Motorhead’s breakthrough Overkill now stands as a widely praised, towering achievement in heavy-rock history. That's wonderfully ironic since the album should, by all rights, have never even happened.

Happy anniversary to Motorhead's Overkill album. With their 1977 self-titled debut, Motörhead opened the floodgates for a new style of bluesy, bombastic biker metal, but two years later, on March 24, ...

LONDON - DECEMBER 01: British rock band Motorhead posed in Islington, London in December 1980. L-R Lemmy Kilmister, Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor, 'Fast' Eddie Clarke. (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns) ...

Because there's the rub: Motorhead united the tribes, inspired extreme metal (there's a reason we chose Overkill as their ...