The long-waited Motley Crue biopic The Dirt was only released a week ago – but its impact is already being felt across the music world.
There’s been a spike of activity in sales and streams of the Crue’s material, with a reported 570% stream increase on Spotify, a 900% stream increase on Apple Music and 669% on Deezer, while downloads on iTunes have grown by a whopping 2027%.
In addition, the 2001 book the film is based on, The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, has also been selling well on Amazon.
The Dirt is currently enjoying an 85% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from fans, although critics have been more harsh, with the film sitting at 42% from their perspective – a subject touched on by bassist Nikki Sixx earlier this week.
The band’s manager Allen Kovac, who also served as a producer on The Dirt, says: “Our strategy was to use both the film and music algorithmic echo chamber to have a virtuous circle – each propelling the other to greater heights.
“The audiences have voted on the music streaming platforms and on social media, critics are a thing of the past as Bohemian Rhapsody has shown.”
As for the film, which stars Douglas Booth, Daniel Webber, Iwan Rheon and Machine Gun Kelly, Sixx says: “We show painful examples of domestic violence, DUI, manslaughter, drug overdose and the loss of a child.
“We couldn’t possibly have crammed everything from a 430-page book into an hour and 50-minute movie, but we felt we achieved our objective of showing the downside of sex drugs and rock and roll.”
Check out Classic Rock's review of The Dirt.
