"In Rock we trust, it's Rock or Bust".
As they've done many times over the course of their careers, when AC/DC opted to have that line open the chorus of the title track to their sixteenth album, they meant it; it was the first record without longtime-riff-writer Malcolm Young manning one of the guitars (nephew Stevie Young filled in), and the video also featured Bob Richards (Asia, Shogun, Man) on drums in lieu of Phil Rudd, who was on trial for murder and drug smuggling in New Zealand (the murder charge was dropped, but the drug-related ones led to his being sentenced to eight months of home detention).
Rock Or Bust was the the 14th of 17 AC/DC songs with the work "Rock" in its title; they also have six with "Balls", so you do with that what you want.
And as he'd done many times for the band before, director David Mallet decided to play to the band's strengths for the video: the raw energy of their live shows, the musicianship, the fun they have playing together, and the riffage, filming at Middlesex, England's Island Studios, on its central stage:
It isn't the best AC/DC record, and thus far from their best song. It's still better than a lot of what's out there, both in rock and beyond.
Hail to Rock! In Rock I trust!
Showing posts with label AC/DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AC/DC. Show all posts
Friday, December 8, 2017
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Video Of The Week: AC/DC
2017 brought about many more celebrity deaths. Most of the cultural heroes from the 1950s and 1960s have passed, and we're entering the realm where those of the 1970s and 1980s are dying "naturally", i.e. of long-term disease.
In the past few hours, the world lost one of rock music's most impactful talents for the second time in five years when Malcolm Young died; it had already been a sad time when he sat out for 2014's Rock Or Bust tour, replaced by his nephew Stevie Young.
But even during the amazing 2008-2010 Black Ice tour, dementia had already kicked in, eliminating his short-term memory and forcing him to have to re-learn the band's songs every night before going on stage.
It got to the point where he had to be put in a nursing home, where he got and defeated lung cancer, had a pacemaker intalled and saw his overall health decline sharply, leading to his death, on November 18th, 2017, at the age of 64.
AC/DC is a hard-rock/boogie band from Australia who is known to the general public via its towering and charismatic leaders - former singer Bon Scott (1946-1980), second singer Brian Johnson, and of course lead guitarist Angus Young, he of the lightning-fast fingers, Chuck Berry-inspired duck walk and perpetual shoolboy uniform.
The thing is, behind the solos and riffs, what drove AC/DC, what made it what it is, is Malcolm's playing and songwriting. Megadeth's Dave Mustaine once said:
I'm sure Malcolm is in my top-three, but I'd have to take a week or a month to listen to Gene Vincent closely, to see if Eddie Cochran's consistency as good as he is with Summertime Blues, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and so many others.
Malcolm is on a rare plain where it's his inner understanding of rock, the way he just feels it inside and gets it out so naturally, that makes him unique. He's a lot like Jack White that way - it's always the perfect sound that comes out, the right chord with the perfect strumming, bombastic or quick-pick attacks.
Here's what I mean, in one of AC/DC's most well-known songs, Thunderstruck. They catch your attention with Angus' mixoldian scale to start with, then the crowd chanting "uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-uh-uhn" and "Thunder!", but it's when Johnson joins in and Malcolm's chord comes in that the track hits you in the chest for the first time. Then, at 1:33, the actual song kicks in. That's all Malcolm, as is the pounding first bridge a full minute later:
That's what I mean by how he and rock are just one entity. Take those away and it's a pretty naked song, yet it's so good and in its right place that you only hear it if you're looking for it.
Rest In Peace, Sir.
The video was directed David Mallet, at London's Brixton Academy - like many others he did for the band. He has also directed VH1 specials, Cirque Du Soleil show DVDs, and videos for Sarah Brightman (How Can Heaven Love Me, Music Of The Night), Olivia Newton-John (Take A Chance, Soul Kiss, Culture Shock, Emotional Tangle, Toughen Up, The Right Moment), Culture Club (Mistake #3), Blondie (Hanging On The Telephone, Dreaming, Atomic, The Hardest Part, Union City Blue), Peter Gabriel (Games Without Frontiers), Queen (I Want It All, I Want To Break Free, Radio Ga Ga, Under Pressure, Bicycle Race, Who Wants To Live Forever, Hammer To Fall, Heaven For Everyone), David Bowie (Boys Keep Swinging, DJ, Look Back In Anger, Ashes To Ashes, Let's Dance, Wild is The Wind, China Girl, Cat People (Putting Out Fire), Loving The Alien, Dancing In The Street, Hallo Spaceboy), Freddie Mercury (The Great Pretender, I Was Born To Love You, Made In Heaven, Barcelona), The Pretenders (Talk Of The Town), George Michael (Somebody To Love), Tina Turner (Proud Mary, Addicted To Love), Heart (What About Love), Billy Idol (Eyes Without A Face, To Be A Lover, Catch My Fall, White Wedding), The Boomtown Rats (I Don't Like Mondays) and Def Leppard's Photograph.
In the past few hours, the world lost one of rock music's most impactful talents for the second time in five years when Malcolm Young died; it had already been a sad time when he sat out for 2014's Rock Or Bust tour, replaced by his nephew Stevie Young.
But even during the amazing 2008-2010 Black Ice tour, dementia had already kicked in, eliminating his short-term memory and forcing him to have to re-learn the band's songs every night before going on stage.
It got to the point where he had to be put in a nursing home, where he got and defeated lung cancer, had a pacemaker intalled and saw his overall health decline sharply, leading to his death, on November 18th, 2017, at the age of 64.
AC/DC is a hard-rock/boogie band from Australia who is known to the general public via its towering and charismatic leaders - former singer Bon Scott (1946-1980), second singer Brian Johnson, and of course lead guitarist Angus Young, he of the lightning-fast fingers, Chuck Berry-inspired duck walk and perpetual shoolboy uniform.
The thing is, behind the solos and riffs, what drove AC/DC, what made it what it is, is Malcolm's playing and songwriting. Megadeth's Dave Mustaine once said:
I respect James (Hetfield). I’m a better lead player than he is, but he’s one of the three best rhythm players in the world. (The other two being) Malcolm Young [of AC/DC] and myself. Malcolm kept it basic but brought a whole new style of rhythm playing to the world.We can take that for what it is - Mustaine's insane, he'll never get over being kicked out of Metallica, and he knows Malcolm Young deserves respect. That wouldn't be my personal top-three, because while Mustaine is very good at all aspects of guitar-playing, his rhythm playing isn't "the best" by any stretch of the imagination and Hetfield's pretty good too, but there are better talents and better innovators out there.
I'm sure Malcolm is in my top-three, but I'd have to take a week or a month to listen to Gene Vincent closely, to see if Eddie Cochran's consistency as good as he is with Summertime Blues, Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, and so many others.
Malcolm is on a rare plain where it's his inner understanding of rock, the way he just feels it inside and gets it out so naturally, that makes him unique. He's a lot like Jack White that way - it's always the perfect sound that comes out, the right chord with the perfect strumming, bombastic or quick-pick attacks.
Here's what I mean, in one of AC/DC's most well-known songs, Thunderstruck. They catch your attention with Angus' mixoldian scale to start with, then the crowd chanting "uh-huh-uh-huh-uh-uh-uhn" and "Thunder!", but it's when Johnson joins in and Malcolm's chord comes in that the track hits you in the chest for the first time. Then, at 1:33, the actual song kicks in. That's all Malcolm, as is the pounding first bridge a full minute later:
That's what I mean by how he and rock are just one entity. Take those away and it's a pretty naked song, yet it's so good and in its right place that you only hear it if you're looking for it.
Rest In Peace, Sir.
The video was directed David Mallet, at London's Brixton Academy - like many others he did for the band. He has also directed VH1 specials, Cirque Du Soleil show DVDs, and videos for Sarah Brightman (How Can Heaven Love Me, Music Of The Night), Olivia Newton-John (Take A Chance, Soul Kiss, Culture Shock, Emotional Tangle, Toughen Up, The Right Moment), Culture Club (Mistake #3), Blondie (Hanging On The Telephone, Dreaming, Atomic, The Hardest Part, Union City Blue), Peter Gabriel (Games Without Frontiers), Queen (I Want It All, I Want To Break Free, Radio Ga Ga, Under Pressure, Bicycle Race, Who Wants To Live Forever, Hammer To Fall, Heaven For Everyone), David Bowie (Boys Keep Swinging, DJ, Look Back In Anger, Ashes To Ashes, Let's Dance, Wild is The Wind, China Girl, Cat People (Putting Out Fire), Loving The Alien, Dancing In The Street, Hallo Spaceboy), Freddie Mercury (The Great Pretender, I Was Born To Love You, Made In Heaven, Barcelona), The Pretenders (Talk Of The Town), George Michael (Somebody To Love), Tina Turner (Proud Mary, Addicted To Love), Heart (What About Love), Billy Idol (Eyes Without A Face, To Be A Lover, Catch My Fall, White Wedding), The Boomtown Rats (I Don't Like Mondays) and Def Leppard's Photograph.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
AC/DC For One Second
Moments like what you're about to hear are what the internet was made for: every last second/chord of every AC/DC song ever recorded:
Tell me if you think you see a trend...
If it ain't broke...
Tell me if you think you see a trend...
If it ain't broke...
Monday, February 11, 2013
AC/DC All Day
I don't think I'd ever listened to AC/DC this loud for this long; I'm Thunderstruck!
When I was younger, aged 12, when The Razors Edge came out - I'd already known AC/DC through borrowing the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap cassette at the library - and I jumped on the tape the day it was released, a week or so after my birthday in 1990. I wore it out by listening to it too much, so in 1991, I purchased it on CD. It became part of a rotation of albums I'd put on when I went to bed - with Metallica's Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Pearl Jam's Ten, Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion two discs, and Lou Reed's Transformer.
My parents weren't all that into ''the rock'', and so the volume wouldn't even be at 1, but the songs would repeat all night long, so I was rocked to sleep regularly.
Today's soundtrack:
The day was looking bleak, everything was going wrong - now it's all been righted! Thanks, boys!
The thing about AC/DC is whether they're singing about testicles, women or the state of our economic system (or even Hell), they always do it balls-out hard, full throttle, and with a contagious smile that can't help but suck you in.
When I was younger, aged 12, when The Razors Edge came out - I'd already known AC/DC through borrowing the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap cassette at the library - and I jumped on the tape the day it was released, a week or so after my birthday in 1990. I wore it out by listening to it too much, so in 1991, I purchased it on CD. It became part of a rotation of albums I'd put on when I went to bed - with Metallica's Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Pearl Jam's Ten, Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion two discs, and Lou Reed's Transformer.
My parents weren't all that into ''the rock'', and so the volume wouldn't even be at 1, but the songs would repeat all night long, so I was rocked to sleep regularly.
Today's soundtrack:
Mistress For ChristmasSongs about sex and rock (and balls!), riffs galore, and primal rock energy. Repeat. Repeat again. Rock on, rock out.
Big Balls
Moneytalks
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Got You By The Balls
For Those About To Rock (We Salute You!)
Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
You Shook Me (All Night Long)
Sink The Pink
Playing With Girls
Jailbreak!
Are You Steady
Thunderstruck
She's Got Balls
Bad Boy Boogie
Whole Lotta Rosie
Hard As A Rock
The day was looking bleak, everything was going wrong - now it's all been righted! Thanks, boys!
The thing about AC/DC is whether they're singing about testicles, women or the state of our economic system (or even Hell), they always do it balls-out hard, full throttle, and with a contagious smile that can't help but suck you in.
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