Motörhead’s debut album was recorded in a blinding burst of speed, as befits their name. They’d been together for two years already, playing to no one and getting the cold shoulder from labels (United Artists paid for a recording session in 1975, but shelved the results) and the press. They were on the brink of disbanding when Chiswick Records agreed to put up the money for a single. Lemmy, guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke, and drummer Philthy Animal Taylor entered the studio armed with a set of songs they’d been playing live for a year, and promptly blasted through them all. By the time label head Ted Carroll came down to hear what they’d got, they had 11 songs to play for him. He was impressed enough to give them the money to finish the disc.

The album is kind of a mishmash, stylistically and otherwise. It includes three Hawkwind songs (“Motorhead,” “Lost Johnny,” and “The Watcher”), as well as a version of the old blues song “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and the four brand-new tunes run the gamut from the punky, dirty joke “Vibrator” to the stoner-biker jam “Iron Horse/Born To Lose.” Lemmy hasn’t quite found his voice yet; on some tracks he’s almost singing clean, while others push his raw, raspy vocals through effects that make him sound like Tom Waits choking to death on sand. Clarke is granted a lot more space for guitar solos than he would be on subsequent releases, and Taylor’s drumming is loose, but not as wild as it would become.