WHY AC/DC MATTERS

by Anthony Bozza

As a life-long AC/DC fan, former Rolling Stone journalist Anthony Bozza ponders why it took until the mega-selling Black Ice album for the band to begin to get some of the real critical success he thinks they've long deserved. His argument is a strong one, and in this book he dissects AC/DC's music into its constituent parts as if examining the workings of a car or the valves of the human heart. By doing this, and doing it with humour and an engaging spark to his writing, Bozza is somehow able to stretch what would ordinarily be a feature article into a 160-page book that even the doubters his argument is aimed at would enjoy.

Why AC/DC Matters is a good read, carefully examining the way a band has been able to use little more than five open chords to write close to 200 songs and sell more albums than everyone except The Beatles. Bozza's analysis is meticulous as he considers Malcolm Young's style of play and speaks with college professors about the vocal abilities of Brian Johnson and Bon Scott. It's a strange intellectualisation of a band that -- rightly or wrongly -- is widely considered by critics as an antithesis of intellectualism. Yet herein lies Bozza's point: for a band to have made such simple music so successful for so long actually requires real genius.

While he does make this point, and few readers could come away from it disagreeing with him, it's hard to see exactly who this book is aimed at. As a biography it's irrelevant in the wake of Murray Engleheart's colossal Maximum Rock n Roll and it really doesn't offer anything new to either fans or non-fans. AC/DC, he writes, have made the same music for almost 40 years. This is a fact everyone knows. Their music is simple, but lots of people like it. Everyone knows this too. And as a lot of people also know, outside the metal and guitar mags, music critics have never much liked them. Nothing Bozza writes about AC/DC is anything I didn't already know; it's almost as if he wrote this just to please himself and his agent sold it on knowing that people would buy it because it's about the second-highest selling band in history. Even so, unlike I did with Stephen Davis' Guns N' Roses debacle, I didn't feel gyped by Why AC/DC Matters. It might be ultimately rather pointless, but it is good fun.

AC/DC: Black Ice

Produced by Brendan O'Brien

Released: 2008

In the eight years since the last AC/DC album, the music industry has moved on. Typically, AC/DC has not. Black Ice is as identifiably AC/DC as anything they've done before. Not as high energy perhaps, but with a 61-year old lead singer that probably isn't surprising. The first noticable aspect is that this is an AC/DC album with packaging: there's versions that come in tins and with special full colour-booklets. Even the standard version is a digipak. The last time Akkadakka made any concessions as to how their album was packaged was probably back when For Those About to Rock... came with a gatefold sleeve, but as this group is one of the few remaining major acts that still doesn't allow digital downloads it's obvious they needed to make this CD as alluring as possible. I doubt it would have mattered, as this album sold 1.7 million copies in a week and topped the charts in 29 countries, including Australia where, amazingly, they have only achieved the milestone thrice before. And as with almost everything they've released since 1981, it's unlikely that anyone will still be listening to Black Ice all that much in a year from now.

Clocking in at almost an hour and featuring no less than fifteen songs, Black Ice is a true epic by AC/DC standards and while it is arguably the best album they've made since The Razors Edge it would have been better had they pared it by at least fifteen minutes. "Spoilin' for a Fight", "Wheels", "Smash N Grab" and "Money Made" are simply nothing songs: go nowhere, add nothing, say nothing. Conversely, "Rock N' Roll Train" is one of the best things they've done in a very long time, "Big Jack" has some long-lost swagger to it and "She Likes Rock N Roll" features an unusually funky bass line from Cliff Williams, normally one of the invisible men of rock. "War Machine" also has him laying down a throbbing intro that recalls "Live Wire", although the rest of the song hardly compares.

Far more successfully than Rick Rubin was able, it appears Brendan O'Brien has convinced AC/DC to actually add a trace of colour to their predictable style. For the first time ever, Brian Johnson uses his natural singing voice on "Decibel" instead of his usual tortured shriek and "Stormy May Day" features some truly sloppy slide guitar, two noteworthy moments that add a bit of character to this otherwise by-the-numbers album. The production is otherwise pretty bland. The guitars are suitably loud but not especially gutsy and for a good two-thirds of the album the band just slots into a comfortable bluesy groove. They close out in a rocking fashion with "Rocking All the Way" and the title track, but apart from those couple of interesting touches already mentioned, the middle of Black Ice is little more than a void. There just isn't any of the energy that you'd expect from a band called AC/DC, really and everything between "Anything Goes" and "Rock N Roll Dream" (except "She Likes Rock N Roll", which is really quite good) could have been chopped without anyone noticing.

In just three weeks this has shifted 5 million units around the world so it probably really doesn't matter what I or any other reviewer says about Black Ice. It's AC/DC. You know what to expect.

1. Rock N Roll Train
2. Skies on Fire
3. Big Jack
4. Anything Goes
5. War Machine
6. Smash N Grab
7. Spoilin' for a Fight
8. Wheels
9. Decibel
10. Stormy May Day
11. She Likes Rock N Roll
12. Money Made
13. Rock n Roll Dream
14. Rocking All the Way
15. Black Ice

Rating: 65%

AC/DC: Back in Black

Produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Released: 1980

Where do you even start to review an album that is by mass of sales alone the greatest rock album ever made? Perhaps an anecdote might be a way to begin to explain the enduring qualities of Back in Black that has kept it at the forefront of rock since it first appeared.

During my late teens I went on a camping trip with some friends. Where we went and when isn't important. What is important is that the only music was had for the trip was Back in Black and the Blue Brothers soundtrack. That both got played endlessly and that we never got tired of either is a testament to the greatness of them. Back in Black was only about seven years old then, but even now it sounds as timeless.

As their tribute to their fallen comrade, AC/DC could have done no better. In making one of rock's defining moments they succeeded almost without peer. Back in Black has it all. Killer songs, ferocious guitar, some of the greatest riffs ever and the sheer power and caustic urgency of Brian Johnston, surely one of the world's most unique vocalists. The opening is simply ominous, as if announcing that this is the truly great piece of work it turned out to be. The slow tolling bell gives way to a simply evil-sounding intro; "Hell's Bells" is genius with Johnson's voice splitting eardrums the same way he tells us his flashing white light is splitting the night. The title track features one of the ultimate riffs of all time and a dirty blues vibe permeates through "Rock N Roll Ain't Noise Pollution". Everything is executed perfectly, even if Johnston's attempts at Bon Scott-like craftiness come occasionally unstuck. There is, for example, something quite disturbing about lines like "Don't you struggle, don't you fight/Don't you worry coz it's your turn tonight" from "Let Me Put My Love Into You", but in the impossibly catchy "You Shook Me All Night Long" he gets the metaphors so right that he and the band were fighting off allegations that Bon actually wrote it for well over a decade.

There really isn't any need to go on. Everyone is so familiar with Back in Black it defies being written about any more. Only a few other albums have come even remotely close to its greatness.

1. Hell's Bells
2. Shoot to Thrill
3. What Do You Do For Money Honey
4. Given the Dog a Bone
5. Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Back in Black
7. You Shook Me All Night Long
8. Have a Drink On Me
9. Shake a Leg
10. Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Rating: 100%

AC/DC: Highway to Hell

Produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Released: 1979

For a band that has often been accused of recording the same album over and over again, it's interesting that if you asked ten different people what their favourite AC/DC album is, you would likely get ten different answers. Highway to Hell is where the journey really started for me; this became a launching pad for experiments with increasingly heavier and faster music right throughout my life so far but if I had to pick my favourite albums of all then this one would be in the list.

Mutt Lange didn't really have to do much to tweak AC/DC's music by the time of this juggernaut, because here is a band at the very top of its game. The unstoppable Malcolm Young riff factory is in overdrive, churning out one memorable tune after the next and Bon Scott's ability as a lyricist are in full bloom. Instead, Lange nudges the sound itself, adding presence to the vocals and Phil Rudd's clod-simple but locked-in-tight drums. The result speaks for itself. Highway to Hell is a rock album of immense power that truly befits both its name and that of the band that made it.

Few bands ever typified the wild rock n' roll spirit the way AC/DC did and with "Highway to Hell" and "Get it Hot" AC/DC even outdo themselves in that regard. "If You Blood" and "Shot Down in Flames" are another pair of volcanic rockers and "Beating Around the Bush" is a high-speed boogie celebration. "Girl's Got Rhythm" is an explosive paean to a hard lovin' woman that, like its subject doesn't let you up for breath. The smouldering swagger of "Touch Too Much" contains possibly Bon's greatest lyric ("Her body a Venus, with arms") and in "Night Prowler" the boys lock in to a mean, slow groove to bring their most savage tale ever to sinister life, only for Bon, ever the joker, to burst out with Mork from Ork's "Shazbot!" as the song fades to a close. Bon Scott really was the ace in ACDC's sleeve and he proves it time and again all over this. His vocal delivery borders on the manic most of the time, but his crafty turn of phrase lets you know that every line is sung with a sparkle of mischief in his eye. Then of course there's Angus, whose lead breaks are always both timely and incendiary, the perfect foil for Bon's banshee wail.

Only "Love Hungry Man" lets the side down, a song so bad even the band disowned it, made even worse (if that's possible) by the profileration of killer tunes all around it. Twenty years ago this would have made this album lose more that 2 percentage points, but now it's on CD you can just skip it completely and never have to listen to it.

Apart from that, Highway to Hell isn't just a classic rock album, it is a quintessential addition to any serious music listener's collection.

1. Highway to Hell


2. Girls Got Rhythm


3. Walk All Over You


4. Touch Too Much


5. Beating Around the Bush


6. Shot Down in Flames


7. Get it Hot


8. If You Want Blood... You've Got It


9. Love Hungry Man


10. Night Prowler

Rating: 98%