Music Industrapedia

AC/DC

DESCRIPTION: AC/DC are an Australian Hard Rock band formed in 1973.

ACTIVITY STATUS: Active

ACTIVITY PERIOD: 1973 - Current

MUSIC GENRE: Hard Rock, Rock

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: AUSTRALIA

RECORD COMPANIES / LABELS (Current & Past): Alberts, EMI Columbia, Epic, Atlantic, Atco, Elektra, East West

OFFICIAL WEB SITE: http://www.acdc.com/us/home

ABOUT THEM:

Do AC/DC need an introduction? Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the Grampians for the last 40 freaking years you surely must’ve have heard of them? These guys come from the land of OZ. (Ten Pound Poms and Scots). In fact most British subjects were eligible and, at the time, that included not only those from the British Isles but also residents of British colonies such as Malta and Cyprus. AC/DC started out in the mid-Seventies as the spawn of satan watching and listening to Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs and Lobby Loyde, these Young boys were no little angels and they wanted to play loud, raw as hell, lyrically hysterical rock n’ roll. It also helped that both Malcolm and Angus were younger brothers of George Young who was the guitarist of legendary Aussie band The Easybeats. Starting of in 1974 with singer Dave Evans it was soon realised that Dave had to get the boot and along came Bon Scott who was already well known in Aussie music circles. They quickly became the most kick-arse rock'n'roll band in the Southern Hemisphere. Next stop the world. Scott was very funny, sometimes wore a dress on TV and more often than not wore the tightest fitting jeans in rock history. Doctors actually warn wearing tight skinny jeans can compress the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, which runs down your thigh and, like all other nerves, is there to register physical sensations like touch and pain. The medical name for it is meralgia paraesthetica (sounds like the name of a Bond Villainess doesn’t it?), that's actually a serious neurological disorder that causes numbness of the leg, This meant nothing to Bon Scott’s whose answer to that is pass me the Jack Daniels and I’ll numb my brain instead.

That's it for the bare facts. Argue with that if you wish. Now, stepping onto the treacherous path of subjectivism, first let us say that AC/DC truly is one of the most unique bands in the world - not everybody is ready to acknowledge that, but for me this fact was perfectly obvious from the very beginning, even in the days when the mere thought of one day holding an AC/DC record much less actually writing about it or - God forbid! – liking it would make me shudder. AC/DC were always third on the rung of pop group favourites in OZ behind Sherbet and Skyhooks, but no one does rock'n'roll quite like AC/DC. The question is: how the freaking hell did they do it? With songs like “The Jack” and “She’s Got Big Balls” they were dead set lucky to get out of 1975 let alone be filling Marvel stadium some 40 years later. It was all a joke wasn’t it? Certainly Bon Scott thought so when he donned that ridiculous schoolgirl outfit on Countdown singing “Baby Please Don’t Got” My bet is he thought this was never going to last. Scott brought a loud, crazy, frantic, and overtly sexual energy to the group, not to mention an 8 year – old’s sense of humour. There really is no 'moderate' attitude towards AC/DC in the world - the band is either loved or despised, for obvious reasons. But if it's loved, it is loved seriously. It is loved passionately and dangerously, and the problem is not to let the love and passions override your mind. Their fan base consists of a smorgasbord of bogans from all over the country congregated into one huge space, blokes have their guts hanging out all over the place, IQ’s are the same as their shoe size, seriously these people can barely string together a coherent sentence, but rock n’ roll brings us all together doesn’t it. This is the source of the appearance of that horrible breed of intellectual mutants that people usually know under the title 'AC/DC fans', or 'hardcore AC/DC fans', to distinguish them from those gentlemen who have fortunately felt the upcoming disease and ended up with a light dizziness instead. Maybe this explains my dizzy spell due to the fact that i like some of their stuff.

For a long time, I wasn’t all that enamored with AC/DC myself, and when I finally brought myself to listen to them, I was surprised - And then it struck me. I finally got it - and I got the crucial point of AC/DC, the one that was actually obvious from the beginning, yet never ever mentioned by anybody. Some regard AC/DC as a kick-ass hard rock band; some respect them for their well-constructed riffs; some enjoy them because of the jovial party atmosphere; some despise them because they kept on remaking the same record for almost 50 years; some condemn them for their gross lyrics and uniform melodies. This is all true. But this is not the main thing. There are plenty of kick-ass hard rock bands that repeat their style over and over (well, hard rock in itself is a pretty limited bag o' tricks, isn't it?) AC/DC was once accused of making the same record nine previous times, to which Angus Young replied, "I thought it was ten times?" This blatant disregard for innovation and creativity has managed to keep the band at the top of their game for the past 50 years; you see it’s only rock n’ roll and they haven’t stuffed around with the formula. It's like every single AC/DC album cover came to life and punched your eyeballs right in the dick. My fave AC/DC album is Powerage and Riff Raff my fave song.

By Glenn Forsyth

AC/DC - MAJOR ALBUMS:

VIDEOS:

LINKS:

• Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC
• Discogs Page - https://www.discogs.com/artist/84752-ACDC

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