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.

Mutt Lange, more than his marriage.

I wrote earlier that I was surprised that the "ACDC" sound was established in Powerage instead of Highway to Hell.  It may have sounded like I did not give Mutt Lange enough credit for the work he did with the band.  This can not be further from the truth.  Listening to the albums he did with them(Highway to Hell, Back in Black, For Those About to Rock) has given me a lot of insight.

In Highway to Hell I hear Mutt's influence in many places.  While the band seemed to learn how to play together in Powerage, Mutt had a huge influence on Bon Scott's vocals.  The lyrics are tighter and less loose, and there are backing vocals used in the background.  The songs seem to take on a less nebulous structure, and get even further away from the rockabilly sound that defined early ACDC.

The reason why I know this is Mutt's influence?  Because of Def Leppard.  You see, after his stint with ACDC, Mutt was hired to work for Def Leppard.  Their most important 3 albums were done by Mutt, and all the songs you likely know from the band had Mutt at the helm.  You can hear so much a similar tone.  The recording, the song structure, and most of all, the backing vocal tracks, are pure Mutt Lange.  You can hear it across all those ACDC and Def Leppard albums.  Def Leppard was a huge influence through the late 80's, as were the ACDC albums of his era, so you can hear this whole Mutt Lange style everywhere from Poison to Motley Crue.  There is a lot of hub bub over the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" era of music recording, and I do not think Lange gets enough credit for his style taking over in the late 80's.

By the way, I know I have some good ole country folk in my social circles, I don't know if readin' this is your thing, but Mutt Lange is THAT Mutt Lange that married Shania Twain, and produced her biggest albums.

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.