There are a couple of essential releases we haven’t covered from the early days of Motorhead, and 1980s ‘Ace Of Spades’ is one of them.
Written by: gdmonline
ARTIST: Motorhead
ALBUM: Ace Of Spades
LABEL: Bronze
SERIAL: BRON 531
YEAR: 1980
CD REISSUE: Discogs Reissue List
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: England
LINEUP: Lemmy – vocals, bass * Fast Eddie Clarke – guitars * Philthy Animal Taylor – drums
TRACK LISTING: 01 Ace Of Spades * 02 Love Me Like A Reptile * 03 Shoot You In The Back * 04 Live To Win * 05 Fast And Loose * 06 We Are The Road Crew * 07 Fire, Fire * 08 Jail Bait * 09 Dance * 10 Bite The Bullet * 11 The Chase Is Better Than The Catch * 12 The Hammer * 13 Dirty Love (bonus) * 14 Please Don’t Touch (bonus) * 15 Emergency (bonus)
WEBLINKS: Site Link
Background
We may see a run of posthumous articles about Motorhead, since the recent passing of Lemmy on Boxing Day 2015. There are a few articles online already, but there are a couple of essential releases we haven’t covered from the early days of Motorhead, and 1980s ‘Ace Of Spades’ is one of them.
Released by Bronze at the tail-end of that year, the album would go gold early in 1981, and would also be picked up by U.S label Mercury as their first domestic release into that market.
The Songs
Some of the tracks on ‘Ace Of Spades’ reads like a ‘Best Of’ list; if one was to put together a compilation.
The opening pair of the title-track and ‘Love Me Like A Reptile’, and two others ‘(We Are) The Road Crew’ (dedicated to the band’s road crew) plus ‘The Chase Is Better Than The Catch’ would be good contenders.
When the band raise the tempo, their appeal becomes even greater. Check out ‘Fire Fire’, ‘Dance’ and ‘Bite The Bullet’ for examples.
Apparently Lemmy was quoted as saying that this was the album when he was actually singing rather than shouting. The trio cite producer Vic Maile as the person responsible for lifting their game. The results/success are an indication of his input.
In Summary
Over the years, many artists have cited this album as a significant influence. The hybrid proto-punk and heavy metal impacting on many across several sub-genre’s of hard rock. Perhaps even the fore-father of thrash metal?
There is a 2005 DVD released as part of the ‘Classic Albums’ series. Certainly ‘Ace Of Spades’ is an essential part of the Motorhead discography.
Motorhead on Video
Click to go to YTM album page.
