The 25 Best Metal Bands of All Time, #9: Motörhead
MetalSucks recently polled over a hundred of metal’s most revered musicians, critics, journalists, artists, publicists, and industry insiders to find out which 25 bands represent the very BEST in the history of metal. Appropriately enough for Halloween, today we continue with the UK’s…
Motörhead
42 Votes
622 Points
Hot damn. Where to begin?
Let’s get this out of the way: if you argue that Motörhead aren’t a metal band, you’re an idiot or an attention whore. Shut up, you talk too loud. Even if the band’s earliest and most lauded material doesn’t conform to the modern definitions of metal, the band’s later output most certainly does, and anyway, who cares, let’s dance. More importantly, Motörhead may not have topped this list, but they are certainly the Most Metal Metal Band of All Time. When we use ‘metal’ as an adjective, we are describing how closely something relates to Motörhead. If something is ‘metal’, it means Lemmy wouldn’t actively give it the finger. Though he just might, for propriety’s sake.
Lemmy, guys. Ian Fraser Kilmister. Few people live up to the phrase “one and only”, but then there’s fucking Lemmy. Lemmuy, who worked his way from roadie to acid casualty to speed freak and left a trail of empty Jack bottles and satisfied broads in his wake. Who got fired from Hawkwind for drug use and went on to form the most cutthroat band of all time. Who can pen party anthems like “Dance”, ballads like “Mama, I’m Coming Home”, and smoldering war marches like “Orgasmatron.” Who rocks an umlaut on both his band name and his face. Obviously, credit must be given to the incredible musicians who made up Motörhead throughout the years, Philthy Animal and Fast Eddie Clark and Mikkey Dee and Phil Campbell and all the rest. But when a band has God for a frontman, it’s hard to take your eyes off of him.
Motörhead are immortal, perfectly preserved against the ages. The band never fell victim to trends. It never updated its sound to “embrace a new generation of fans.” It never needed to, and no one ever asked.. The idea that they would need to write an album like Generation Swine isn’t simply funny, it’s unbelievable. Be it the self-titled debut or last year’s Aftershock, every Motörhead album contains at least a couple of gems that you’ll put on repeat. In the meantime, their classics have never needed improvement Want a Motörhead song that’s relevant to the youth of today, with their smartphones and their Kickstarters and their dubstep Molly parties? Try “Sex and Outrage.” Try “Born To Raise Hell” and “Get Back In Line” and “Bomber” and “Angel City” and “No Class.” Try “Ace of Spades.” Yeah, that song? Motörhead’s overplayed, over-praised, over-used hit single that even your grandmother knows by name?Still the coolest song in the world. Still metal as fuck.
That’s the beautiful thing: to love Motörhead is to love metal. You may be a staunch pacifist who wears cream-colored cardigans and never misses Sunday mass, but if you like even one Motörhead song, you have shown your true colors, and they are deepest black and gleaming chrome. Motörhead stands for everything timelessly badass in rock and roll—leather, whiskey, sex, drugs, and exploding amplifiers. It is the music of the furious loser, the person who was born to lose but decides they’re going to live to win.
Motörhead are here, and they play rock and roll. And I can say with the utmost confidence that if you don’t like ‘em, you can go fuck yourselves.
THE LIST SO FAR:
#10 – Carcass (42 Votes, 516 Points)
#11 – Cannibal Corpse (40 Votes, 510 Points)
#12 – Anthrax (42 Votes, 497 Points)
#13 – Sepultura (41 Votes, 444 Points)
#14 – Dio (33 Votes, 433 Points)
#15 – Mercyful Fate (31 Votes, 419 Points)
#16 – Morbid Angel (33 Votes, 406 Points)
#17 – Meshuggah (32 Votes, 377 Points)
#18 – Opeth (30 Votes, 364 Points)
#19 – Testament (33 Votes, 347 Points)
#20 – At The Gates (28 Votes, 331 Points)
#21 – AC/DC (17 Votes, 313 Points)
#22 – Celtic Frost (24 Votes, 310 Points)
#23 – Ozzy Osbourne (21 Votes, 290 Points)
#24 – Napalm Death (22 Votes, 278 Points)
#25 – Lamb of God (29 Votes, 277 Points)
VIDEO CONTENT PRESENTED BY QELLO CONCERTS:
THE ILLUSTRIOUS PANEL OF VOTERS:
Chris Alfano – East of the Wall, Gear Gods
Paul Allender – White Empress, ex-Cradle of Filth
Rob Arnold – The Elite, ex-Chimaira, ex-Six Feet Under
Alan Averill (aka A.A. Nemtheanga) – Primordial
Chuck B.B. – Artist
Matt Bachand – Shadows Fall
Micke Berg – Below
Chuck Billy – Testament
Randy Blythe – Lamb of God
Paul Booth – Last Rites Tattoo and Art Gallery
Jake Bowen – Periphery
Terry Butler – Obituary
Liz Ciavarella-Brenner – Publicist, Earsplit PR
Blake Charlton – Ramming Speed
Richard Christy – Charred Walls of the Damned, ex-Death, ex-Iced Earth, ex-Control Denied, The Howard Stern Show
Monte Conner – President, Nuclear Blast Entertainment
Bruce Corbitt – Rigor Mortis, Warbeast
Doc Coyle – ex-God Forbid
Sergeant D. – MetalSucks, Stuff You Will Hate
Topon Das – Fuck the Facts, Merdarahta
Anso DF – MetalSucks
Peter Dolving – Rosvo, ex-The Haunted
Ryan J. Downey – Superhero Artist Management
Sacha Dunable – Intronaut, Bereft, Dunable Guitars
Vince Edwards – Head of Publicity, Metal Blade Records
Excretakano – MetalSucks
Exmortus
Extreme Management Group
D.X. Ferris – Slayer Scholar
Ryan Fleming – Black Table
Jon Freeman – Publicist, Freeman Promotions
Matthew Friesen – Culted
Ville Friman – Insomnium
Mike Gitter – Senior Director of A&R, Razor & Tie
Frank Godla – Metal Injection, Meek is Murder
Mike Greene – Director of Digital Marketing, Razor & Tie
Shane Handel – Set and Setting
Jeff Hodak – Head of Sales, Razor & Tie
Terence Hannum – Locrian
John Hoffman – Weekend Nachos
Mark Hunter – ex-Chimaira
Don Jamieson – That Metal Show
Daniel Jansson – Culted
John Jarvis – Pig Destroyer, Fulgora
Gaz Jennings – Death Penalty, ex-Cathedral
Patrik Jensen – The Haunted
Rick Jimenez – Extinction A.D.
Kassa – Below
Mirai Kawashima – Sigh
“Grim” Kim Kelly – MetalSucks
Zeena Koda
Erik Kluiber – Gypsyhawk
Eyal Levi – Unstoppable Killing Machine, Dååth
Jason Lekberg – IKILLYA
Adam Lindmark – Morbus Chron
Ryan Lipynsky – Serpentine Path, Unearthly Trance, The Howling Wind
Jonah Livingston – Ramming Speed
Bob Lugowe – Director of Promotions/Marketing, Relapse Records, Brutal Panda Records
James Malone – Arsis, Necromancing the Stone
Jose Mangin – Director of Music Programming, Sirius XM Liquid Metal
Bobby Mansfield – 16
Misha Mansoor – Periphery
Morgan McGrath – Live Nation
Mike “Gunface” McKenzie – The Red Chord, Stomach Earth, Nightkin
Vince Neilstein – MetalSucks
Eventansvarig Biostaden Nyköping – Below
Chris Ojeda – Byzantine
Casey Orr – Rigor Mortis, Warbeast
Rob Pasbani – Metal Injection
Anders Persson – Portrait
Chris Pervelis – Internal Bleeding
Karim Peter – Artist Relations, IndieMerchandising
Raphael Pinsker – Booking Agent, 3Thirteen Entertainment Group
Polar
Markus “Rabapagan” – Metsatöll
Josh Rand – Stone Sour
Emperor Rhombus – MetalSucks
Gus Rios – Gruesome
Tobias Rosén – Noctum
Axl Rosenberg – MetalSucks
Travis Ryan – Cattle Decapitation, Murder Construct, Nader Sadek
Saturn
Marc Schapiro, Branch Marketing Collective
Zach Shaw – The Syndicate
Patrick Sheridan – Fit For An Autopsy
Alex Skolnick – Testament
Brian Slagel – Chairman/CEO, Metal Blade Records
Mark Solotroff – Anatomy of Habit, Bloodlust!, BLOODYMINDED
Steve “Zetro” Souza – Exodus, Hatriot
Kevin Stewart-Panko – Decibel, MetalSucks
Black String – Vampire
Jason Suecof – Audiohammer Studios
Bram Teitelman – Metal Insider
Nick Tieder – No Jacket Required Marketing, Indegoot
Tone Deaf Touring
Aaron Turner – Old Man Gloom, ex-ISIS, Hydra Head Records
Brody Uttley – Rivers of Nihil
George Vallee – Head of Publicity, Street Smart Marketing
Dirk Verbeuren – Soilwork, Bent Sea, Scarve
Jens Vestergren – Below
Jake Wade – Columns
Kelly Walsh – Publicist, Prosthetic Records
Mike Wohlberg – The Fat Kid Illustration
Wookubus – The PRP
Zodiac
