I don't necessarily disagree with any of this. I might push back on Live Wire being "huge", but generally you're spot on. But to add more perspective - too much fucking perspective! - Crue didn't rock the world like Guns and Roses did. Twisted Sister had a similar trajectory with Under The Blade - rough, raw album that was re-released later with more polish - on the east coast.
....
Crue was more than a one hit wonder, but they weren't at the level of the big guns, not then, and for me, not now. They were the west coast Twisted Sister to me.
Twisted Sister is another good example. Broke big with a video on MTV. With Crue, it was a song from the second album; with TS, it was a song from the third album. When those songs broke, everyone bought
Shout and
Stay Hungry and then went back and "discovered" the earlier albums. Crue was bigger on the west coast, and I imagine TS was bigger where you grew up. Interestingly, Too Young to Fall in Love and We're Not Gonna Take It were released three days apart in April 1984 (and I assume the videos premiered in close temporal proximity as well). Crue was already a bit well known out here because of their performance at the second US Festival (which I assume wasn't really a thing outside of the Pacific time zone cared about).
But remember what came out in and around the Crue debut: Scorpions Blackout, Rainbow Straight Between The Eyes, Maiden Number of the Beast, Screaming For Vengeance, Back In Black, High 'n' Dry, Rush was coming off Moving Pictures and changing the world with Signals, Thriller was the REAL hot item on MTV, and Ozzy was coming off Diary and dealing with the loss of Randy Rhoads. Honestly? On the east coast? Crue was a novelty. I know my buddy and I - best friend, concert buddy, band member, etc. - was into relatively obscure stuff: he bought the new Heaven album, Krokus, Dokken Breaking the Chains, and Crue, and I bought the latest from England, High 'n' Dry, Number of the Beast, Screaming..., and Under The Blade (Twisted was from NY, but famously went to England to break then came back).
I maintain that the period from approximately 1980 through 1984 (starting around the release of Permanent Waves and ending around the time of Powerslave) had more quality and legendary albums released than any other period in modern music history (at least as far as hard rock/metal is concerned
AC/DC - Back in Black and For Those about to Rock
Accept - Restless and Wild and Balls to the Wall
Pat Benatar - Crimes of Passion and Precious Time
Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Born Again
Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers
Def Leppard - On through the Night, High 'n' Dry and Pyromania
Dio - Holy Diver and Last in Line
Dokken - Breaking the Chains and Tooth and Nail
Iron Maiden - S/T, Killers, TNotB, Piece of Mind and Powerslave
Judas Priest - British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith
Kiss - Lick It Up
Krokus - Headhunter
Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force
Metallica - Kill 'Em All and Ride the Lightning
MSG - MSG
Motley Crue - Too Fast for Love and Shout at the Devil
Motorhead - Ace of Spades, Iron Fist and No Remorse
Ozzy - Blizzard, Diary and Bark
Queensryche - EP and The Warning
Quiet Riot - Metal Health
Ratt - EP and Out of the Cellar
Rainbow - Difficult to Cure, Straight Between the Eyes and Bent out of Shape
Rush - Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures and Signals
Scorpions - Animal Magnetism, Blackout and Love at First Sting
Billy Squier - Don't Say No
38 Special - Wild Eyed Southern Boys and Special Forces
Triumph - Allied Forces, Never Surrender and Thunder Seven
Twisted Sister - You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll and Stay Hungry
Van Halen - Women and Children First, Fair Warning, Diver Down and 1984
WASP - S/T
Whitesnake - Slide It In
I tried not to be too west coast-centric and didn't include some stuff that maybe should be on the list (and probably forgot a few), but I tried to avoid anything really obscure (e.g., I was big into Grim Reaper, but they were neither great nor legendary). I also omitted some "lesser" albums by some of the bands listed (including one that's high on some folks' list for the band in question but which Stadler and I don't like).