Born to lose ... live to win
When a band has been going as long as Motorhead you can guarantee that every few years there will be an anniversary of some sort that serves as an excuse to embark on a lengthy tour or in this case to release another compilation celebrating past glories. With thirty five years under their belt now it's clearly time for another Motorhead compilation!
If you're a long time fan then you will already have everything on this compilation (most likely several times over) but for those new to the band it's a good introduction that features most of the early classics. The songs don't appear in any kind of chronological order, which is good if you don't look at the track listing when playing the CD, even though you know what's on it it's always a nice little surprise when the intro to the next song kicks in. Even though I'm hearing these songs for the millionth time it's still good to revisit them and whilst it's no surprise to me, there may be those that do raise an eyebrow at how powerful they are even after thirty odd years. 'Killed By Death' for example just booms out of the speakers and the chaotic intensity of 'Overkill' never fails to get me going.
Motorhead have never stopped recording for the last four decades and there are always periods within a career that long that are overlooked by the wider populous. On this compilation you can look at the later material from the mid to late 80s as being the less well known songs but they more than stand up alongside the older material. 'Eat The Rich' and 'Nothing Up My Sleeve' capture a moment in time and bring back a host of memories whilst still sounding pretty fresh. Of course all the usual suspects are here ('Ace of Spades', 'Iron Fist', 'Bomber' etc) but there are one or two album tracks and b-sides like 'Heart Of Stone' and 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' that provide some limited variety from the usual compilation track list.
Take this CD at face value and you have a fine document of the first twelve years of a band that is now in it's thirty fifth year. It would however be better named as 'A Collection' not 'The Collection' as with nothing here beyond 1987 it's not really representative of their work as a whole, especially when much of their better recorded work has occurred in the last ten years. As a budget release for around £3 though you really can't go wrong!