1916 (album)

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1916
Motörhead studio album

Publication
(s)

February 2, 1991

Label (s) WTG / Epic Records

Format (s)

CD, LP, MC

Genre (s)

Heavy metal hard rock

Title (number)

11

running time

39:22

occupation

production

Peter Solley

Studio (s)

Sunset Sound Studios ( Hollywood , California )

chronology
Rock 'n' Roll
(1987) 		1916 March ör Die
(1992)
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
1916
  DE 14th 02/04/1991 (18 weeks)
  CH 24 02/24/1991 (8 weeks)
  UK 24 02/02/1991 (4 weeks)
  US 142 03/23/1991 (9 weeks)
Singles
One to Sing the Blues
  UK 45 01/05/1991 (3 weeks)

1916 is Motörhead's ninth studio album . It was released on February 2, 1991 on WTG and in Europe on Epic Records . Both labels belong to the Sony group, so the album is considered the band's major label debut.

History of origin

In the summer of 1989 the band recorded the first demos for a new album with No Voices in the Sky , Goin 'to Brazil and Shutdown . A few months later, when he worked with band manager Douglas Smith, the contract with his record label GWR Records ended . The new manager Phil Carson organized a meeting in London with Jerry Greenberg, head of WTG , a Sony sub-label . The label signed Motörhead. Shortly before the studio recordings, Lemmy moved to Los Angeles for good . First album of should ed stasium produced are. After recording four tracks, the band fired him after Stasium used bat and tambourine in the mix of Goin 'to Brazil . The recordings with Pete Solley continued.

The design of the record cover did not initially find the approval of the band, which rejected the five drafts presented to them. The final version shows almost all the flags of the countries involved in the First World War , but not those of France , which contradicts the title song, which is about a battle in France.

In February 1991 the tour for the album began. The opening act played The Almighty and the girl band Cycle Sluts from Hell . The live keyboards were initially played by Phil Campbell next to the stage, but since he was mainly active as a guitarist and also often gambled away, his guitar roadie took over the keyboards.

Track list

  1. The One to Sing the Blues - 3:07
  2. I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care) - 3:13
  3. No Voices in the Sky - 4:12
  4. Going to Brazil - 2:30
  5. Nightmare / The Dreamtime - 4:40
  6. Love Me Forever - 5:27
  7. Angel City - 3:57
  8. Make My Day - 4:24
  9. RAMONES - 1:26
  10. Shut You Down - 2:41
  11. 1916 - 3:44

Music and lyrics

With Love Me Forever and 1916 , a Motörhead album contains two quiet songs for the first time. In 1916 is an unusual piece of Motorhead, as mainly a cello can be heard. Kilmister wrote the lyrics before the music was composed. Based on the Battle of the Somme, the song describes the brutality of the First World War from the perspective of a 16-year-old soldier. The piece The One to Sing The Blues is strongly influenced by the blues attitude towards life , Going to Brazil and Angel City can be assigned to rock 'n' roll . Angel City's lyrics are about life in Los Angeles, but Kilmister wrote it before he moved to the United States. Alongside this song, keyboards were used in 1916 and in Nightmare / The Dreamtime .

The fastest and shortest song RAMONES is a tribute to the punk band Ramones .

Comments from the members

  • The One to Sing the Blues

Lemmy Kilmister: "Content: the girl leaves the boy, the boy is pissed off, yells at the girl and wants revenge."

Lemmy Kilmister: “But there is no blues note in it, on the contrary! It actually turned out to be a pretty quick piece […]. [...] At some point I wrote this line of text like this, and then I thought to myself: You just call this thing 'The Blues'! And then we just called it 'The One' for a while. Yeah, and at some point it became 'The One to Sing the Blues' ... Just like that ... "

  • I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care)

Lemmy Kilmister: “Typical Motörhead. I'm so bad - that describes what I actually am most of all [...]. "

Lemmy Kilmister: “I'm So Bad is a total macho song with a lot of male arrogance. We don't need to go into it in more detail. "

Lemmy Kilmister: “Also one of the funniest texts I have ever written. You could see again how humorous the radical feminist front can be - a woman at the Melody Maker seriously condemned the song as sexist. "

  • No Voices in the Sky

Lemmy Kilmister: “The lyrics are about organized religion. Those people who turn other people's good faith into business. They say, 'Give me $ 100 - and I'll make sure that you sit on God's right hand for all eternity!' - one way or the other ... That's bullshit! Such guys piss me off! The bad thing is that here in the States everyone can put on a robe and do their thing as a TV preacher and pull the people off - nobody intervenes. On the other hand, they also try to take their rock'n'roll away from the kids by means of censorship, which really doesn't harm anyone ... "

  • Going to Brazil

Lemmy Kilmister: “It's about a flight to Brazil - the whole atmosphere in the jet during the flight there… While you are sitting on the plane and looking down at the earth from high up, you have certain thoughts. And if you see the Sugar Loaf in Rio on the approach to landing ... "

Lemmy Kilmister: “It was a 16-hour flight, and when you're on the road for so long, when you're flying to LA, Japan or anywhere else, then I'm always drunk - and the stewardesses usually too! Somewhere on the way to Japan you sit in such a cage and tell dirty jokes - incomparable! "

Lemmy Kilmister: “'Going To Brazil' [...] describes the quickest and best way to get drunk on a flight to Brazil. Has come from my own experience: A drinking song ! "

  • Nightmare / The Dreamtime

Lemmy Kilmister: “[D] azu I was inspired by a horror movie , and the first two lines are influenced by ' Nightmare On Elmstreet ', the first part. Part two and three are nowhere near as good. I also think Hallows Eve inspired me; I like the genre of horror movies, unfortunately there are only few good ones among them. "

Lemmy Kilmister: “It's a little slower… The lyrics are simply about horror, nightmares… nightmares like you can experience them every night and how you've probably experienced them before. [...] You wake up bathed in sweat, sit in your bed and in the dark room - and you don't even know what's going on - just scary ... Accordingly, 'Nightmare / The Dreamtime' sounds almost diabolical and clumsy. "

Würzel: “Hahaha, the song is really sick. We composed it in the studio around the bass riff and recorded the guitars backwards. "

Würzel: “I like this song a lot, it could be a little more disgusting, more crazy. Especially in the middle part you could have built in a few eerie effects. "

  • Love Me Forever

Lemmy Kilmister: “This is a song that is different from the others. First of all, it's kept much slower. Then it has that melodramatic touch [...] And then I think the vocal lines are incredibly well done. […] As the title suggests, the lyrics are about certain promises […] 'I don't promise you anything - so you don't have to promise me anything!' "

Lemmy Kilmister: "Lyrically this song is aimed at a beloved woman, and everyone who has heard the song so far says: 'You speak from my heart, I feel exactly how you describe it in this text.' Most people find it easy to identify with this text. There is also a certain melancholy here. "

Phil Campbell: “[Lemmy] also took singing lessons here, it pays off. I am particularly proud of the melodic and very well done guitar solos, which Wurzel and I take turns playing. I could write a love song every day . "

  • Angel City

Lemmy Kilmister: “And now that's a faster rock'n'roll song again. For this piece we used some instruments that are usually not so typical of Motörhead: piano and saxophones. We have no problems with incorporating something like that into our songs. [...] The text is about all the bands that come to Los Angeles to cut their share of the cake of stardom and who just want to get famous quickly. But very few actually make it ... "

  • Make My Day

Lemmy Kilmister: “The piece actually has no specific textual statement. It's just another Motörhead-typical rock'n'roller! Just quick, go ahead and you're done! "

Lemmy Kilmister: "[...] a love song or rather a sex song, again written from a male- chauvinist point of view."

  • RAMONES

Lemmy Kilmister: “I wrote the piece for the Ramones. It's an excellent band. The boys - consciously or unconsciously - have inspired many musicians. [...] I think it was long overdue for someone to finally dedicate a hymn to the Ramones! "

Phil Campbell: “The lyrics are from Lemmy, but the music was originally much slower. We thought, hey, if we play this faster it will sound just like the Ramones. Then Lemmy wrote the text. So actually more of a coincidence, but we like the Ramones a lot. "

  • Shut you down

Lemmy Kilmister: “We don't always have absolutely serious messages in our lyrics. And that's a song that applies to that too. From the musical [sic] point of view, it is again one of those fast rock'n'rollers that are typical for us! "

Lemmy Kilmister: "'Shut You Down' is a macho song again [...]."

  • 1916

Lemmy Kilmister: “This is a piece about the First World War . It's very different from the rest of our material: not fast, no guitars… Just an organ, some drums and my voice of course. This also creates an incredibly oppressive atmosphere. The text is about the senseless sacrifice of human life, the waste of money, the waste of time, and so on - and for what? In principle for nothing! If you are dead, you have none of it. And if you survive all of this, you will find that as a poor eater you have only wasted your time on others! "

Lemmy Kilmister: “I was inspired to write this piece by a documentary about WWI. It is to be understood as an indictment, an anti-war song, a protest song . I wrote it from the perspective of a fallen man reporting the misery and death around him. […] Some of the boys even lied about their age, made themselves older so that they could be there as soldiers! Everyone wanted to be a hero, but everything was so pointless. "

Lemmy Kilmister: “What speaks against us recording a ballad? Who says we can't do this just because we're ugly and have long hair? As a heavy metal musician, you are packed into a certain box far too quickly - and that is exactly what we are fighting against. We just had more time this time and were therefore able to implement a few extraordinary ideas. "

Würzel: “[Lemmy] single-handedly realized and recorded the song. Nobody from the band was involved. We just had a day off […]. Lemmy recorded the song together with our producer, who contributed the keyboards and cello parts, with the help of a drum computer that replaced Philthy ! "

Würzel: “It's a play about being a soldier in general, using the example of the First World War. I have to admit, however, that '1916' isn't necessarily my favorite song on the new LP. "

reception

Matthias Penzel from the specialist journal Musikmagazin said that Motörhead went to work with “stubbornness, determination” and “consistency” and sounded like the ballad, which sounded like “the Edgar Broughton Band is trying its hand at Czech songs”, as always. He awarded 6 points.

Chris Glaub wrote in Break Out : "[...] the majority of the songs were brutal, loud, in places even barbaric in the well-tried Motörhead manner, livelier, faster and a whole class better than the mild predecessor Rock'n'Roll [...] . ”He then characterized the individual songs, highlighting 1916 as a“ highlight ”and remarking:“ […] a real ballad! I would never have thought it possible […]! ”. He followed up one issue: 1916 was a "very sad and melancholy" song, but still his "absolute favorite".

For metal star author Eva Ries, the songwriting was "punk-oriented" and Love Me Forever was "the best piece on the album". In the follow-up issue, Susanne Murken warned against assuming "that all Motörhead albums sound the same anyway [...] because the band has a few surprises in store". The ballad titles earned her the greatest respect. Regarding Love Me Forever , she wrote: “This ballad not only lets die-hard fans listen devoutly and in awe [...]. So rough and so beautiful - who would have thought that !! ”In 1916 , she only slipped out“ Woww !!! ”. In the end, the highest score was 10. Two more issues later, Charles Hertzog also commented on 1916 : “On the title track, Lemmy can be accompanied by keyboards and cello, there is even a ballad with Love Me Forver , but the rest is tough stuff with a hard drive and howling guitars. The new album is awesome [...]. "

In Rock Hard , Steffan Chirazi wrote: " 1916 is the strongest MOTÖRHEAD album ever." Going further, he declared it the "best rock'n'roll album of recent years". He was particularly impressed by the "pathologically twisted number Nightmare / The Dreamtime ". In 1916, Götz Kühnemund voted “Record of the Month” with 9.5 out of 10 points and gave five reasons for this: The ballads, rock'n'roll, punk, uncompromising, the well-known Motörhead trademarks. Everything together is "as brave as it is ingenious".

In his preliminary report, which was taken over by Metal Hammer in the February issue, Jon Sutherland called 1916 “clearly her most courageous rock adventure to date” and the title track the “most unusual Motörhead song”. “It's a slow, scary poem that is only accompanied by an organ, a cello, and a slow, eerie drum. [...] [The] song [...] still affects me. ”In the following month, 1916 won the soundcheck and was awarded the title“ Best of All ”including a detailed review. Editor Buffo called the album “phenomenal” and predicted that “new groups of buyers will open up, because by Motörhead standards the new work is surprisingly 'commercial'”. In addition to the new quiet moments, you would also get the "dirtiest rock'n'roll fare" again, namely songs comparable to the Motörhead "classics", "unbroken rough and hard, unpolished, the welcome recipe of the legends for the nineties" . His colleague Matthias Mineur was of the same opinion as far as “commercialism” was concerned, he wrote in 1996: “[…] only for the works MARCH ÖR DIE and in 1916 the band with expensive productions and some supposed radio singles […] seemed to be more commercial to court. "

Description and rating did n't really go together in the Musikexpress . There was talk of a "battalion of bulldozers gone wild" that "suddenly nipped every hint of blues mood in the bud". The musicians were called "true destructors" and accused of "pouring the most powerful keyboards jelly into the threatening metal cocktail [...]". The title song is "crazy" and flattens the "metal freak [...]". 6 out of 7 possible points were awarded.

The Internet platform Allmusic awarded 3 out of 5 stars.

successes

On December 24, 1990, Kilmister's 45th birthday, the single One to Sing the Blues was released , which reached number 45 on the British singles chart in early 1991 . The album was released in February 1991, reached number 24 on the British album charts and number 142 on the US album charts with around 30,000 units sold in the USA . It was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Metal Performance category in 1992 .

The band was deeply disappointed with the sales figures in the USA and England, the 100,000 units sold in Germany alone brightened the mood.

literature

  • Lemmy Kilmister with Janiss Garza: White Line Fever - The Autobiography . IP Verlag Jeske / Mader, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-931624-25-0 , p. 206-211 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Charts DE Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
  2. ↑ Kilmister / Garza: White Line Fever , p. 200
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Eva Ries: Motörhead . In: Metal Star , 1-2 / 1991, pp. 18-21.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Andreas Schöwe: Own Words. Lemmy . In: Metal Hammer , 3/1991, p. 50.
  5. ↑ Everything Louder than Everyone Else promo sheet , 1999.
  6. ↑ a b c d Steffan Chirazi: [title is not available]. In: Rock Hard , No. 47 (February 1991), pp. 18-20.
  7. ↑ a b c Chris Glaub: Motörhead. Dogs, turtles ... and fighting drinks! . In: Break Out , 3/1991, pp. 4-5.
  8. ↑ a b Anonymous: Motorhead. Motörhead interview . In: Rockfabrik Live , 1 (o. 2?) / 1992, p. 24.
  9. ↑ Götz Kühnemund : The rock hard talk show. Würzel (Motörhead) . In: Rock Hard , No. 48 (March 1991), p. 68.
  10. ^ Matthias Penzel: Motörhead. 1916 . In: Fachblatt Musikmagazin , 2/1991.
  11. ↑ Chris Glaub: Motorhead. 1916 . In: Break Out , 2/1991, p. 30.
  12. ^ Susanne Murken: Motorhead. 1916 (Sony Music) . In: Metal Star , 3/1991, p. 62.
  13. ^ Charles Hertzog: Motorhead History Part II . In: Metal Star , 5/1991, pp. 38 - 42 + 59.
  14. ^ Götz Kühnemund: Motörhead. 1916 . In: Rock Hard , No. 47 (February 1991), pp.?. Also on rockhard.de
  15. ^ Jon Sutherland: Down and Out in Höllywood. Lemmy in LA In: Metal Hammer , 2/1991, pp. 124-127.
  16. ^ Buffo [Schnädelbach]: Best of All. Motorhead. 1916. WTG / Sony Music . In: Metal Hammer , 3/1991, p. 63.
  17. ^ Matthias Mineur: Monuments. Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll. Motorhead . In: Metal Hammer , 10/1996, pp. 110-111.
  18. ↑ a b (ak): Motörhead. 1916 (Sony Music) . In: Musikexpress / Sounds , Special 1991, p. 115.
  19. ↑ a b c d (ak): Motörhead. 1916 (CBS) . In: Musikexpress / Sounds , 2/1991, p. 73.
  20. ↑ 1916 at Allmusic (English)
  21. ↑ a b Kilmister / Garza: White Line Fever , p. 218
  22. ↑ Anonymous: Four Britons abroad . In: Rock Power , 10/1991, pp. 68-70.

Web links