Mötley Crüe Announces New EP Cancelled, Ruin Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right”
Welp… Mötley Crüe made good on their threat of new music this morning as they announced the release of their newest EP Cancelled, due out October 4. And since they’re not ones to let a Friday morning go undisturbed, they dropped the first single off the release, a cover of the Beastie Boys’ classic “Fight For Your Right.” If you thought “Dogs of War” was bad, this song sounds like what the dog left behind.
In a joint statement, Crüe had this to say about the upcoming EP:
“It was really great getting in the studio and working on some tracks together. What started out as a couple demo ideas turned into this EP produced by Bob Rock. We look forward to getting back into the studio again soon and writing more new music, as well.”
There’s a lot of reasons why “Fight for Your Right” is a weird choice for a Mötley Crüe cover in 2024, not least of which is the fact that the song is clearly written from the perspective of a teenager or, at best, a person in their early-20s and the youngest member of Mötley Crüe is 54 years old. There’s also the fact that the Beastie Boys name check themselves in the song, which Crüe awkwardly changes to “Mom you’re just jealous it’s the Mötley boys,” which is not something that Mötley Crüe has ever been referred to as by anyone.
But the weirdest part of Mötley Crüe covering “Fight For Your Right” is how far they come from grasping the point of the song. The Beastie Boys quickly grew to despise this song because it was meant to mock frat boy culture and they found that the people that they meant to mock were the ones who gravitated to the song the most, completely missing the sarcasm in the song.
In a statement reported on by Far Out Magazine, the Beastie Boys’ Mike D. famously lamented the response the track got:
“The only thing that upsets me is that we might have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different. There were tons of guys singing along to [Fight for Your Right] who were oblivious to the fact it was a total goof on them. Irony is often missed.”
Well, that irony sailed right over the heads of Mötley Crüe, who are essentially frat boys in their 60s anyway. It seems pretty clear that they meant this song, like so many of their songs, to be a celebration of the same brainless party culture that the Beastie Boys meant to mock. The Crüe should be more worried about fighting for their right to social security at this point anyway.
