We remember Cliff Williams, born today in 1949. —Ed.
A very brief history lesson. First Attila was the biggest hard rock band in the world. Then Sir Lord Baltimore took over as the biggest hard rock band in the world. Then he came AC DC to create an electric wave that brought down the hard rock power grid, settling the debate forever. Their superiority caused many bands to give up the ghost. Some sold their equipment and returned to England to resume their careers as builders. Others took drums and went full folk. I saw Deep Purple at a Greenwich Village folk club and their lute and bodhrán on “Smoke on the Water” inspired some discerning fan with a flare gun to burn the place down.
And the 1980s Back to black—the band's seventh studio LP—AC/DC forged its metal into a tool of simplicity. It was former Geordie singer Brian Johnson's first LP with the band, Bon Scott having died of alcohol poisoning the previous February. The band recorded the LP in the Bahamas, where a die-hard fan in the shape of a crab flew onto the studio floor. With his cheerlead, the band recorded ten tracks that stripped hard rock down to its basics. Three chords, no more poor instrument solos, just in-your-face music for the local lads.
You get some dark stuff in the form of “Hell's Bells”, invited to have a drink with the lads and get a lecture on how rock 'n' roll doesn't poison the acoustic environment. But what you usually get are not-so-subtle sexual innuendos that reveal Ted Nugent to be a female feminist. This is a 12-year-old thing, but in fairness to the band, there's nothing there Back to black as adolescent as Zappa's “Don't Eat the Yellow Snow.”
On Back to black AC/DC come at you like a raging rugby support. Opener “Hell's Bells” is “for whom the bell tolls” doom and gloom and slow as a corpse, while “Shoot to Thrill” hits you right between the eyes with a directness that proves the shortest distance between electrical amplification and the human ear . is a straight line. Was there ever a better couplet than “Shoot to thrill, play to kill/Too many women with too many pills”? Move over William Shakespeare, there's a new bard in town!
The lyrics to the song “Givin' the Dog a Bone” are so silly about oral sex, only the PMRC would take them seriously and I'm sure the boys would take it as a compliment to call the song “raw”. “What Do You Do for Your Money” same deal — chorus I defy you not to sing along to, lyrics I'm sure Johnson would tell you are a troubling examination of the pay-for-sex industry. And just to prove that every synapse in Johnson's body goes straight to his Johnson, we have the midtempo “Let Me Put My Love Into You,” a line that if you tried it on a woman would probably make you castrate.
“Shake a Leg” is a classic addition to the juvenile delinquency canon, boasting lyrics along the lines of “Kickin' ass in the class and them I'm a damn disgrime/They tell me what they think but they stink and I don't I don't really care.” “Rock Ain't Noise Pollution” is an attempt at an exception to the Clean Ear Act, and I love the part at the end where Johnson proves to be a great savant with the line “Rock and roll is just rock and roll.”
One of these days I plan to track down Johnson and challenge him to his offer on “Have a Drink on Me,” one of the best blackout songs ever. “Back in Black” Romper lulls you into a happy pulp. “You Shook Me All Night Long” is undoubtedly the greatest love song for American thighs ever. If Johnson is to be taken literally his partner – who “works double on the seduction line” – is the earthquake and Joe Frazier, and he's lucky to have survived.
Back to black it's as perfect a hard rock album as you'll ever hear. Not a single misstep, no crazy power ballads, no weird guitar solos, just giant riffs, cheap booze and made-in-the-USA thighs. earth when the last cockroach bites the dust, and in a very real sense AC/DC were rock and roll. If the cockroach population of the world knew what was good for them, they would rush out and buy life insurance. There is no point in waiting to hear the bells of hell.
CURVE RATING:
ONE