MOTÖRHEAD's "Ace Of Spades" 40th-anniversary celebration releases have taken the world by storm once more, establishing this landmark album as being of eternal importance to music culture. With a centerpiece deluxe edition box set, comprising the original album, two previously unreleased live albums from the "Ace Up Your Sleeve" tour, a DVD compilation, 40-page book, poker dice, tour program and other treasures, "Ace Of Spades" crashed the German chart at No. 10 (the same position the original album hit on initial release in 1980), No. 4 in Sweden and stormed into the U.K. rock and metal chart at No. 4, and hit the Top 100 in the U.S.
The media has not been shy in singing its praises either, with publications from Rolling Stone to Classic Rock extolling its virtues (and volume), and cover stories on 11 publications throughout the Europe, including Classic Rock, Metal Hammer, Rock Hard and Sweden Rock magazines. SiriusXM held a special MOTÖRHEAD celebration, with WWE superstar Triple H hosting a show which included the likes of Slash and Duff McKagan from GUNS N' ROSES, Ozzy Osbourne and, of course, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee explaining why "Ace Of Spades" remains one of the greatest rock albums of all time.
The box-set, deluxe box-set, 2 CD edition and 3 LP editions are still available in very limited quantities at certain retailers and outlets, and reinforcements are being manufactured to hopefully arrive and meet the demand in late January 2021.
In 1980, off the back of two essential albums, "Overkill" and "Bomber" the previous year, MOTÖRHEAD continued to get bigger, better, louder and faster by the second. This time, on "Ace Of Spades" they teamed up with producer Vic Maile and came up with twelve songs; each and every one of which crams a regular band's ten minutes of playing into an average of three. The songtitles alone made ears bleed; "Love Me Like A Reptile", "Shoot You In The Back", "The Chase Is Better Than The Catch" and "The Hammer" were a few examples. This landmark album saw the three amigos of Lemmy, Fast Eddie Clarke and Philthy Animal Taylor at the helm of the juggernaut that was MOTÖRHEAD, gaining phenomenal growth in popularity as they forged onward. The band's and fans ideas, wants and inspirations, converged at a perfect tangent. Anyone disputing this fact need look no further than any heavy metal gig of the time and play "spot the MOTÖRHEAD T-shirt and jacket." They outnumbered anyone else by at least five to one. A statistic that is still accurate some forty-five years since they first began!
The "Ace Of Spades" album release was a magical moment in rock 'n' roll history, an album which had enormous global impact and continues to resonate and inspire people worldwide. Fans to this day still remember where they were when they first heard it, and it immediately inspired bands worldwide to absorb the album's energy, speed, and attitude into their own work. "Ace Of Spades" is ground zero for thrash, speed metal, and punk/metal crossover.
