AC/DC: Classic or Dud

Walkin' sideways, sideways walkin', gimme the bluuuuuuues...

Their career retrospective box is every damn album (as it probably should be):

http://www.amazon.com/AC-DC-Box-Set/dp/B000I0QKKG

Temporarily out of stock.

Damn fucking right.

As long as I can find a way back-up my copy of who made who, which I bought in 1989 on cassette for a Nice Price.

Powerage is their high water mark. Every song a winner and it contains Bon's best lyrics. It tends to get forgotten though. My 10 year old son is partial to "Dirty Deeds..." except for "Big Balls", which he hates but can't quite explain why.

Too subtle?

Powerage is the best. Quite agree that it has Bon's best lyrics - and I think it's the only album free of innuendo. It's a proper blue collar struggle album. Dirty Deeds has always seemed to me to be very patchy. Ain't No Fun is way too long, though it has a great lyric and Bon's best asides (Oi! Howard Hughes! Get your bloody jumbo jet off of my airport!"). Squealer is actively unpleasant, and a genuinely misogynist song.

BTW Anyone who reckons AC/DC aren't/weren't misogynist - how do you explain away Squealer and The Jack?

I concur with you, Viva Brother. DD is patchy and the humor is too broad but, when yer 10 like my son, subtlety is a non-issue.
Thankfully, he isn't aware of the misogyny.

Also, your take on "Powerage" otm.

In the band's defense: last time I saw them live, they made a point of women *and* men flashing their chests on the jumbotron.

Not in their defense: "Let Me Put My Love Into You"

"Don't you struggle,
Don't you fight,
Don't you worry,
'Cause it's your turn tonight."

Come on, everybody, sing it with me!

"Let me put my love into you, babe,
Let me put my love on the line,
Let me put my love into you, babe,
Let me cut your cake with my knife."

Great song, though.

I love Dirty Deeds, far and away my favorite AC/DC album. "Big Balls" is the only point at which the humor goes too broad, imo (though I loved it as a kid), and yeah, "Squealer" is p gross. But the title track is such a blast, same for "Rocker" and "Problem Child". Surprised that people think that "Ain't No Fun" is too long. I mean, it is long, but it's one of my very favorite AC/DC tunes, totally mesmerizing from start to finish. "Ride On" too, a real curveball in their catalog.

When I first heard Oxbow's "Gal," it seemed like they were taking "Squealer" and turning it into something totally bonkers and horrifying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z4ijIQYYNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDqoJPVaV8M

At least "Big Balls" has a joke to its joke. It's not just being naughty for naughty's sake, like, I dunno, "Given the Dog a Bone."

Bon was the king of innuendo. He made it funny without being crepey, somehow. It's kinda why I have such a hard time with Brian, because Brian makes all those songs just straight up creepy when he sings them, lol

though innuendo's a stretch, lol

So is "Night Prowler" not creepy?

Not if Bon sings it. you've seen Bon, right? :D

sorry, I'm a terrible person.

It is creepy but may get a pass since it was supposedly based on a true story, so I'm told.

I wouldn't be surprised if every AC/DC song was based on a true story!

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/22826391.jpg

the best

Bon rocking the jumbo beer!

beware the ides of march etc

other thing abt dirty deeds is that even if "squealer" and "love at first feel" are lyrically off-putting, they're both kick-ass songs, the former all darkly malevolent, the latter less threatening but no less memorable. and VG otm abt the difference between bon and brian.

With Brian, it's like your drunk weird uncle singing 'Can I Sit Next To You Girl'. Just, no. I like him on stuff like Hell's Bells or Back in Black, but the leering songs are just skeevfests for me

I totally get that. Tough he was around 33 when "Back in Black" came out. Had Bon lived, how gross would he be now?

I reckon Bon would've turned out like Keef

Keef crossed with Mick.

Like, a sraggly chicken grandpa letch.

scraggly, saggy. Oh a bit of current Iggy in there, too.

been listening through their oeuvre whilst working out & gotta say that the drop off from Bon to Brian is huge, just even wrt vocal tone; & the subject matter becomes a lot less carefree, & so these 80s albums have been a drag, man.

euler otm, back in black is really the last stand

cosign

I'll rep for Flick Of The Switch, but that's more for the sound of the band than for anything Brian does. The band is blazing and raw.

Otherwise, it's seriously hit or miss since BiB.

I don't think in some ways for all their greatness and popularity that AC/DC gets the quite rep for just the raw use of minimalism in their sound. Many of their great songs are just that very straight pounding beat tied around those huge open chord stabs. Even by their peak heyday of the 70s, people had been playing rock guitar for a while, yet that hard stripped down use of chords - you start messing with a guitar and crap it sounds like AC/DC. It's easily as genius and signature as how the Ramones used simple changing powerchords. Add in Tony Iommi's use of powerchords, sometimes detuned in Sabbath and you pretty much have the holy trinity of heavy and hard guitar riffage.

Yeah, I liked the MOJO piece on AC/DC a few months back, where Angus really stresses how much the simplicity is conscious, by design. Open chords, nothing fancy. But what makes AC/DC special, I guess, is that Angus can also really play. That's the real key to something like Back in Black - big dumb songs, big open chords, blazing solos.

I also agree that post Back in Black, there's really only one or two killer tracks per album. But those tracks are awesome!

Yeah AC/DC's really pretty deceptive in their simplicity --- once you dig into the music, and Angus, they're really really on their shit.

And this is a really dumb admission but I had NO idea that Malcolm and Angus Young were George Young's little brothers. Easybeats were one of my favorite bands growing up, and it never occured to me that they were related [insert facepalm here]

but seriously, how's that for a Rock N Roll hall of fame family. Amazing to me, really.

i'm not a big hard rock person, but the minimalism and the guitar tone make ac/dc completely amazing. there is just nothing else that compares.

Phil Rudd is one of my fave drummers. Fascinating to me how he never uses a ride.

everybody OTM

this beer is coming out next week from my local microbrew gods:

http://brewdad.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Ninkasi-Helles-Belles.png

Bon would be bald as a cueball or wearing a wig

The funny thing is that brian seems creepy but bon probably did way worse things to women irl....like he had a bad look in his eyes

But great frontman obv

old bon-era live vids are the best. that wise ass grinning all the damn time. brian is just so straight down the barrel and boring and just. he's okay but.

Oh Bon looked like the perennial 16 year-old boy up to no good, I don't even want to know half of what he got up to irl.

Brian gives the creepy vibe singing but to clarify, I think that that uncle thing works in his favor off stage. He seems like a nice bloke. You'd probably be relatively safe to have a conversation with him if you're of the female persuasion.
Bon, I'm not so sure about, lol.

Malcomn is really the secret weapon in the band. He's riff guy in that group and his playing is so fxxxxxg tight that the whole band swings around him like a clock gear.

Yeah there's not much dead weight in AC/DC.

^

No props for Cliff Williams? Utilitarian for sure but somehow perfect for the band. He knows his place. "Love Hungry Man" is the only song I can recall when the band let him do some fret walking.

Malcolm, Cliff and Phil are my heroes in AC/DC. Malcolm especially. For the absolute self-discipline required to spend the last four decades doing as little possible while the other two do the crowd pleasing flash. Love watching them on stage, too: the factory workers who clock on, go to their work stations and just do it for two hours.

Cliff is the king of the one-note arena bass line. One of my favorite concert images is Cliff and Malcolm hanging out at the back by Phil, then sauntering up to the mic for the big choruses, only to return to hanging back after.

http://fuckyeahcliffwilliams.tumblr.com/