Well, the opinions of anyone who likes Children of Bodom are automatically discredited anyways

I enjoy their first two albums actually, particularly 'Hatebreeder'. I also love most of The Beatles' career, for that matter. Damn, am I discredited now?

I'm just kidding (not about liking early CoB, but about taking your cheerful reply to my joke seriously). The fact is that, as with much "sellout bands", people who don't feel the need to specify an era when they mention them usually fall in the "tasteless" category, so my example worked. But dismissing the band as a whole because parts (or even most) of their career sucks is the other mistake to avoid. You certainly won't catch me shouting "long live the Filth!" any time soon, but I'll be damned if 'Vempire or Dark Fairytales in Phallustein' isn't one brilliant mini-album.

I'll consider you damned, then. "Vempire" is one of their worst releases overall, and by far the worst of the Nick Barker era.

Seriously? Damn!

It'll never cease to amaze me how wildly opinions can differ on specific releases, even among people who have vastly similar tastes.

This is a weird thing to say, because Motorhead have one of the most idiosyncratic sounds in old-school metal. Just the vocals alone are very unique. Most people I know who dislike Motorhead do so because they sound so weird.

I do listen to some speed/ heavy/ nwohbm along with my extreme metal, just not much of it. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden (first two albums) are good to me. Motorhead just didn't click with me (I listened to the album 1916 or something like that). I figured Motorhead would be more like Venom than it was... reminds me too much of the punk scene... I dunno. About overgeneralizing Motorhead on the few songs I heard, youre absolutely correct, that's why I thought perhaps I'd try again at a different time.

I see, well in that case there's no apparent reason why you shouldn't be able to appreciate at least the seminal trilogy from 1979-80. I understand if you picked '1916' instead after reading the first page of this thread, since several posters spoke surprisingly highly of it (to me, at least). Personally, I think there's several great classic songs on it (1, 3, 5, 6), but also a bunch of fillers (the other tracks). Next time you give them a try, maybe pick 'Bomber' or 'Overkill' instead. If there's nothing you like on either of these, then you can safely move on: it'll mean Motörhead isn't for you, period.


From a metal perspective, that's for sure. From a rock 'n' roll perspective, a number of Motörhead songs (the more rock 'n' roll-ish) might come across as "same old, same old", at least songwriting wise. To be fair, pre-60s classic rock 'n' roll is extremely repetitive by nature. Most of the stuff by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Dixon, Little Richards and what have you is basically different interpretations of the same old booggie blues. Learn one booggie on the guitar, and you'll know them all. It's all about how you play them. By extension, any composition that can be fairly considered as classic rock 'n' roll can be seen as "generic", in that it's the same old booggie at its core. Some Motörhead songs (not my favorites) as well as a whole lot of punk and rock songs fit in this category. Maybe that's what he meant.

Follow the Reaper was the first cd I ever bought, and the Princess of Darkness live bootleg is an awesome album (even though I don't like anything else from CoF strangely). I don't care who likes what and who doesn't like what, but there's no reason to shit all over a band that had a massive impact on everything else you like. I could write an essay on all the things I dislike about the Beatles or Maiden or whoever else, but fuck if I didn't know their significance in music history. It kind of goes along with shitting all over a band that got you into metal. I see people do that a lot and what's the point? So what if you outgrew them or don't like what direction they went in (pantera comes to mind).. give your props. They fucking got you into metal.

Well, I think we agree overall, we just phrase things a bit differently, each in his own way. AC/DC got me into hard/heavy, which I still consider a part of the extended family of metal, even if I learned to call them "hard rock" instead on this site. I don't listen to them quite as often as I used to, but they still have a special place in this metalhead's heart.

My point was just that one should be careful where to draw the line between acknowledging and respecting the importance of a band in the grand scheme of things (even if they don't enjoy their music), and indulging the uniform and sometimes thoughtless praise some bands are getting. It's not limited to a band, it's true for individual albums and songs as well (and other art forms too). A number of people tend to confuse "this guy is a genius" with "every single thing by this guy is godly in every respect by definition", shutting off their critical sense when it comes to that guy. This leads to many common misconceptions such as "Jack Kirby's drawings are beautiful", "Tolkien's descriptions are entertaining", or "Sad Wings of Destiny is pure metal front to back", each of which typically comes with a fierce defensive attitude when someone states the obvious and says "Dude, I think you're missing the point". Bottom line, I'd rather people hated something for the right reasons than praised it for the wrong ones.

Dude, have you even HEARD Rob Halford sing??!

Dude, have even READ what you've quoted??!

Is it really too hard to tell that the part between quotation marks was a playful caricature of what I've heard, rather than what I think?

Having given most of their discography a few more spins I revise my stance on Motörhead's consistent quality. All material from the Würzel era (alternately the two guitarists era) is consistently superb, but I find the stuff before and after to have some notable weak spots in forms of rather filler-ish material (while still being generally good, though).

I'd certainly agree on that. Rock N Roll is a weaker one from the twin guitarist era - but still very listenable overall and with some clear classic tracks (not to mention the two disc version has a killer live set from Monsters of Rock 1986). I keep meaning to re-write my review of that one. March or Die, too, seems to get a lot of undeserved hate - sure it's 1916's lesser younger brother - but it's still pretty damn good. Other than that, it's all fucking great.

The late 90s and the earlier part of the last decade were a bit weak for them, but they've been going strong since Inferno. Are you planning on any Motorhead reviews yourself?

Yes.

I thinks it's a 80s thing. Meaning Motorhead were an 80s band, for most folk. I just noticed that Celtic Frost's seminal albums; 'Morbid Tales', 'To Mega Therion' and 'Into The Pandemonium' have eight, six and nine reviews, respectively. Priest and Sabbath have only a very few more review per album. 30 years ago is just not a hot topic anymore. Most vocal fans of these bands have either died, found geezis or have embraced the 'classic rock movement'. In other words very few give a shit about Motorhead, Celtic Frost, Priest or Sabbath, unless they are playing in the nearest big city and even then they'll drop 80 bucks on a ticket to hear those old songs but can't spare a few hours to review the past. They don't care no more.
"True metal" fans these days are young punks; all they care about is their kvlt bands; Eisnergatrbor, Blakthoranfgthjer, Fuxbatorington...blah blah blah..whatever is new and "kvlt"
Very few of us give a shit what happened in 198x. More's the pity.

But you see, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest and Celtic Frost are all 70's/80's bands that get way more reviews-per-album than Motorhead. Also, I think maybe you've been around the wrong kids if they've forgotten about these bands; most young people I know who like (real) metal are into such bands.

Not to mention, those bands have way fewer records than Motorhead while still having a large fanbase, so when they get their fair share of reviews they crop up for the same albums again and again.

They aren't reviewed too often because nobody seems to have anything new to say. Honestly I might review one of them soon, because I think, along with Manowar, they are on of the most painfully overrated bands in metal. I've heard a fair share of their material, and nothing has impressed me, plus the vocals are really annoying. But maybe I'm missing something. It's not that I just hate rock 'n' roll influenced metal, because I like a lot of Accept and Saxon for example, but Motorhead just don't seem very special.

Well, I don't know what you mean by "special," but they can almost objectively be called a unique and original band.

Plus, both Manowar and Motorhead are in positions of being extremely influential, which adds to their deserved popularity.

I can understand they were influential(well Motorhead anyways, I've yet to hear any bands besides Immortal and Death say they were influenced by Manowar), but I don't know I'm either missing something, it just doesn't do it for me, or they are painfully overrated, whatever way I still don't like them all so much.

Viking metal owes its existence to Manowar, according to Quorothon who said that band inspired their Viking albums. Plus, the modern European heavy/power metal movement is filled with Manowar worship.

As for Motorhead, I guess if you don't like them then you just don't like them. But yeah, any band with that sort of influence is going to be revered.

Motorhead will always be a cult band no matter in how many mainstream media they appear,that´s why casual Motorhead listeners only know about Overkill and Ace of Spades,so it´s no surprise that the later has more reviews than the rest.Also it seems to me that post 90´s albums by classic bands (from the 70´s and 80´s) get much less attention no matter how good they are.

In my opinion they don´t need more reviews because there isn´t much new to say,if you like one album you will like most of their work.

Acutally A band that has an awful lack of reviews is Thin Lizzy.Live and Dangerous is one of the best live albums of all time yet only one person have reviewed it (at least with a well deserved score).