Ace of Spades | Loppylugs

Submitted by Richard Norbury on 9 March 2016 - 10:28am

Cover:

Artist:

Motörhead

album-ID:

a_182

Nationality:

Year:

1 980

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Ace of Spades*Love Me Like a Reptile*Shoot You in the Back*Live to Win*Fast and Loose*(We Are) The Road Crew*Fire, Fire*Jailbait*Dance*Bite the Bullet*The Chase Is Better Than the Catch*The Hammer

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_69

Now-num:

2 016

Spotify-URL:

0sbAKeTchIsRqECNFjPHSf

Short-title:

aceOfSpades

nominator-ID:

u_14

Meeting-date:

Monday, 16 May 2016

MusicBrainz-URL:

51d51de2-0312-4798-8529-bed2ae2581c6

Wikipedia-URL:

Ace_of_Spades_(album)

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

Motörhead-Ace-Of-Spades/master/38512

Allmusic-URL:

ace-of-spades-mw0000193143

BBC-URL:

cdcz

Musixmatch-URL:

Moto-5/Ace-Of-Spades-Expanded-Edition

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117

reviewers-IDs data

-14-

-13-

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76

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
72

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Lemme see, it's rock and roll.

4-6

Some of the lyrics in Jailbait are just hilarious, you can only marvel at the live this band must have had. Childish, rock and roll at its most basic, but ultimately thoroughly enjoyable. The raw power of the guitar and his vocals ensures this is a classic.
62

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

You win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me

1-12

5-9-11

The idea of Motörhead, as a concept, is appealing – it was always re-assuring to know that a band like this existed – listening to one of their albums all the way through, however, is a slightly different thing. After an exhilarating start, with a title track that epitomises everything you’d hope and expect of a great British rock institution, your goodwill steadily evaporates and after 20 minutes or less you find yourself frustrated by a band running through the same ideas with ever diminishing returns. If you are able to filter out the lyrics by turning on the hoover or washing machine you might be impressed by the general drive and upbeat aggression but eventually a line like “C’mon honey let me get you in the sack / You know the chase is better than the catch” will somehow creep its way through and the whole thing will be undermined by the suspicion that it is may not just be the words that are puerile and pointless. Some of it almost reaches a kind of perfect parody, the Operation Yew Tree inspired Jailbait, for example, but the songs are never quite put together well enough to even fully enjoy tongue in cheek.

To be fair, the sound is set up pretty well, it’s original within its domain, particularly Mr Kilmister’s bass which is distinctive and powerful, none of the pieces go on long enough to drive you too mad and they do finish on another stronger track, Hammer. Some of Motörhead’s top tracks were great but over an album’s length I can’t really see enough craftsmanship or patience from those in the studio to deliver an engaging or rewarding listen for non-fans like myself. And don't forget the joker.