Lemmy was doing well at the time of March Ör Die; Motörhead, not so much. He’d gotten a call from Sharon Osbourne, asking him to help write a few songs for her husband’s upcoming album, No More Tears. He dashed off lyrics for four tracks, one of which was “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” which turned out to be Ozzy’s second-highest-charting solo single, only beaten out by “Close My Eyes Forever,” his duet with Lita Ford. In his autobiography, White Line Fever, Lemmy claimed, “I made more money out of those four songs than I made in 15 years of Motörhead.”

March Ör Die, even more than 1916, was the band’s attempt to make a hit record. It’s got guest stars (Ozzy and Slash both show up on “I Ain’t No Nice Guy,” and Slash also plays on the bluesy stomper “You Better Run”), a cover of Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever,” a movie tie-in (“Hellraiser” was used in the movie Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth, and there’s a video that features Lemmy playing cards with Pinhead) … they tried basically everything, and none of it worked. “I Ain’t No Nice Guy” got some radio airplay, but was barely promoted by Epic/Sony, and the more traditionally Motörhead-ish songs were pretty mediocre, letting diehard fans down. Gloss didn’t suit the band, and they were soon dropped, forced to seek shelter in the independent world where they belonged.