In retrospect: MOTÖRHEAD

Hello and welcome to a new episode in my retrospect series. I believe this is my third installment and the first of 2017. I'm not gonna waste anytime so I'ma get straight to it: I'll cover Motörhead's entire career, album-to-album, where I somewhat rank 'em and comment on them all.

Remember, it's just my personal opinion and it's not as an absolute statement for everybody. OK? Let's go!

• 1977: S/T

Comment: The start of Motörhead a very punk-fueled one at that. If memory serves me correctly, this was the first Motörhead CD I ever bought. Some leather edition about 10-ish years ago, possibly a few more years back. With that said, it never was a favorite album. Maybe even my least favorite. Their sound was still in the construction phase at this point, which means better things were to come.

Favorite track: Motorhead

• 1978: Overkill

Comment: A most classic release. This is also what I kind of tend to view as their true debut album. Their sound was really shaping up on this album, which is evident as you can listen to this and some other album from ten or twenty, even thirty years ahead, and clearly you'll hear it's the same band. One of my favorite Motörhead records although not quite the favorite one.

Favorite track: Metropolis

• 1979: Bomber

Comment: There's a high probability that this one's my favorite Motörhead record, at least out of the old/early ones. I really like the songs on here and I always felt like this album was viewed as somewhat "mediocre" by Motörhead standards. A lot of the tracks sure were missing on their compilation albums throughout the years. Whatever the case be, I totally like this album. A lot. The album cover also fascinated me as a kid. My dad used to have this CD in the car all the time. The bomber plane always looked as hell to my eyes.

Favorite track: Talking Head

• 1980: Ace of Spades

Comment: Such a classic in many ways. You know, when talking about bands' most popular (or best selling) albums as being their best works, I usually beg to differ. There are so many cases with bands where the most obvious album is not their best. In the case of Motörhead, however, if anyone says this album is their best, I would completely understand why. Although not my favorite of theirs, it's really good. Legendary.

Favorite track: The Chase Is Better Than The Catch

• 1982: Iron Fist

Comment: Classic album but for what reason? It's not bad by any means but put up against the previous albums, apart from the debut (possibly), it's not really any contest about which album is the worst. It's got a few great numbers but overall somewhat inconsistent.

Favorite track: (Don't Need) Religion

• 1983: Another Perfect Day

Comment: First album without "Fast" Eddie Clarke on guitar, and the first and only album featuring Brian Robertson from Thin Lizzy. Another record in the same kind of quality-vein to that of its predecessor. As far as the line-up change went, however, the band got a lot more melodic which sounds cool and refreshing. At the same time I'm pretty happy it only lasted one album, as I don't see this melodic Motörhead sound being very interesting in the long run. This album is unfortunately also plagued with a real shitty production.

Favorite track: One Track Mind

• 1984: No Remorse (new songs)

Comment: While this is a compilation album it featured no less than four new songs (not counting an additional two single B-sides). Those four songs, including my all-time Motörhead fave (listed below), also introduced another new line-up for the band. Entered did the band's long-timer Phil Campbell as well as Würzel, who was with the band for a good 10+ year run. The songs are all great in my opinion and all-in-all this is one of the best (and few interesting) compilation albums ever made.

Favorite track: Killed By Death

• 1986: Orgasmatron

Comment: I like this album a lot. It's not perfect by any means but it's got some of the band's most killer songs. Some of the other songs, however, are kind of filler-like. The great songs do make up for that anyway. Overall one of my higher-ranking albums of their career, even if the production is uneven a lot of the time.

Favorite track: Mean Machine

• 1987: Rock 'n' Roll

Comment: The band's last 80's studio effort is argubly also their worst album up till that point. While Motörhead never did any outright bad albums, this one is really a pushing contestor for that spot. I just never got into this one very much. The songs are overall just pretty boring by Motörhead standards. A few stand-outs are to be found as usual though.

Favorite track: All For You

• 1991: 1916

Comment: At the time it was Motörhead's first album in four years and some things had noticably changed. First off, this album is really a major step up from the band's previous album, but it's also a musically more varied album than earlier efforts. The typical Motörhead sound is to be found on here, but also that typical early 90's hard rock sound in a few tracks. Some other tracks experiment with keyboards and other different sounds for Motörhead. All-in-all a good album. My understanding is that both the band and fans like(d) this one a lot. For me, however, it stands as one of their "middle" albums.

Favorite track: Love Me Forever

• 1992: March Ör Die

Comment: For the second and final time "Philthy Animal" Taylor was gone from the band. Performing on only one track on this album, the rest was done by the great Tommy Aldridge. The album, however, is something of a disaster for the band's standards. Once again a major step down. In a way, this is also reflected in the awkward album cover's depiction of Snaggletooth.

Favorite track: I Ain't No Nice Guy (feat. Ozzy Osbourne & Slash)

• 1993: Bastards

Comment: One word - finally! At the time this was the band's strongest work since 1986. Possibly even 1980! This album also saw Mikkey Dee taking on the drumkit, which he obviously maintained until the band's end. This album is very well done in most ways possible. The cover art is simple but effective. The songs are great. The production is better than in a long time. Overall just very well done. One of my favorite Motörhead records.

Favorite track: Devils

• 1995: Sacrifice

Comment: A step down from the previous album but understandable considering how good it was. This one shows the band taking on a rawer style once more, somewhat blending the sounds of the previous album and their early efforts. It's overall very riff-heavy and is something of a start to what the band would sound like in the 2000's. Ultimately one of their middle albums for me and also the last one featuring Würzel (and the band as a four-piece). It's a good album but not a masterpiece. Great album cover by the way, penis-tongue and all.

Favorite track: Sacrifice

• 1996: Overnight Sensation

Comment: The band's first album as a three-piece since 1982 showcases the band's longest and final line-up continuing down the path of the previous two albums. It's heavy, smashing, catchy and nicely produced. The album cover is not a favorite of mine (where's Snaggletooth?) and the album always struck me as somewhat overlooked. It's definitely one of the band's best 90's albums and also a top-10 of their career, at least.

Favorite track: I Don't Believe A Word

• 1998: Snake Bite Love

Comment: Widely regarded by many as the band's worst album. Even Mikkey Dee has expressed some dissatisfaction with this one. It's truly not one of the band's better albums in my opinion. Quite the opposite indeed, actually. But while it's not bad in general music standards, it certainly takes the cake for being a bottom-3 album for Motörhead. It's definitely their worst from the 90's, if not their entire career.

Favorite song: Love For Sale

• 2000: We Are Motörhead

Comment: Definitely a good step up from its predecessor but still somewhat short of quality songs compared to most the band's other catalogue. It's an alright album I suppose but not something I usually think of and/or crank when in the mood for some Motörhead rock 'n' roll.

Favorite track: We Are Motörhead

• 2002: Hammered

Comment: This album was totally fresh out of the studio when I got into the band. I remember having and wearing a pin with the album cover, which I thought was cool as hell. The album itself, however, is something of a continuation down the road of mediocrity for Motörhead. It's better than the previous two albums but not much more than that. Its production is also a sign of the times - early 2000's cheap-sounding digital recording. It just doesn't sound very good to my ears and I'm sure these songs fared a lot better live than on this record.

Favorite track: No Remorse

• 2004: Inferno

Comment: This one came out when I was a young newbie fan of Motörhead and thus it holds a really special place in my Motörhead heart. It's not only the nostalgia factor that makes this album so great for me. The music is also real good! It was the best album they had done since 1993 and one of the best albums of their entire career. I remember crankin' these songs over and over back in the day and I still find myself doing the same thing 13 years later. Badass album title. I love the album cover as well. Truly a great record.

Favorite track: Fight

• 2006: Kiss Of Death

Comment: While a step down from the previous (once again this is understandable from my p.o.v.) it's still a very good album. It definitely showed promise that Motörhead was seemingly going stronger than they'd done in the late 90's and early 2000's. This album was also the second album to be produced by Cameron Webb, who entered on the previous album and ultimately did all of their subsequent albums as well. This album definitely keeps up sonically with the previous album and also manages to differ some in sound and songs.

Favorite track: Trigger

• 2008: Motörizer

Comment: Out of the band's latter day albums (2004-2015), this one is my least favorite. Upon release it didn't fare as well with me as the previous two did. These days I have pretty much the same opinion about it. I dunno what it is, but it just doesn't quite cut it for me. I mean, this album is a beast! It's filled with fast three-ish minute tracks which makes it more intense than any Motörhead album in a long time, possibly ever. At the same time I just think most of the songs are missing something. While not a bad album by any means, it definitely is down somewhere in between the middle-to-bottom listed Motörhead albums in my book.

Favorite track: Heroes

• 2010: The Wörld Is Yours

Comment: After its predecessor and being somewhat into other musical styles back around 2010, I remember not being too anticipated about this release. Regardless, it's Motörhead and I obviously picked it up anyway. I remember my initial opinion being somewhat unimpressed, like it was a mediocre effort from the gang. In the years since its release, however, it's been a real grower on me. Maybe it was because I actually got more back into a lot of old school sounds again, or maybe its quality just struck upon me over time. Anyway, it's definitely a solid album even if it's not quite among their best works. Some of the band's greatest latter day songs are to be found on this one. Great production as well.

Favorite track: Devils In My Head

• 2013: Aftershock

Comment: At the time of this album's release my days of exploring new music had vaned a lot. My mind was totally back in old school mode and Motörhead was once more very interesting. I remember thinking a few things about this one. First thing was the album cover and how lightly colored it was. It definitely felt "out of character" for Motörhead in my opinion. Second was the album title which I found to be great. The last thing was the actual music. This album is a great Motörhead record, the best since 2004 and overall one of my higher ranking albums of theirs. The art work, to me, displayed a slight change which I think is present in the songs. It's very much a Motörhead record but it's still different in some way. I just like this one a lot. If this was the "aftershock", I don't think I even wanna know what the actual main shock was. I wouldn't be able to brave it.

Favorite track: Coup De Grace

• 2015: Bad Magic

Comment: And so we're down to the last album by Motörhead. This one was in several ways a quite strange album, I believe. I remember as it was being released, I was thinking about how Lemmy just keeps on going and going. As the album was released, however, we got some clarification. For the first time we got proof that the man indeed is growing old. For the first time ever we all got to hear Lemmy's voice now obviously aged. Shortly after the release, as we all now know, the man started to experience serious health issues. Then just like that - Lemmy was gone. This album, in a way, showed Lemmy being aware of his mortality. At least that's what I believe. Some songs on here are so hauntingly suggesting that was the case anyway. It's like Lemmy bid his farewells and just went out the way he wanted. It's a great album in my opinion. Definitely a worthy swansong album.

Favorite song: When The Sky Comes Looking For You

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So that was my retrospect of Motörhead and their career. While I did not include a hell of a lotta live and compilation albums, the studio releases are the most essential to bring. Motörhead had a great career, that much is sure. They had their fair share of ups and downs just like every other band out there, but they never made one truly bad album. That's more than I can say for the majority of bands I listen to.

Motörhead is one of my all-time favorite bands. They were one of the first bands I ever got into and they've had such a huge impact on my life growing up. Lemmy always was an iconic inspiration for me. Not a rolemodel by any means, but definitely a huge inspiration in life.

My father also once told me (while drunk) how I was conceived to the song "Fire Fire" from Ace Of Spades. It doesn't surprise me one bit seeing as he's a huge fan himself. During my upbringing he would listen to Motörhead a whole lot. Maybe that's why I have suge a huge love for Motörhead? I bas basically nutured on their music my entire upbringing.

Thank you Lemmy for all the great music!

Thoughts and opinions on: OVERWATCH

I recently started playing Blizzard's recent FPS shooter Overwatch. I'm not previously too familiar with Blizzard and their games. My girlfriend plays World of Warcraft a lot so I know that much about them. I also know they've made at least one Diablo game, but I don't play those games. I'm not really the biggest fan of shooter a.k.a. deathmatch-type games. I do play shooting games but it's more like sandbox games and story-based FPS games. Think of the GTA franchise and Fallout 4, that's my kinda deal.

Now, some of you might think I'm being contradictious here right now, playing GTA but not liking shooter games. I love GTA (except for the awful GTA V story mode) but I don't really like the PvP aspects of it. When playing GTA I mostly drive around on motorcycles doing my own random shit, or hangin' out with friends doing missions and whatnot. I never play deathmatches or adversary modes though. I just don't enjoy it that much, despite being a rather good player if I may say so myself. Bored psychotic 10-y-o kids just ain't my definition of fun, you know?

So a while back my dudebro Dee got this Overwatch game and wasn't really impressed by it. In fact, I didn't even know he'd gotten it. Maybe he told me about it but then it must've been in the wind somewhere. A while later, however, he slowly got more into it and started to like it a lot. He started talking about it frequently and encouraged me to get it as well. I was skeptical judging by the fact that it's a pure deathmatch-type game. My old CoD (1+2) reflexes are pretty much long gone.

After much nag about the game, I finally got it and made my buddy a jolly little fellow. For starters I wasn't really that impressed by it either, nor very interested in playing it to be honest. I did like the art style a lot, however, which made me invest some time into the game. After a day or two I was rather enjoying it. In fact, my buddy seemed to have a lot more fun with it now as well, and we've just been goin' at it for a few weeks now.

This is Reaper, my favorite character. I have thing for big guns and he wields dual shotguns. He looks rather "metal" as well, don't you think?

You know, at first look Overwatch might seem like a kids game and I'm sure a lot of its players are kids as well. Looks can be deceiving though. "Never judge a book by its cover" is a quote which really comes to mind regarding Overwatch. Going from highly skeptical and overall uninterested in the game, I am now somewhat addicted to it. I get these urges to play it a lot.

So how did my playing urge come to pass? The characters! You know, there isn't a lot of details or general information about the characters within the game. None at all, really. You're just left with a bunch of characters all of which have special powers and abilities. Now that's an aspect I like a lot! Instead of the old CoD/Battlefield kind of gameplay you are now a unique team each round you play. That creates a lot of diversity not to mention longevity to this kind of game. Overall I think this is very well executed.

One of the several short animated movies you can watch to get some more depth to the characters.

The art style is fantastic! It reminds me a lot of WoW and I think the reason is rather obvious. The characters do have some informative videos on YouTube which you can look up, and there's also the regular kind of Wiki pages around for it as well. That way you can (and will) get to know the characters as well.

Overall I am glad I decided to get the game. I'm enjoying it a lot and I think there is great potential for it in the future as well. A simple formula which creates something greatly effective. Although I'm not at all good with all the characters, their diversity creates a lot of fun. You win some, you lose some. What matters is you're having a good time, and I know I certainly am.

This is Torbjörn, a Swedish viking-like character. This is one of his several outfits you can get and equip. Possibly my favorite character outfit in Overwatch. A Swedish viking biker? Hell yeah!

Mid-February 2017 and the "new" LAST.FM still sucks!

Ever heard people talking about how fast time flies? I certainly have. My life's been ten times fuller of stuff compared to "most" other folks I meet, but at 26 years of age now I have really started to acknowledge time. My first twenty years of life felt like 40, but these past six have been like two years or so.

So, I'm not going into this because I'm experiencing a life crisis or whatever. No. It's because I just realized how long it's already been since LAST.FM changed their website's layout. Well above 1,5 years as of today, possibly even two years since the beta version was released. Anyway, guess what?! It's still shitty as fuck!

In the early summer of 2015 I did a post on this blog about my opinions on their new layout. It was not positive, and nor did a great majority of their users think it was a good change either. I don't really know what's going on at the LAST.FM HQ, but they certainly have not listened to their users/customers. The activity dropped noticably after the layout change. I mean, the site had been notably on a decline for several years up till 2015, hence why I suppose they did the layout change, but they kind of shot themselves in their foot with that one.

Except for a few old school die-hard scrobblers including myself still active on the site, it's completely died. There might be some minor activity going on if you head into Metallica's or Slayer's page, but it's still nothing compared to a few years ago. Anywhere else; any underground to minor to average metal band: their pages are dead.

You know, I really sincerely miss the early days of LAST.FM. I joined up in late 2007 and it was a great music community at that time. Lots of people scrobbling and interacting on the band's pages, the site's forums and whatnot. Great times. The layout was good as well. I spent most of my time online on LAST.FM because of all the fun it was back then. I guess it lasted to around 2011 or so. In 2012 I had a break from the site and when I returned in 2013, it was not quite as alive anymore.

As a dedicated user of theirs for ten years this year, I feel "cheated" by their current shitty layout. They killed what little community they had left on there. Whoever thought the current layout was a good idea should be fired asap. The fact that they scrapped the forum and personal aspects of your profile further shows what a stupid movie the makeover was. What did you think there, honestly?

What's even more odd, however, is why they proceeded with launching the layout when they got such a massive negative feedback on the beta and during the early period post-launch. As if this wasn't enough though, people also cancelled their subscribtions to their radio-stuff and deleted their accounts permanently just to show their disappointment. Not even the shoutbox trolls stayed. You know, all of this, I think it speaks for itself. LAST.FM just ignores it which is a real shame.

These days it honestly feels like I'm one of, like, five old users still hangin' around there...

Truth be told, I quite don't understand why I'm still hangin' on LAST.FM either. I'm not exactly hangin' around like I used to - obviously there's no use for it - but I look up my personal scrobbles and such.

You know, the saddest part about LAST.FM is how much potential they've still got but don't see. With Spotify and all those streaming services massively available and used out there today, they could have had more people joining up these days.

I personally believe there are a lot more people interacting with Spotify these days than there were people with local music files back in 2008. So maybe LAST.FM wouldn't get their own subscribers back, unless they join in and battle the market, but they could still achieve revenue from adds and whatnot. But now ... their site's just dead.

NO ONE LIKES THE CURRENT LAST.FM
OPEN YOUR EYES AND REALIZE
YOU LOST WHAT YOU ONCE HAD
BUT STILL YOU'RE TOO BLIND TO SEE IT YOURSELVES...

So... Why am I still using the service then? Old habits die hard, I guess. I invested so many years in scrobbling my music onto their site. It feels sad to just quit that because their layout sucks nowadays.

And then I guess there's some hope, somewhere, that someday someone will make LAST.FM great again.