"A few blocks away a teenage girl plays Russian roulette with her daughter/Is this the best that we can do?" Nikki Sixx asks. Apparently, it's the best he can do: The Mötley Crüe bassist clearly poured his heart and soul into this unburdening album (a companion to his new "rock and roll self-help book"). Nikki shouts at personal and societal devils over ballad-rock sturm and drang that tries for Springsteen but ends up at Meat Loaf fronting Nickelback. You feel for him, just not enough to sit through a celebrity culture-is-evil screed called "Lies of the Beautiful People."

Listen to "This Is Gonna Hurt":

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“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."