95 AC/DC - For Those About to Rock We Salute You - Streaming on Apple Music
AC/DC will, unsurprisingly get a couple more mentions in this blog series (there is a certain "elephant in the room" album to be discussed) - so I'll skip a bit of the overall thoughts on the band, their legacy, impact and failings and just concentrate on this collection.
Because it's happy memories indeed. This came very shortly after that other megahit album the band produced and I could just not get enough. I had heard the lead off single "Let's Get it Up" all over the radio, and excitedly bought the second (the album title track) immediately on release (Still have it to this day)
Then a double whammy of social circumstances elevated it's standing in my mind.
A "french learning" trip to Mortain in Normandy in the Summer of '82 saw me meet many like minded friends who also seemed to love this stuff. Janice G, Jonathan G...(where are they now I wonder - sadly last touch) were huge fans and the 3 of us having the bus driver play BinB and this album cruising round the French countryside was just terrific (I'm not so sure the course leaders and many of the other students were entirely enthusiastic 😄)
Another big fan was my 1/2 cousin Amanda (or whatever the technical term is for the daughter of my cousin). Her dad was working out in the middle east and used to return on breaks with huge stacks of hooky pre-recoded compact cassettes from the local market. We used to visit our family in the North East very frequently... making the trip across the pennines, ALWAYS stopping at the fish and chip shop in Yarm (Barnacles BTW - it is superb, and still there after all these years, visit if ever you are passing!!)
So we used to pitch up at our cousins house....it was always great visiting, I learned to ride a bike there, discovered the Peanuts cartoons from the books they had... and we shared music ALL the time (Amanda's sister Louise was more a Nolan's and Buck Fizz Fan). Amanda, at that time was "all rock, all the way" and used that stack of hooky tapes to introduce me to all manner of great stuff (including Rainbow, Michael Shenker, Foreigner, Robert Plant's solo stuff) - but she was also an AC/DC fan - and this album got plenty repeat plays.
As for the album itself... after all these years I still think it holds up. Many see this as a poor relation to the preceding album and perhaps Mutt Lange's production was getting just a little bit too squeaky clean. I'd argue that although there are less iconic songs it's every bit as catchy and riff driven and ...frankly bloody brilliant.
"Let's Get It Up" and "Inject The Venom" (trust me I'm almost laughing out loud typing the titles....they really are NOT subtle 😂) are standout examples of powerhouse riff based metal, "Snowballed" barrels along at such a pace with those superb Angus Young licks (and a pretty decent solo to boot). Every track has Brian Johnson sounding like he's destroying his vocal cords. The closer "spellbound" hints back at their more blues based roots, and of course the opening title track is just iconic and closed their set for years.
I actually don't think they were ever better...
I never got to see them live 😞 - Now Malcom has sadly left us, Brian has retired...I just can't bring myself to take the gamble on weather Axl Rose will bother to turn up and sing (admittedly well) karaoke versions of Bon and Brian's classics.... but as I said, more reflections on the band as a whole later.
This seriously just still makes me smile, and brings such evocative memories of Normandy...and the North East and very happy family weekends. AC/DC don't get much play time these days in my house...but it's still great when they do!
Fire!!!
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