Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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This is a new box set collection which draws together six classic Motorhead albums into one very reasonably priced box set. Whether you are new to Motorhead or just want to update your collection then this is an essential purchase.

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Motörhead are a legendary British rock band, highly influential in the development of many different rock and metal subgenres (including Thrash Metal, where many bands cover their songs) who love Rock N' Roll but for some reason blurred the lines of Punk and Heavy Metal when actually playing it.

This box set compiles the bands second through to sixth studio albums, as well as their first live album. The albums in question are 1979's Overkill & Bomber, as well as 1980′s Ace Of Spades, 1981's No Sleep 'Till Hammersmith, 1982's Iron Fist and finally 1983's Another Perfect Day. All these albums feature the classic line-up of Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister, Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor and 'Fast' Eddie Clarke, with the exception of Another Perfect Day on which Clarke is replaced on guitar by Thin Lizzy’s Brian Robertson.

As you can imagine, these albums contain all sorts of fan-favourite tracks and memorable singles like 'Ace Of Spades', '(We Are) The Roadcrew', 'Overkill', 'Damage Case', 'Iron Fist', 'Metropolis', 'Speedfreak' '(Don’t Need) No Religion,' 'Shine' and 'Stone Dead Forever'.

The albums come housed in a 14cm x 13cm x 3.5cm thick cardboard box, which contains the CDs in six separate two-paneled cardboard sleeves that are a hybrid halfway-point between digipaks, vinyl replicas and free-with-a-magazine cardboard sleeves. The outside front and back of the cases replicate the album artwork and the inside features one panel of band photos and one panel with a circular hole through which the disc is visible, although the disc actually exits out of the side. The cases even have a little spine each so you can tell which sleeve is which without having to dump out the whole thing just to get to the one you wanted. You don’t get any linear notes or any bonus tracks such as B-Sides or non-album singles, nor do you get the band’s self-titled debut album (or it re-released as `On Parole’) so if you are after an absolutely complete collection this set may hinder you in the long run, but if you just want some great albums all at once for a relatively low price then it is worth your time.

If you already own these albums or are feeling cynical you can talk about how this boxset is just a cash-in by the record companies or whatever, but as a new fan (or a fan who lost their copies and wants to repurchase) if you simply want to pick up some great Motörhead albums but don’t want to spend too much doing that, or indeed don’t want to have them take up too much space in your home or vehicle then this set does serve a purpose and is worth checking out.

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Motörhead's landmark second album, Overkill, marked a major leap forward for the band, and it remains one of their all-time best, without question. In fact, some fans consider it their single best, topping even Ace of Spaces. It's a ferocious album, for sure, perfectly showcasing Motörhead's trademark style of no holds barred proto-thrash – a kind of punk-inflected heavy metal style that is sloppy and raw yet forceful and in your face. Motörhead, the band's self-titled debut from 1977, had been rush-recorded, and its stripped-down, super-raw sound wasn't all that impressive, at least not relative to what would follow. Overkill is what followed, recorded in December 1978 and January 1979, and released not long thereafter. The band's sound is fully formed here, and it totally explodes right off the bat on the five-minute title track. A number of Motörhead standards follow, among them "Stay Clean" and "No Class." Produced by Jimmy Miller, who had helmed a number of classic Rolling Stones albums (Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup), Overkill sounds wonderful, especially on the numerous remastered editions of this album. The band's classic lineup – Lemmy (bass and vocals), "Fast" Eddie Clarke (guitar), and "Philthy Animal" Taylor (drums) – is well in place here, and they seem eager to rip loose wildly on every single song. This, in addition to the solid track listing and Miller's production, makes Overkill a perfect Motörhead album. Several great ones would follow, of course, but Overkill was the first of the great ones, and quite possibly the greatest of all.

~ allmusic.com

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Recorded in late summer 1979 and released by the end of the year, Bomber quickly followed up Overkill, Motörhead's landmark breakthrough album from earlier in the year. Bomber bears a lot in common with its fan-favorite predecessor. For starters, it features the classic Motörhead lineup: Lemmy (bass and vocals), "Fast" Eddie Clarke (guitar), and "Philthy Animal" Taylor (drums). Also like Overkill, Bomber features the production grace of Jimmy Miller, the man responsible for the Rolling Stones' late-'60s/early-'70s albums, including such masterpieces as Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. And the music here on Bomber explodes on song after song, thanks to the crazed performances of the aforementioned bandmembers as well as the well-overdriven, ear-rattling production perfection of Miller. Actually, there's only one marked difference between Overkill and Bomber that's worth noting: the songs. There are a couple killers here, namely "Dead Men Tell No Tales," "Stone Dead Forever," and "Bomber," but overall, the songs of Bomber aren't as strong as those of Overkill were. Granted, this is somewhat of a moot point to raise, as Bomber is still a top-shelf Motörhead album, one of their all-time best, without question. But it does fall just a notch or two below Overkill and Ace of Spades, the latter of which would follow a year later and catapult the band to further acclaim. Bomber kicks ass, in any event, and its best moments are as superlative as any Motörhead would ever record. The band was really on fire during this point in time and could seemingly do no wrong.

~ allmusic.com

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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With the 1980 release of Ace of Spades, Motörhead had their anthem of anthems – that is, the title track – the one trademark song that would summarize everything that made this early incarnation of the band so legendary, a song that would be blasted by legions of metalheads for generations on end. It's a legendary song, for sure, all two minutes and 49 bracing seconds of it. And the album of the same name is legendary as well, among Motörhead's all-time best, often considered their single best, in fact, along with Overkill. Ace of Spades was Motörhead's third great album in a row, following the 1979 releases of Overkill and Bomber, respectively. Those two albums have a lot in common with Ace of Spaces. The classic lineup – Lemmy (bass and vocals), "Fast" Eddie Clarke (guitar), and "Philthy Animal" Taylor (drums) – is still in place and sounding as alive and crazed as ever. The album is still rock-solid, boasting several superlative standouts. Actually, besides the especially high number of standouts on Ace of Spades – at least relative to Bomber, which wasn't quite as strong overall as Overkill had been – the only key difference between this 1980 album and its two 1979 predecessors is the producer, in this case Vic Maile. The result of his work isn't all that different from that of Jimmy Miller, the longtime Rolling Stones producer who had worked on Overkill and Bomber, but it's enough to give Ace of Spades a feeling distinct from its two very similar-sounding predecessors. This singular sound (still loud and in your face, rest assured), along with the exceptionally strong songwriting and the legendary stature of the title track, makes Ace of Spades the ideal Motörhead album if one were to choose one and only one studio album. It's highly debatable whether Ace of Spades is tops over the breakthrough Overkill, as the latter is more landmark because of its earlier release, and is somewhat rougher around the edges, too. Either way, Ace of Spades rightly deserves its legacy as a classic. There's no debating that.

~ allmusic.com

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Released in 1981, the live album No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith recaps the highlights from the legendary run of albums Motörhead released during the prior few years, namely Overkill, Bomber, and Ace of Spades. The band's lesser self-titled debut album is also accounted for here with two inclusions ("Motörhead" and "Iron Horse"), but by and large, the focus is on the standout songs from the aforementioned trio of classics. This alone makes No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith noteworthy, for it plays like a greatest-hits set, opening perfectly with "Ace of Spades." But what makes it all the more noteworthy – and more than simply a run-of-the-mill, gap-filling live album – is the performance: in a word, it's breakneck. The trio of Lemmy (bass and vocals), "Fast" Eddie Clarke (guitar), and "Philthy Animal" Taylor (drums) absolutely rips loose through this 11-song set, upping the intensity and speed of the already intense and speedy studio recordings. Yes, believe it or not, these performances are even more crazed than their studio-recorded counterparts. Of course, the fidelity isn't as clear and the instruments aren't nearly as in relief, since this is a live recording (and while it's of high quality for live recordings of its day, it's relatively lo-fi by today's standards). Still, the breakneck nature of this performance distinguishes No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith from its studio predecessors, making it an excellent, recommended complement to those essentials. Moreover, it's an important release because it captures Motörhead live during the peak of the classic lineup's rise to fame. Motörhead could do no wrong at this point in time, as they were laying the foundation for the coming thrash movement, in a way, and their winning streak continues here on No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, one of the best live metal albums of all time.

~ allmusic.com

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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Another first-rate Motörhead album – the fifth in a row, to be precise – Iron Fist is the final one to feature the band's classic lineup, as guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke would depart following the album's completion. Released in 1982, Iron Fist is mostly distinguished from its predecessors in terms of production, and not favorably. Clarke produced this album himself, whereas industry veterans Jimmy Miller and Vic Maile had respectively manned Motörhead's past four albums. Clarke's production is a bit sterile in comparison, with his guitar in the forefront, sounding slightly more polished than usual. These are minor points, however. Iron Fist is a fine Motörhead album, and there's not much at all to complain about here. As usual, the performance is ferocious and there several standout songs ("Iron Fist," "Heart of Stone," "Speedfreak," "[Don't Let 'Em] Grind You Down") amid a strong selection overall. If Iron Fist falls a little short of its four-star predecessors, it's still in a class with those albums, at least relative to what would follow in the years to come. Sadly, it was downhill from here for Motörhead, slowly but steadily. Not until the '90s would they reach heights near this again.

~ allmusic.com

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Motörhead - Classic Album Selection (2012, 6CD)

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To this day, Another Perfect Day remains one of the most unique (albeit misunderstood) albums in the entire Motörhead catalog. The band's first effort sans legendary axe-meister "Fast" Eddie Clarke (following six albums, of which at least three are still considered timeless classics), Another Perfect Day would be the band's only outing with onetime Thin Lizzy axeman Brian "Robbo" Robertson. Clearly a nervous musical marriage from the start, the album captures Motörhead mainstays Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister and "Philthy Animal" Taylor struggling to adapt their raw power and unparalleled distortion to Robertson's more mainstream hard rock instincts and melodic tendencies. Thanks in part to Tony Platt's excellent production, Another Perfect Day ranks among the band's best-sounding records ever, but tinkering with a legendary formula is always fraught with danger (is that a boogie-woogie piano on "Rock It"?), and as one might expect, the results here are alternately exhilarating and sometimes frustrating. On the one hand, the glorious arpeggiated melodies that characterize singles "Dancing on Your Grave" and "Shine" (Robertson's most obvious contributions here) were a total shock to the system by classic Motörhead standards, but their popularity and ultimate longevity as band highlights is a testament to their excellence. Furthermore, other drawn-out blues exercises like "One Track Mind" (which wouldn't sound out of place on any number of early Ted Nugent albums) and "I Got Mine" simply took the intensity and power of previously delivered sub-three-minute blasts and diluted it into four to five minutes, which had some fans impatiently glancing at their clocks. The title track barely escapes this predicament, and tighter, punchier numbers like "Back at the Funny Farm" and "Die You Bastard" manage to revisit the classic bile and fury of years past, but Robertson's unwillingness to be a team player (refusing to play standards like "Bomber" live, never mind his ridiculous fashion sense) virtually guaranteed his eventual sacking. By extension, Another Perfect Day is doomed to be considered a curiosity to this very day.

~ allmusic.com