To my astonishment, Back in Black by Geordie-fronted hard rocking Aussie halfwits AC/DC is the third bestselling album of all time in the United States, and by some estimates the biggest selling rock album ever, with a preposterous 50 million units shifted since its release in 1980. Astonishing because this is, in effect, a heavy metal record, clattering and cantankerous from start to finish, with shrill, shrieky lyrics about getting leathered on cheap booze and hooking up with disreputable women in desolate, dusty roadside bars near the Mexican border. That makes it a significant departure from what I always assumed to be the accepted blueprint for a gazillion-selling album – feather light, overproduced pop targeted predominantly at witless, bubble-gum-chewing, suburban teenagers. But maybe that just goes to show how little I know about the record buying public, for indeed, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and the Bee Gees are joined on rock’s vaunted most lucrative list by Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
The really interesting thing about Back in Black, depending on your definition of interesting, is that it was recorded mere months after Bon Scott, the band’s original lead singer and lyricist, died of alcohol poisoning. Yes, there are obvious Spinal Tap-esque implications to a decadent 70s rock’n’roll frontman checking out due to being permanently pissed, not to mention the fact that Bon was actually Scottish, and thus surely impervious to alcohol poisoning, given that 75% of his bodily makeup at birth already consisted of whiskey. But I digress. Back in Black is basically a comeback record, because, while writing it, AC/DC were peremptorily confronted by the rather pressing problem of needing to find a replacement for their talismanic lead singer. The man who drew the winning ticket from that particular tombola, Brian Johnson, does a great impression of Robert Plant, and indeed, AC/DC’s formative influences are almost immediately apparent from the opening chords of “Hell’s Bells” – much to my regret, because Led Zeppelin are not one of my favourite artists, to put it mildly.
Actually, though, this is an unfair comparison, because unlike their tiresome and overrated forebears, AC/DC keep the songs relatively tight on Back in Black, eschewing the arduous, interminable, self indulgent metal marathons that typically comprised “the Zep’s” most critically acclaimed concoctions. The album delivers unwaveringly raucous, if slyly accessible, hard rock, but this sound never quite runs out of steam or overstays its welcome, though I wouldn’t necessarily have wanted it to go on for another hour. Also admirable is Johnson’s refusal to indulge in the Tolkien-invoking, Bedknobs and Broomsticks-style nonsense that Plant felt entitled to inflict on his legions of suggestible and mostly stoned fans. Instead, he mercifully elects to sing about the quintessential rock’n’roll meathead’s daily bread of hitting the bottle, screwing wenches, and getting into fistfights in dive bars.
Back in Black’s two most notable moments are, of course, the opener, “Hell’s Bells”, and the title track, both of which are balls-out anthems to rock’n’roll defiance, coming back from the dead, not giving a fuck, taking no prisoners, etc. etc. Clearly, AC/DC wanted to make it clear from the get-go that, despite Scott’s untimely departure, they were still very much firing on all cylinders – although, intriguingly, sinister rumours abound that Scott actually wrote “Back in Black” immediately prior to popping his clogs, and that the band wouldn’t acknowledge it because they didn’t want to split the royalties. The plot thickens. Either way, and whoever actually wrote them, “Hell’s Bells” and “Back in Black” are two unquestionable bona fide classics of 80s metal, and while we’re on the topic of splitting royalties, anyone who has ever listened to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” will know that Metallica obviously share that opinion, the naughty boys.
Other than these two titanic moments, a full five tracks – around half the album – are about sexual congress with women of ill repute, and unsurprisingly, songs with titles like “What Do You Do For Money, Honey?”, “Giving the Dog a Bone”, and “Shoot to Thrill” abound with biker gang double entendres about ammunition, shooting loads, boners, “using her head”, and “keeping the motor clean”. When Johnson (or perhaps Bon Scott, from beyond the grave) escape from between the legs of the harlots who transfix them, what remains is a sea of liquor (“Have a Drink on Me”), violence (“Shake a Leg”), and of course, the transcendent timelessness and foundational debauchery of their “chosen artform” (“Rock and Roll Ain’t
Noise Pollution”).
And yet, despite how prehistoric all of this is, I can’t help but enjoy it as a listening experience. AC/DC channel the outback hedonism of the Doors but, mercifully, without any of Jim Morrison’s slightly pretentious darkness or literary affectation, while the sound is a – to some extent pioneering – attempt to compress the abrasive but meandering Led Zeppelin ethos into something with a bit more brevity and melody. It’s lyrically and musically cohesive, thoroughly evocative of a particular time, place, and setting, while its standout songs are perfectly distilled examples of their genre, providing the obvious blueprint for successive generations of hard rock, from Appetite for Destruction to Songs for the Deaf. Some might hold that against it, but not me, because I like shrill rednecks shrieking about tits and tequila, even if I’m not really supposed to.
Overall rating: * * * *
Standout track: “Back in Black”