Metal is not really a genre you hear of where bands get defined by one song, although of course there are some. Everyone's heard "Enter Sandman", "Run to the hills" and "Paranoid", but one song that has crossed over into just about every possible other genre and become almost part of the cultural consciousness is a single nobody would ever have expected to. Take the loudest, dirtiest band you can think of, ramp 'em up to ten, throw in a vocal that's barely discernible to the non-Metal ear, and slam down on the pedal until the speedo needle bursts through the glass, and what have you got?
Ace of spades
Motorhead
Released October 27 1980
From the album "Ace of spades"
Backed with "Dirty love"
Chart position: 15 (UK)
A dirty, growly, fast and loud metal song, scaling into the top levels of the charts? Unheard of, surely? Well, Iron Maiden would do it two years later, and indeed regularly trouble the charts, but this song was one of a kind. For those who hate Metal (may you all die groaning in pain and recanting your heresy) it epitomises everything they loathe about the genre. It's fast. It's loud. It's mean. It uses gambling metaphors and Lemmy admits --- gloats even --- that he doesn't want to live forever. It's got a blazing guitar solo at the beginning, middle and end. The drums are apocalyptic. There's no bridge. There's kind of no chorus really. It's definitely not a song written to break the charts, but briefly, for one moment in 1980, it did, and the cultured, polite and ordered world of studios like "Top of the Pops" were blown apart as three dirty, greasy rockers kicked their way onstage, pounded out what was to become their anthem, and
fucked off.
I'm sure those who danced to it on TOTP had no clue what to do: it's seldom a Metal song gets near the charts and the sheep who gyrate aimlessly around to the latest pop sounds seem more under the influence of drugs than most metallers, but with a real sense of lethargy and apathy. But we Metalheads knew what to do, and possibly suffering the chart show for the first time we gritted our way through disco, new wave and teenyboppers, waiting for the moment when our heroes took the stage, to general disapproval from the "kids".
With its tough, uncompromising,
fuck-you-if-you-give-a-
fuck attitude, its blasting guitar and pounding drums, "Ace of spades" has gone on to become the archetypal song for everything from wars to races, from videogames to ultimate fighting and from zombie movies to cowboy films. It has featured in TV shows, movie soundtracks and the band even played it live on the anarchic comedy "The Young Ones". Seems any time there's a scene or section where something fast, loud and in-your-face with a devil-may-care attitude is called for, "Ace of spades" fits the bill. Though sick of the song by now, Motorhead continue to play it live, because it is firmly entrenched as one of their alltime classic songs. They even released a slowed-down, acoustic version to advertise, of all things, beer!
Ask any man in the street to name one Motorhead song, and you can be sure that no matter how much of a Poseur they may be, almost every one of them will know "Ace of spades". It's just had that much effect on popular culture. Who woulda thunk it?