In 1990, the band and its members were close enough to broke. Having signed with the label GWR and manager Doug Smith in the mid-1980’s, their two albums on that label – “Orgasmatron” and “Rock and Roll” - had barely been able to reimburse the advances made to the band. Despite the popularity and millions of album sales in their career, the band felt they were not seeing the monetary returns they should have, and the fact that GWR was a small independent label they were not getting the distribution they needed. It led to the band meeting with Phil Carson, who managed Foreigner and Bad Company as well as Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, who felt he could provide a better backing. The court case to get out of their contract with GWR took two years and created great animosity, but eventually it was settled. Carson not only signed up Motorhead with their first (and last) major label in Sony, he facilitated Lemmy moving permanently to the US, finding him a two bedroom apartment across the road from his favourite venue the Rainbow. Carson later admitted that he felt it was this move that ended up getting him the band’s manager job rather than the major label record contract.
Motorhead had lost a lot of their momentum during the 1980’s decade, and the two albums with GWR had not had the spark that their early albums had produced. Solid albums yes, some good songs yes, but overall great albums no. Moving into the new decade, with so much change happening in the music around them, the band had to fight to find their relevance to the current generation. They were no longer the leaders, nor were they the innovators, nor were they the inspirers. What they needed was an album and a promotion that could show that they still had what it took to be the band that their fans had adored a decade earlier. The album they produced to attempt that task was “1916”.
“1916” contains and mixes some different styles for the band, which can be either seen as a bold statement of intent, to show that the band can grow and is not afraid to show another side to it, or that the band had run out of ideas and had sold out in regards to the material it was writing. I admit I don't necessarily agree that either of those ideas are correct, but I do know that I have always had a problem trying to reconcile this with other releases by the band. The album was written and recorded in the US for the first time, the band had, as Phil Campbell was quoted as saying, had time and money to do a proper job of the album, something that had not been the case on most of their albums. There are still the songs which are unashamedly Motörhead, including the opening tracks of the album, “The One to Sing the Blues” and “I’m So Bad (Baby I Don’t Care)”. The rolling drum beat and guitar riff of the opening track still evokes the style of the band’s most recent albums, while “I’m So Bad (Baby I Don’t Care)” sounds more like the band’s earlier material, a rollicking tempo and some more likely guitar solo licks thrown in throughout the track that uses the crossover of the music Lemmy grew up with and the music he had become famous for. "No Voices in the Sky" and “Angel City” that have that real 1960’s rock ‘n’ roll infused into the harder core of the guitars and vocals, again travelling along the same path of that stereotypical Motorhead tempo and riff. “Angel City” even incorporates the saxophone into the mix, something that feels a little dirty for a longtime Motorhead fan. “Going to Brazil” does this on a more open style, drawing heavily on Lemmy’s love of 1950’s and 60’s American rock and roll, the style of the song anchoring it to that period of music that Lemmy so admired growing up. All of these songs seem to have been inspired by the band being homed in the US for the production of the album. It seems to have inspired an Americanised version of the band’s music, which to me comes across in the songs that were produced for this album. Despite this, many of these tracks - "The One to Sing the Blues", "I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)", "No Voices in the Sky", "Going to Brazil" and also "Shut You Down" – were originally performed on Motörhead's 1989 and 1990 tours, so their composition came before the band moved to the US to record the album.
Then there are some tracks where changes have come, songs that are often praised within parts of the Motorhead fandom. “Going to Brazil” is the start of this, and “Nightmare/The Dreamtime” then moves in a whole new direction. They both feel like they are freeform jams but in completely different ways. “Going to Brazil” in that 60’s rock and roll blues kinda way, and “Nightmare / The Dreamtime” in a much more psychedelic crazed out way. "Nightmare / The Dreamtime" is a dark toned song lyrically, and musically it draws on a whole new tone concept with phasing guitar and synth key in the background.
It’s an interesting interlude that invokes memories of Hawkwind in its composition. And then, there is the one that absolutely divides opinion. "Love Me Forever" is a ballad, but not a power metal ballad. It combines all of the usual styles and emotional drags of a ballad – the clear echoing guitar, lyrically calling back a lost love (though with a delightful Motorhead twist to the lyrics), the atypical power ballad guitar solo. Once again, this is a song that many in the fandom have a great deal of love for, that it showcases another side of the band that many claimed they were unable to access. Then comes the aforementioned “Angel City”, replete with saxophone and a rocking 60’s beat. These four songs that take up residence in the middle of the album are ones that do create conversation on their relevance and how they fit within the context of this album.
Once we traverse this section we return to what could be termed more mainstream Motorhead. The brilliant “Make My Day” crushes out of the speakers in a far more familiar style and fashion, bringing exactly what you want from a Motorhead song. It is fast, heavy, almost to the point of old-style thrash in places, combined with two great solos from Phil Campbell and Wurzel. After the changes that have come through the middle of the album, this song is a relief to come to. It’s a beauty, and I am unashamed to admit that I have always wished they had just gone in this fashion on the album all the way through. This is followed by the cracking tribute to The Ramones, simply titled "R.A.M.O.N.E.S", and it too is a ripper, which amusingly was eventually covered by The Ramones themselves. Joey Ramone was even quoted as saying it was the ultimate honour – like having John Lennon write a song about you. High praise indeed. And from here the third cracker in a row comes with the fast and furious “Shut You Down”. Here is perhaps the most obvious callback to the band’s glory years, the song that most portrays all of the elements that made Motorhead who they became. It is this triumvirate of songs that brings fans like me the most pleasure on this album, the songs that made us fall in love with what this band can produce.
Which brings us to the final track, the conclusion of the album. It is the title track, "1916", one that is as completely unrecognisable as several others here on the album. In his 2002 memoir, Lemmy said that the song was inspired by the Battle of the Somme. He is quoted as saying:
"'Nightmare/The Dreamtime' and '1916' both relied heavily on keyboards, which was very different for Motörhead – or any heavy band in 1990. I wrote the words before the music. It's about the Battle of the Somme in World War I...Nineteen thousand Englishmen were killed before noon, a whole generation destroyed, in three hours – think about that! It was terrible – there were three or four towns in northern Lancashire and south Yorkshire where that whole generation of men were completely wiped out."
It is a ballad, a quiet song dominated by Lemmy’s almost unaccompanied lyrics and vocals. It has been highly praised in the years since this album’s released, as it not only is a heartfelt reflection on war and its resulting affect on those that fought and those they left at home, but it was a major departure from the kinds of songs that Lemmy and the band had ever produced. It was seen as not only a brave move but as a necessary one for the band to adapt to the changes in the world around it. It had been almost four years for Motorhead between studio albums, and the changes in the music the band offered on this album showed a period of reflection in many things, and in closing out this album with a musically opposed ballad, it gave their fans every opportunity to make judgment for themselves.
We may as well get this out there right from the beginning. For me, “1916” was a massive disappointment when I first bought it on its release. Compared to a lot of the other bands I was listening to at the time, “1916” just didn’t cut it at all. It was a changing time in the metal world, and this album for me fell on the wrong side of the line. And that was also a disappointment because this was the first Motorhead album I had bought when it was released. I had copies of “Ace of Spades” and “Overkill” and the best of “No Remorse”, but this was the first album of their that I bought on its release – and I wasn’t feeling it in any way. And even at this point in time, there was the notion that every Motorhead album sounded the same, which you couldn’t accuse this album of being. And there tended to be a lot that I just didn’t get at the time of its release. Remember, I had come off all of those amazing albums released in 1990 at this time, and was still heavily involved in their greatness – Seasons in the Abyss, Rust in Peace, Persistence of Time, Painkiller – so “1916” is very very different from those. And the mix of style of tracks here – traditional Motorhead, the 60’s rock n roll based Motorhead tracks, the experimental style such as “Nightmare / The Dreamtime”, and the ballads of “1916” and “Love Me Forever” – was just too much to be able to accept for 21 year old me. Or older me as it turned out.
For instance, here is what I wrote about “Love Me Forever” when reviewing this album 20 years ago: “Combined with the stereotypical ballad solo, it is so NOT Motörhead that it feels like a slap in the face. You can't begrudge the band from doing this kind of song, given the credits they have built up over the years, but it really is almost on the Metallica scale of debauchery and betrayal. No, no, no. Is this the way you jump into the 1990’s? And this was even before Metallica came along and tortured us with ‘Nothing Else Matters’. I remember the first time I listened to this song… and I had bought the album on cassette because the store I went to didn’t have it on vinyl or CD, and I had to check to make sure it was real. I couldn’t believe Motorhead had inflicted this upon me. But… judge for yourself…”
So yes, as you can hear, I was a little taken aback by it, and those other things on the album.
The experimentation that the band makes on this album is not something I wish to have a crack at, because bands have to try new things in their existence, especially when they have been around for a long time, and especially when they are looking find a way back to prominence. The fact that many pundits like to suggest that like AC/DC, every Motorhead album sounds the same, obviously shows they have not listened to “1916”, because the band makes a concerted effort on this album to change things up. There are four obvious different style types of songs on this album, and they even try to group them together so that the track list isn’t bogged down. As was the case for their albums around this period, Motorhead had two guitarists rather than one, and this results in the songs sounding different from those albums where only one guitarist is present.
On reflection over the years after my initial assessment of this album, I have come to love MOST of it. If I could eliminate 3 or 4 of the tracks here, I think it would be a lot better. I admit that I am surprised when people profess their love for this album, or even for songs such as “Love Me Forever” or the title track. For me, they drag the album down.
I have done my due diligence over the past few days, and I have had “1916” back on my CD player and listened to it a lot, both in just enjoying the album for what it is, as well as trying to break down individually what I like or dislike about the tracks. And for me it is almost impossible to hate a Motorhead album. At only 40 minutes in length there’s no time to really dislike what you hear. The great songs on this album for me continue to be a shining light. The back half of the album is my favourite part, with those thumping drums of Phil Taylor, the wonderful guitaring from Wurzel and Wizzo, and Lemmy’s booming bass guitar and vocals. There are tracks here that I think stand up with the best the band has ever written. But – and it is a big but – the album for me is too cluttered with different styles of songs. It feels unassembled. And it is an album that I rarely think of returning to when it comes to choosing a Motorhead album to listen to.
Of course, this album ended up being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal performance, which to some people suggests that it is much better than my assessment. Fair enough, although I’m not sure a Grammy nomination really stands for too much when it comes to heavy metal music.
What I can assure you is that, in my opinion at least, Motorhead went on to release much better albums in the years ahead, and most of them contained no semblance of a ballad to hold them back.
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