This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… Motorhead, Another Perfect Day

It’s good to read that in recent years there’s been a rethink about the place of the album “Another Perfect Day” in the Motorhead canon (and speaking of all things Motorhead here’s a related item). It has had a contentious position in that canon. Too ‘melodic’ was often the complaint. Which in the context of Motorhead makes a certain sort of sense on the face of it, but isn’t really true. That injection of – shall we say – greater melody was the responsibility of Brian Robertson, formerly of Thin Lizzy, who was… well, odd. There are horror stories of his appearing in leg warmers, etc at warm ups, of being a difficult and tetchy character. Not quite the image that Motorhead sought to project. This iteration of the band lasted barely a year with Robertson exiting with Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor to form his own band.

Astoundingly, or perhaps not, according to Wiki none of the tracks were played by Motorhead until 2004. And I read that ‘Dancing on Your Grave’, ‘I Got Mine’ and ‘Another Perfect Day’ have been rehabilitated since then.

For me it’s speedy, seriously heavy… but with some intro’s which because they’re so overtly melodic, even unmetal, counterpointing the sheer metallic dynamic of the sounds that come after them. For example, ‘I Got Mine’ has a near-jangle guitar sound which could have been toned down and fitted into mainstream indie but a few short years later.

Motorhead – Another Perfect Day

Dancing on Your Grave

Marching off to War

Shine

I Got Mine

Tales of Glory

And the title track live…