I can imagine a planet whose inhabitants listen only to AC/DC. The same cannot be said for Television, Iggy Pop, Harry Chapin, The Cars, Canned Heat, The Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, The Swans, T. Rex, U2, The Indigo Girls, The Supremes, The Clash, Joan Jett, The White Stripes, Wilco, Green Day, Jethro Tull, or Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. I can imagine a planet whose inhabitants listen only to Barry Manilow, but I don’t want to.
Aussie brutalists with filthy minds and even filthier riffs, AC/DC only knew how to do one thing, and they did it with puritanical austerity; they make the Ramones sound positively baroque. When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, and like any simple (but anything but dumb) tool AC/DC knew their function—during their tenure on this planet they kept it missionary position simple, pounding out primal riff after primal riff, album after album, year after year, decade after decade, with nary a synthesizer, ballad (power or otherwise), concept album, string section, or abortive disco move to sully their bad reputation (although they used bagpipes once!).
They kept things as basic as an electric chair, and theirs has been the preferred method of execution for generations of metalheads savvy enough to understand that songs with more than three chords in them (are you paying attention, Rush and Metallica?) are wastes of perfectly good chords. The things don’t grow on trees, you know. There are only 4,083 of them, and if you play them all music’s finished! AC/DC were musical conservationists, and one rock’s biggest contributors to the Save the Chords Foundation.
Only one thing changed in AC/DC’s long, drunken tour bus ride on the highway to hell’s bells. I’m talking, of course, about Bon Scott’s booze-related death on February 19, 1980. Scott was the personification of rock ’n’ roll—no matter what he was singing about it came out sounding like a dirty joke, and you got the idea he had to have his tonsils into the car mechanic’s every six weeks to have them degreased.
He was succeeded by Brian Johnson, who could hit the high notes Scott couldn’t but only because the band hired a kangaroo to come on stage when necessary to kick him in the balls. That the change didn’t ruin ‘em speaks volumes about AC/DC’s simple functionality—it’s hard to break a hammer. Name me a band that not only carried on, but did much of their best work after the death of their lead singer. Queen? Thin Lizzy? Lynyrd Skynyrd? Don’t you fucking dare!
1979’s Highway to Hell was AC/DC’s sixth studio album and the last to feature Scott—he’d reach the end of the highway six months later. It was also the first AC/DC album produced by Mutt Lange, who took over knob-tweaking duties from George Young (Angus and rhythm guitarist Malcolm’s brother) after Atlantic Records declined to release 1976’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in America, saying the record was unsuitable for airplay because Scott’s slobber and spit would gunk up radio stations’ sound equipment. I just made that up. But Lange proved to be an inspired choice, going above and beyond by giving Scott some useful singing tips and helping Angus tweak his guitar playing on the title track.
That said, Highway to Hell isn’t what I’d call a clean machine—Scott’s vocals sound as likely to destroy radio station sound equipment as ever, although a few of the songs sound like they bathe occasionally. And Young does what he always does, which rock crit Chuck Eddy described as “just instinctively selecting some huge globular lick, repeating it, bludgeoning it, pounding it into the concrete, again and again and again. And again.” Like a guy with a hammer. And the rhythm section, drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Cliff Williams serve a corollary purpose, giving the the songs the swing and momentum necessary to drive the nail home.
“Highway to Hell” is as clear a statement of intent as you’ll ever hear, and Bon took that “No stop signs, speed limit” literally—I don’t know how far it is from Australia to Satan’s crib, but it only took Scott half a year to get there. I’d call it archetypal AC/DC, but every AC/DC song is archetypal AC/DC. So let’s just say it has more get up and go than some. Young’s opening riff is as immediately recognizable as any ever recorded, and Scott sounds positively untethered, like those horns he’s sporting on the album cover are real. “Girls Got Rhythm” is what Atlantic Records must have had in mind when they demanded “radio ready”—the song has backseat rhythm, boasts a melody your mom might like, and has real swing appeal. And whoever it is behind the steering wheel can’t drive 55.
The very ‘eavy “Walk All Over You” takes off after some call and response from Young and Rudd, and buried beneath all the murk and Scott slather there’s a surprisingly pop melody—who do these guys think they are, Neil Diamond? And what’s going on with those lyrics? First Scott’s saying he’s gonna walk all over you, then he’s saying he’ll do anything you want him to do, and you have to wonder who’s under whose thumb. The opening of “Touch Too Much” may as well be by The Cars, the song’s tempo doesn’t inspire heart palpitations, and Scott’s lyrics aren’t as lascivious as usual, although his vocals are so filthy you won’t want them touching you.
And if the opening of “Touch Too Much” has The Cars written all over it, Young’s riff on “Beating Around the Bush” comes straight from Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well,” which is either a coincidence or proof that Young’s tastes in music are more eclectic than you’d expect. This one’s a heavy metal boogie with Bo Diddley appeal, and bops along at an aerobically healthy clip. And talk about your role reversals; despite AC/DC’s much vaunted reputation as misogynists Bon isn’t bragging about going down on some girl; he’s kvetching cuz some guy’s going down on his.
“Shot Down in Flames” is killer, with Young delivering on a chiming riff while the rhythm section churns like a monster truck stuck in a golf course sand trip and Young’s in a tizzy cuz when he asked the girl beside the jukebox how much she charges for sex she told him to get lost, probably because she isn’t a hooker! Which I guess makes him a misogynist after all, that or legally blind—can’t he tell the girl standing by the record machine is actually David Lee Roth?
On “Get It Hot,” Scott sounds a whole lot like that stodgy rock and roll recidivist Bob Seger when he sings about going out on the town with his girl, “Nobody’s playing Manilow/Nobody’s playing soul/And no one’s playing hard to get/It’s just good old rock’ n’ roll.” And who’s he to spit on soul when the song has “Nutbush City Limits” written all over it? But never mind, “Get It Hot” has this slick (by AC/DC standards) streamlined feel to it because Young isn’t using a hammer, he’s using a well-lubricated buzzsaw, while Scott sounds like a geezer selling hot dogs, cuz he is!
“If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)” is as close as AC/DC ever got to Van Halen, which is to say they sound just cosmetized enough to fool you into thinking they’re not angels with dirty facial expressions out to corrupt your children. Scott’s selling blood, blood everywhere—on the streets, on the rocks (which is great if you’re a vampire), in the sky even. How does that work?
“Love Hungry Man” is the album’s loser—the lyrics are as bad as you’d expect given that title, and AC/DC sound like a Bad Company cover band, Young’s blistering guitar solo notwithstanding. The crawling “Night Prowler” got the band into a whole lotta trouble given the Richard Ramirez connection, and along with “Love Hungry Man” takes the album out on a sour note, not so much because it’s evil or anything but because it drags ass and is about as menacing (by which I mean it isn’t) as The Rolling Stones’ “Midnight Rambler.” Leave evil to the evil, is what I always say—rock ’n’ roll singers always end up sounding like ham actors.
Angus Young once said, “I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.” That’s what’s called taking pride in your craft, which AC/DC were smart enough to disguise as craftlessness, which is the greatest rock and roll trick of them all. A good alchemist doesn’t discover the secret of turning dross into gold only to start minting nickel. AC/DC were a one-trick pony whose trick was so good learning another trick or two would have been damned foolishness, and AC/DC were not fools. Why, there’s a planet out there where AC/DC is all you hear. It’s right next to the planet where Barry Manilow is all you hear. But you don’t want to go to that one.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
