too Fast for Love was for me, the best album of a pretty strong year. Iron Maiden found their singer and created one of the most influential albums of the genre in The Number of the Beast, and Judas Priest perfected their signature sound with the classic Screaming for Vengeance … but the Crue cultivated the look and the swagger that defined that decade for me and it started with Too Fast for Love.