“We’ve got some Motorhead,” announces BBC 6 Music breakfast presenter Nick Grimshaw, as he leads us into the second half hour of the daily Cloudbusting part of the show, where Grimmy treats us to some upbeat tunes to bust those clouds. And you know just which Motorhead tune it’s going to be. “If you like to gamble,” roars Lemmy, “I tell you, I’m your man.” Ace Of Spades. Of course it is. Motorhead only made one record, a single, didn’t they? Those 23 studio albums don’t count, do they? Is the song so much better than anything else they did, so much so that radio stations won’t play anything else?
I confess to not being Motorhead’s greatest fan. Lemmy and I did not get off to the best of starts when in 1975 they happened to be the warm-up act at the Hammersmith Odeon, now Apollo, for Blue Öyster Cult. If I was to say to you that Motorhead were terrible, that would be a huge understatement. Sounds magazine editor Geoff Barton wrote: “Lemmy’s Motorhead played the second worst set I’ve ever seen. The only past concert I can think of that surpasses it, in terms of musical ineptitude, was of course the same band’s first gig some while back at the Chalk Farm Roundhouse.” The crowd let the band know what they thought of them and Lemmy reacted furiously by gesturing to the sound man to crank up the volume to ear-splitting levels. The Cult, meanwhile, were quite brilliant, as this review states. The following year, they released their fourth album, Agents of Fortune, which features perhaps the only song your passing music fan has ever heard of, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. To radio stations everywhere, with the possible exception of generic rock oldie station Planet Rock, the rest of their catalogue might as well not exist.
I find this mildly disappointing since Blue Öyster Cult have made some of my favourite albums. Starting in 1972 with their eponymous debut album, quickly followed by Tyranny and Mutation and Secret Treaties. Super rock music, but in the eyes and ears of the world of music radio, the band might not have bothered.
Other great artists have suffered from the same weird syndrome, which revolves, I suspect, on how catchy a song is on first hearing. Canadian rockers Rush have a stellar catalogue of music, yet the only one of their songs you will likely hear on the radio is the admittedly magnificent Spirit of the Radio. Similarly, fellow Canadians Bachman-Turner Overdrive are only really known for You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, which I regard as one of their lesser songs. Four Wheel Drive is a truly great rock album. No self-respecting rock fan should be without it.
Part of it is laziness, by the radio presenter/DJ and the listener. If there’s a well known song, why bother with something different? Take, for example, “the only band that matters”, The Clash. Now Joe Strummer’s chaps only made six albums and I would say that the first four, from their eponymous debut, through Give ‘Em Enough Rope, London Calling to Sandinista! are among the greatest rock records ever made. Yet what do you hear on the radio? London Calling and Should I Stay Or Should I Go. Superb and all that, but really Mr or Ms DJ, there is much more greatness to be found.
Yacht rockers Toto have three songs that people know. Africa, of course, Hold The Line and, to a slightly lesser extent Rosanna. It must come as a big surprise to those not over-familiar with the band to find that they have more than enough, never less than brilliant, material to play in their near two hour set. Those of us waiting by the radio for Stop Loving You, Hydra, Mindfields and White Sister can whistle. There will always be rains in Africa to be blessed in radio world.
There have always been one hit wonders, but this is different from the narrowness of the radio stations’ choices. Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit In The Sky, Thunderclap Newman’s Something In The Air and New Radicals’ You Get What You Give are truly great records in my opinion, but the rest of their catalogues not so much. I even bought the one New Radicals only album Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too on the back of You Get What You Give and what a waste of money that was. One stone cold classic, the rest simply awful.
Iny my tiresome and hectoring way, I always suggest to people that they look beyond the obvious hits and dig deeper into an artist’s catalogue. If for example you like Neil Young, there is far more to him than Heart of Gold. If you like the Doobie Brothers’ Listen To The Music, then you really should buy, not stream, their greatest album The Captain And Me. And if you like Queen, there really is much more to them than Bohemian Rhapsody. Unfortunately.
Unless you’re New Radicals, who flattered to deceive, many artists’ best work is still to be discovered by musos everywhere. Have a listen. You might just like it.
