ACDC Retrospective: The Lists

The entire time that I have been listening through all these albums, I have been keeping a list of "good" songs.  These are songs that I felt were a good listen and not something I would change the channel on if it came on with the radio.  In the end, not including duplicates or live versions, I came away with over 80 songs.  That is a surprisingly large amount of "good" songs for a band and further exemplifies why ACDC is the most successful rock band of all time.  I could easily to throw all these songs on a playlist and be done with it, but there's a couple of problems.  First, frankly I am a fan of well done, live songs.  Many times this adds a rawness back to the original studio song.  The complication added in with ACDC is that this is the only way to get a Brian Johnson sang version of the classics as well.  Then we have the "goof off" and super "sleazy" songs of the Bon Scott era.  I actually like "Big Balls", "Can I Sit Next To You Girl" for what they are, but its not what I listen to ACDC for.

Pass Number One: Mega List

So the first time I went through the huge song list with a quick listen to each song, lingering only with songs that I knew less of, I came out with a "Mega-list" of ACDC that is 60 songs long.  The Brian Johnson era was not immune from my culling, as I got rid of some of the very similar songs between "Ball Breaker", "Stiff Upper Lip" and "Blow Up Your Video".  Next I went through and substituted the "Live" versions of songs like Back in Black, Thunderstruck, and a handful of others.  When I came to a point, such as "The Jack" where the Scott and Johnson songs are different enough, or both had their own merits, I went ahead and doubled them up.

Pass Number Two:  Personal Favorites

The Mega-list serves its purpose; a whole collection of ACDC history right there for me to just randomly fly through.  I realized that I had songs on there that I do not necessarily consider my personal favorites, but are so iconic I could not leave them off.  Songs like "Sink the Pink" and "Riff Raff" are used in tons of movies and you might not even know their names, but chances are you've heard their riffs.  I wanted to have an even more personal list of favorites that I never get tired of, and I'd never want to skip ahead to a "better" song from.  I will share that list of 35 songs here in album release order:

*denotes a new song I learned or only learned to appreciate from doing this adventure

Its a Long Way to the Top
TNT(Live version)
Dirty Deeds(Live version)
Let There Be Rock
Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be
Whole Lotta Rosie(Live Version)
*Rock "N" Roll Damnation
*Gimme a Bullet
Highway to Hell
*Girl's Got Rhythm
*If You Want Blood
Hell's Bells(Live Version)
Back in Black(Live Version)
You Shook Me All Night Long(Live Version)
*What You Do For the Money Honey
Have A Drink On Me
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
For Those About to Rock
*Let's Get it Up
*Rising Power
*Stand Up
Who Made Who(Live Version)
*That's the Way I Wanna Rock
*Meanstreak
Heatseeker(Live Version)
Money Talks(Live Version)
Thunderstruck(Live Version)
*Let's Make It
Hard as a Rock
*Cover You In Oil
*Honey Roll
Rock 'N' Roll Train
*Skies on Fire
*Stormy May Day
*Decibel

Notably absent would be "Ride On' in this list since I talked about being surprised by it so much, but one of the reasons it surprised me was how uncharacteristic it was of the Bon Scott era.  Its a detour of the rock sound and so while its in the mega-list, its not in my favs list.  I'll use both lists still depending on my mood.

And with that, I conclude my Retrospective on ACDC.  I have probably quadrupled the amount of songs I like from ACDC and learned many new favorites as well.  Several new songs are songs I would love to be able to play on guitar one day.  While my favorite ACDC song did not change over the course of this, I did discover just how many great songs are in the Bon Scott era that I never realized were his(I assumed there were only a couple of albums with him).  I found Ballbreaker is my new favorite whole album(though Back in Black is still my fav overall), and I gained an appreciation Razor's Edge and Dirty Deeds.

ACDC: The Mutt Lange Albums

Here we come at last, after over a month of listening to ACDC albums, in order, repeatedly, I get to the end of the Mutt Lange produced albums.  Three albums, 2 singers, and enough classic hits to fill a best of album release themselves.  Some of the most iconic rock songs of all time on are this list:

Back in Black
Highway to Hell
For Those About to Rock
Shook Me All Night Long
Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Those Five songs alone would be enough to make a rock band millionaires for life and immortals in glory.  This is only the tip of the ice berg of this era.

Looked at sequentially, I think you can see the influence of Lange in the band quite well.  The first album they did had much more of the original ACDC feel to it, and not just because Bon Scott was still with them.  There's some genuine rock and roll mixed in with the pioneering Hard Rock sound coming through.  It is with Back in Black and Brian Johnson's introduction that we leave a lot of the Rock and Roll behind, and are full in to Hard Rock that will exemplify the successful albums and songs from here on out.  If there is a low point, we see it in the 3rd and last album, which is still a great selling, and overall good album.

Let's talk about that 3rd album, as its the one I have heard the least of.  I read that they went to France and had troubles with the technical side of their first chosen recording space.  That kind of things leads to tension and resentment in most cases.  They ended up scrapping things and heading to a place outside Paris.  I think the band was feeling the strain, and it probably lead to them parting ways with Lange.  Lange, himself, was a very busy man at this time.  The #1 album before and after "Those About to Rock"'s #1 stint was produced by Lange as well.  He was establishing what would be almost as huge a stint with Def Leppard, and would produce The Car's hit album: Heartbeat City.

Then, after the release, the band embarked on this huge, multi-million dollar stadium tour of the United States.  The stage had the now famous canons, the Hell's Bell, and enough pyro to wage a war.  It was a hard, fast, and physically draining tour.  After all of this ACDC decided they needed a change, and did a few stripped down, less successful, albums in the manner of their earlier career(of which I have not really listened to them yet, and I'm actually excited to be doing that soon).

For Those About To Rock has really great songs, but its hard to follow up the greatest selling rock album of all time.  I think what was most missing was some Angus solos.  Almost all the songs are pounding, head banging, driven songs, but they lack the "break" in the energy for a Angus soaked solo that is memorable.  The production is there... in a big way.  There's lots of overdubbing, lots of backtracks with chorus and echo effects, Lange is probably the strongest sound in the band outside of Brian Johnson with this album.  If Giving the Dog a Bone from Back in Black, or Touch Too Much from Highway To Hell were among your favorites, then you have an entire album of these kinds of songs in For Those About to Rock.

It is one of the greatest stints in music between a band and a producer, and it was one of the greatest eras of rock that influenced the genre's most popular albums for a decade after, and home guitarists for decades since, and it was great to listen to.  I feel like I hit a peak, but I know there are several hits that I have not gotten to yet, and I know the newest album as of this writing was freakin' awesome.

 So on I go through the albums.

Bon Scott: Retrospective

I am at the end of an era.  I have made it through multiple listenings of the Bon Scott ACDC era.  I've made a playlist of my favorite songs from this era and listened to it almost daily.

Bon Scott was every bit the rock and roll singer he sung about being.  I do not doubt his authenticity in leading the kind of life that is reflected in his songs.  These songs are sung from experience, a kind of life that by all accounts the entire band lived during this era.  The music of the band in the earlier days was very Chuck Berry inspired, but toward the end started branching into harder blues and Little Richard energy.  The latter part, I can only assume was Bon Scott gaining more influence in the band.  Bon Scott's rock and roll hero was Little Richard.  Scott's screeching howl makes more sense when you think about this fact.

My favorites that feature Bon prominently are the ones where he gets "real" with us.  I like "Its a Long Way to the Top", "Ain't No Fun", and "Let There Be Rock".  I also like the songs where he stretches his singing ability a bit, like "Highway to Hell", "If you Want Blood", "Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be", and "Rock and Roll Damnation".  Finally, I can't forget his sleaziest, most witty songs "Big Balls"  "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack".

Bon was also every bit as sleazy and dirty as I had heard growing up.  He does not disappoint, coming up with very smart ass and very nasty word play in his lyrics.  There is no making a saint out of Bon Scott, and that unapologetic attitude just makes him that much more a rock and roll legend.  The thing is, there are a couple of songs where he seems to bare his soul a bit.  An early example is "Its a Long Way to the Top", but the best example of this is "Ride On", and I feel like he was growing to have some maturity to him by then.  Like with all life cut short, I have to wonder what we missed out on when he left.

Growing up, without the internet around, I heard all sorts of stories about how Brian Johnson became the new lead singer of ACDC after Bon's death.  I had heard that he was a cab driver for them, and the band liked the way he yelled.  I speculated later that he probably was not a cab driver like we think, but was just driving them around from a studio or gig they both had taken part in.  There are some more less credible stories as well.  The truth, I found out, was that it was Bon that picked him.  One night Bon came back from watching a show, and told the band about this singer he had just seen.  He told the band that this singer really howled on stage, got on the floor and tore up on stage.  He told the band that this singer really had "it", he had that Little Richard mentality, he really knew what rock and roll was about.  It just so happened, that was the night that Brian Johnson got appendicitis and he was genuinely howling in pain.  Anyway, after the band realized that Bon would want them to go on after him, and continue being a band, the first name that came to Malcolm and Angus' mind was Brian Johnson, because they felt he had been given the "ok" by Scott all those years ago.

Powerage by ACDC

I started this journey through ACDC with a few preconceptions.  Many of them were true.  I thought the Bon Scott era was a dirty era with songs about wild rock and roll life; this was true.  Some preconceptions were not true.  I thought Bon Scott had only done 3 or so albums.  I now know that Scott was there for many more hits and albums than I had previously thought.

I knew that early on ACDC took lots of inspiration from the 1950's rockers, like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.  I had figured that the "middle" era of classic hits and THE "ACDC" sound came about largely as the influence of Mutt Lange producing Highway to Hell.  The first couple of albums only reinforced this, as these albums are very much rock and roll, and not yet "hard rock".

Boy was I surprised when I listened to Powerage.

Powerage is the album BEFORE Mutt Lange met up with the guys.  Powerage was produced and mixed by the same guys that had always did the ACDC albums before; Angus and Malcom's brother George, and his friend Harry Vanda.  From track 1 to the last, the sound is much more what I hear as "ACDC" than what came before.  Instead of quick power chords, the guitar tones are allowed to breath.  Instead of a bluesy sort of solo, there were some fast play, and unless I"m mistaken there was some tapping.  Instead of a Chuck Berry ripoff(that everyone from Jimmy Paige to Keith Richards have admitted to doing, its not a black spot to get lent a song by Chuck), there were ACDC riffs.  Its like Malcom and Angus finally let go of their hero's inspiration and started paving their own road.

This has surprised me and given me MORE respect that I already had for the band.  They have admitted that they are a band that need direction from a producer.  Famously they disliked Rick Rubin's approach.  Rubin made a career of getting put in charge of bands that have been dicked around by record companies, and using his clout to give them freedom.  Brian Johnson complained, "we hardly ever saw the guy".  This wasn't neglect, he was doing what he does, he was letting the band do whatever they want.  Anyway, I had assumed that the big transition from an early blues rock band to the biggest hard rock band of all time was because Mutt Lange had taught them a thing or two about recording, and the success of Highway and Back in Black lead to them keeping that voice.

Now I know they came up with the sound themselves as a natural evolution of their touring, writing, and chemistry as a band.