90. AC/DC - Back In Black (Albert Productions, Atlantic Records, 1980)
I remember finding a Billy Altman review of AC/DC's first album High Voltage in an old Rolling Stone mag me ma had lying around (Jackson Browne was on the cover, that’s maybe why). It was short and disgusted, might as well have said: “Shit Sandwich”. Cruel, but somewhat fair.
I'm a frequent non-consensual AC/DC listener. I like the minimal production, the simplicity and the gusto. I don't love the rest. A good AC/DC song is an acceptable vibe, especially if it's on a various artists playlist. A bad one e.g. “The Jack”, “Down Payment Blues”, “If You Want Blood (You've Got It)”, “Ain't No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire)” is some of my least favourite music. Ultimately, AC/DC's dangerously simple songs live and die on their own wit, because said wit will be subject to immense repetition, to the extent that the chorus of an AC/DC song and the title of the song are often the same thing.
Even for a blues rock act, AC/DC have been slow to evolve. The only miniscule differences between Back In Black, album number eight, and their debut is that by this point in history, new wave and hair metal have started to happen and both have made miniscule impacts on the production and songwriting. Also, the band are famous, so no more songs about the struggle to make it in showbiz. These have been replaced with slightly more metal sentiments, which tend to be no deeper than a tattoo (we'll get to those). Then there's the obvious, which is to say RIP Bon Scott, who died of misadventure and was replaced by geordie from Geordie, Brian Johnson. A good-time band, keeping the show rolling, flipping off Death on both sides of Bon Scott's death (Highway To Hell was the last album before he died); certainly an inspiring thing contributing to the eventual status of this album.
There are a few things that are odd about AC/DC. They don't sound like other rock bands but boy do they sound like themselves. There's that super narrow range of licks, riffs and rhythms, which more than most of their peers, have their roots in jukebox rock 'n' roll. The lack of evolution is coming from Angus, who doesn't change his band's music, out of stubbornness and a refusal to kowtow to The Man, external pressures, the critics, probably even his own flights of whimsy. There's the easy-to-mock, but hard-to-mimic vocals. Many listeners who are on the pipeline from classical music to metal take pleasure in how hard this type of singing is to do. For the rest of us, Bon and Brian are as impressive and silly with their pipes as Van Halen is with his fingers (often operating in the same range of pitch). Here's an idea for free; AC/DC should make an official guitar pedal that turns your guitar into Brian Johnson's voice. They did it for Hatsune Miku, Johnson should be next.
But what are they singing about? Let's look at the message of each of the ten songs on Back In Black, as summarised by me:
1. “I am the devil, I'm gonna kill you”
2. “I am the devil and I'm going to kill you and love you”
3. “You're a whore, gross, I am curious”
4. “You're no looker, but you're giving me a blowie”
5. “Don't struggle, let me bone you good”
6. “I am back from the dead”
7. “An American had sex with me!”
8. “Drinking is good, let's all do it and have drugs too”
9. “I was a wee shit in school, let's shag”
10. “Rock 'n' roll will never die and neither will we”
(I am now cracking up imagining the above as lyrics to an actual AC/DC song)
Not much to it all, is there? What sustained mainstream metal and hard rock in the eighties, even though it was shallow, is the sheer size of the themes in the songs: drink, drugs, love, sex, life, death, violence, the devil, thunder, rock and roll, chicks. If you just alternate between these simple themes of grand size like they are power chords, listeners will do the rest of the work when it comes to ascribing meaning. It's a winning formula for pop. And religious texts, funnily enough.
This album houses some of the band's best known work. It's half singles, with the last single “Shoot To Thrill” not arriving till 2011 for some reason (Iron Man 2 most likely), joining the title track, “You Shook Me All Night Long”, “Rock 'n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution!” and their most romantic song “You Shook Me All Night Long”.
What Kind Of Splash Did It Make?
Back In Black's influence is difficult to chart owing how hard the songs are to sing and how firmly rooted they are in long-established traditions, but every now and then you can say to yourself that a song couldn't exist without them. An example is the song “School of Rock” from the film of the same name by duo with a cool name Jack Black and Mike White. Heck they even round out the film by singing an AC/DC cover.
By 1983, AC/DC were outselling all the other rock bands in the world. This coupled with an odd statistical anomaly is why they are on the list, the only Australian entry. Nowadays, Back In Black is the most streamed album of its year of release. This may seem surprising, but then again 1980 was one of the greatest years for musical plurality in pop with funk, rap, punk, post-punk, reggae, country, ska, metal, synth pop, new wave, disco, soul all in healthy competition, with fistfuls of champions apiece. British metal was strong, but divided between Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne and Motörhead. It was not such a celebrated year for classic rock, however. Practically every artist or band with a firm foot in the sixties and/or seventies released nothing, a howler, a dud or just “not their best work”. But as AC/DC assert, rock and roll's success cannot die, only be transferred from one form to another. When modern times are too modern, people tend to cling for dear life to a guy with a guitar.
Where To Go From Here?
I said earlier “You Shook Me All Night Long” is their most romantic song. For proof, check out Arab Strap's version. They turn it into a Poguesy thing that's easier cuddled to.
The Angels, Skyhooks, Stevie Wright, Rose Tattoo and Dragon are all Aussie acts from around the start of AC/DC's run and they are the most authentically close in sound. More generally, if you like AC/DC and want to find bands that sound a bit like them, good news! They exist more in less in the middle of the genre “hard rock” which is, in spite of sounding like a subgenre, the West's most praised and appraised genre in the second half of the 20th century.