Published on Oct 23, 2000
Motorhead is not the kind of band that can easily be packaged
into one neat compilation.
I know we’ve reviewed
No Remorse, a “de facto” best-of disc that came out in 1984.
I know that I’m reviewing a two-disc set which actually has the
stones to call itself
The Best Of Motorhead. And I mean no disrespect to my
publicist friends working this disc, but the name is a misnomer.
You simply
can’t water down Lemmy Kilmister and crew’s 25 years
together into one or two CDs.
You really want the true Motorhead best-of? Go to your local
store, pull about $300 from your wallet, and buy
every single fucking disc
Motorhead has put out. Go home, kiss your family and friends
good-bye for a while, and listen to the discs from the start – and,
if you can find a copy of
On Parole, I mean the absolute start. Stop only long enough
to down a can of lager and to wipe the sweat, blood and drool from
your face. I did this, and look what I’ve become – I’m now one of
the Beautiful People, and have achieved inner peace… that is, to
compensate for the blown eardrums thanks to repeated exposure to
Overnight Sensation.
Yet even
this isn’t adequate enough – the problem is that nobody’s
been able to figure a way to take Lemmy and bottle him for the
masses. (Probably for the best; they’d most likely discover that
Lemmy was carcinogenic. No offense, Lem, you know I love ya.) Until
they can figure out how to do this (and assuming your local Mom and
Pop store has issues carrying records with titles like
Bastards),
The Best Of Motorhead is a flawed, but enjoyable, portrait
of a band who has looked at the rules of rock and roll, and has
given them the finger.
The first disc of this set jumps around quite a bit from
Kilmister’s last days with British space-rock outfit Hawkwind to
their classic
Ace Of Spades disc. Stylistically, it’s a little hard to
follow because of the constant time warps; you go from a raw,
unpolished sound to pure sonic fury, back to unpolished… all
within a span of six minutes.
Of course, I could sit here and nitpick about the track
selection of the first part (Why is a different version of “Louie
Louie” featured? Where’s “Love Me Like A Reptile”? How’s about the
version of “(We Are) The Road Crew” from
No Sleep ‘Till Hammersmith?), but chances are any true
Motorhead fan will have their own unique list of shoulda’s for this
part of the collection. And, admittedly, it is interesting to hear
songs that normally don’t get spotlight time for Motorhead (“City
Kids,” “White Line Fever,” “Dead Men Tell No Tales”) get a chance
to shine.
And while I can understand including the original version of
“Motorhead” as performed by Hawkwind, I can’t justify inclusion of
Girlschool’s cover of “Bomber” on disc two. Yes, it’s a Motorhead
song… but Girlschool, despite their close ties to the band, is
not Motorhead. (Maybe what Metal-Is should have done was to include
a bonus EP with cover versions of Motorhead songs like this one.
Maybe they then could have included Sepultura’s cover of
“Orgasmatron”, hmm?)
The second half of
The Best Of Motorhead does a better job of keeping things
going the right way down the timeline, and it does call to people’s
attention some incredible work by Kilmister and his various
bandmates. Yet there are gaping holes that have to be brought up.
The band’s 1992 effort
March Or Die is nowhere to be seen – you mean they couldn’t
have included “Stand” or “I Ain’t No Nice Guy”?
Bastards is missing in action as well – damn shame that a
track like “Born To Raise Hell” isn’t given another chance to bask
in the spotlight. And Motorhead’s last four studio efforts all get
cursory mentions with the inclusion of the title tracks from three,
and the cover of “God Save The Queen” from
We Are Motorhead.
Yet there is so much to smile about on this half of the disc as
well. You’re able to remember the moments of glory that Brian
“Robbo” Robertson had on
Another Perfect Day with the inclusion of “I Got Mine”.
Orgasmatron is lovingly remembered with four selections (
what?!? No “Mean Machine”?), and the oft-overlooked
Rock ‘N’ Roll is brought back to life with three tracks
culled from its platters. So many of Motorhead’s albums have fallen
through the cracks over the years; it’s nice to see that these have
been resurrected, at least partially.
The four previously unreleased live tracks, regrettably, don’t
add that much to the lore of the band – but then again, that role
was filled by such discs as
No Sleep ‘Till Hammersmith and
Everything Louder Than Everyone Else. I appreciate what the
label tried to do, but I’d rather have had some of the tracks I’ve
been pining for earlier in this review included in their place.
Oh, don’t get me wrong,
The Best Of Motorhead is still a pleasant way to spend
nearly two-and-a-half hours cracking the plaster in your bedroom,
and if someone is looking for one place to start their examination
of this classic band, this would be near the top of my list. (I
still have a place in my heart for
No Remorse, though.) But when you listen to this set,
remember that Motorhead is a band that cannot be contained by such
a small cage – indeed, if by any cage at all. Allow yourself to be
mauled, and splurge on their whole discography.