Sixteen years ago Cleopatra Records released Appetite For Reconstruction, a compilation of Guns N’ Roses classics reimagined as industrial compositions. Now the groundwork for taking hard rock songs from the ’80s and reworking them as sultry electro-pop jams has been set by Chelsea Lankes, a Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer who today dropped a striking cover of Mötley Crüe’s 1983 hit “Too Young To Fall In Love.”
The hair metal classic, which first appeared on the Crüe’s Shout At The Devil LP, is reimagined here as a dramatic, Swedish-pop thriller, with Lankes not worrying about any vocal allegiances to Vince Neil. Listen to it below.
“I’ve always been a fan of the ’80s, and particularly hair metal,” Lankes tells SPIN. “There are so many great lyrics and melodies from that era and dressed up a little differently, they can still be a really great pop song. ‘Too Young to Fall in Love’ is an earlier cut from Mötley Crüe, but it’s one of their best. I’m so drastically different as an artist from their sound but the challenge of making it my own is what makes doing a cover song fun.”
The Crüe cover is the 7-inch flip side to Lankes’ beach-kissed pop single “Down For Whatever”, which is out today via B3SCI Records.