Part 2 in this series of listening to records that have been listened to to death and don’t need anyone to listen to them or talk about them any more at all, ever again, ever. and I do mean NE VER.
The obvious question is, “Why are you doing this? To me, specifically?”
It’s a fair question you’re all asking. Back In Black— by AC/DC— has been played in countless strip clubs, biker bars, and every other kind of bar in the world, ad nauseum, since the day it came out. Referenced endlessly in the abstract, without anyone bothering to put the record on again, because what for. We all known the thing intimately just as a sound memory, to the point of becoming a stereotype. It’s Mount Rushmore, it’s obvious, we get it. But that’s a good time to take your ears and actually listen to the thing again, and see what’s really there.
The timeline of the album’s creation and release is rather remarkable— with two songs for this album written, Bon Scott, the band’s original singer, tragically drank himself to death in a Pinto in February 1980, then singer Brian Johnson was asked to join the band six weeks later, and the album was recorded over a period of weeks in April and May, and then released in July. These guys are nothing if not a professional operation.
The album was produced by Mutt Lange, one of the most famous over-producers in rock & roll, with a very distinct sound and style: wall of power chords with very fat sounding, simplified drums. He had a certain way of handling background vocals, which you’ll hear. The defining albums are AC/DC’s BIB and Highway To Hell, and Def Leppard’s High & Dry, and Pyromania.
Here, here’s a good example of his thing:
Let’s listen the record at hand. I don’t think I need to comment on individual tracks. It’s hard for me to listen a second time while writing this.
It’s easy to think of AC/DC as a pure formula band, and to some extent they are, but there are some things happening, especially to do with rhythm— mainly, the guitars are highly syncopated, over the simplified drums and bass. Drums mostly play a basic boom-chuck beat, The bass is virtually invisible, playing running 8th notes, only varying the rhythm to make the major ensemble figures.
The drummer Phil Rudd’s playing is seen as very simplified, but it doesn’t follow a simplified logic. He’s independent from the guitar. His fills are typically in quarter notes and 8th notes, toms are played with both hands in unison. They’re very transparent, they don’t stand out from the surrounding texture. His tom sound is a low, boxy thud, and don’t cut through the mix, and are only vaguely tonal. He has probably played a 16th note at some point, but it’s hard to remember when. The bass drum is distinctively there, but I can’t conjure the sound from memory as I add this comment while editing this post. If he has any kind of signature item, it would be the flam on 4 lead-in.
The real texture of the drumming is in his use of the crash cymbals; he had multiple 18″ crashes in his set up, basically the same pitch, and no ride cymbal, often catching the crash to heighten the backbeats, or as punctuation. He’ll catch rhythm figures with the band, on the cymbals, supported by the snare drum and/or bass drum. It’s interesting what he decides to catch, or not— he sometimes makes accents in unison with the band, sometimes opposite them, as commentary. I’m sure there was a lot of input from Lange on how the drums would go, but these don’t sound like pure producer-crafted “parts”— he’s using his ears, using a player’s mindset. Given the short production timeline, and generally simplified approach anyway, it makes sense that he would largely be left alone— I think we can credit him with having normal agency in what he plays here, of having some kind of independent ear of his own.
The title song, and biggest hit song on the record, Back In Black, seems to be more crafted, with Rudd handling the major figures in a regular way. That may be the most crafted drumming performance on the record, it’s also the stiffest sounding— the others breathe more. BIB is the FM radio hit, Hells Bells is the big turgid live set piece.
You Shook Me All Night Long has been a strip club staple through several generations of dancers, I imagine. Getting sassy with the drums, Rudd hits the 1 and & of 3 with the bass drum. Drums are generally more active here, and very effectively done. Shoot To Thrill has some elements to it, and is the most interesting track in terms of the drums. The other songs are basically filler— Rock & Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution in particular has no great reason to exist. They’re still well put together, and enjoyable to listen to.
Lyrics are all various levels of barroom clichés and innuendo, exemplified in the relatively sensitive ballad Let Me Put My Love Into You. I don’t want to know what the hell kind of slob What Do You Do For Money Honey? was written for. They’re really a bar band, there’s nothing here that couldn’t be directly done in a live show with five players, all using one basic sound, even in a reasonably small club. Rudd isn’t playing excessively loud.
It’s interesting that, for all of the formula happening— and six out of ten tunes on the record being filler— we don’t get that feeling of genre sameness I’ve talked about before, that tedium. Put on any given Ted Nugent record from the 70s to see what that’s like. I do feel compelled to turn it off after awhile, but it’s not because the band is boring— testimony to the rhythm interest happening, and the band having a basic musical ear.
And, you’d think that with such a strong formula, there would be more bands that sound like this. There aren’t that many bands that satisfy your desire for pure guitar like this. But maybe there’s only room for one famous band that does this. Or maybe it’s rare to be this dumb and be musically effective, or to be this dumb and to have all the things that need to happen to make a band successful, happen.
I listened to this band a lot for about a year, all of their records up to For Those About To Rock. I think I internalized some things from it, despite feeling like the drumming was contemptibly simplified— the fat snare drum sound, the use of the crash cymbals for energy, and the independence from the guitars, as subtle of a point as that is. But you can only go so long with it, you turn 16 and start needing something with a little more depth to listen to.
I am happy to help you with any of the materials on the site, and with anything else drumming related— contact me for private lessons, online world wide, or in person in Portland, Oregon. All levels of players, and all people, are welcome.
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AC DC had a good inside run in the early days with Harry Vanda and George Young (Angus and Malcolms brother) producing for Albert Productions in Australia. Ted Albert owned many major radio stations and all the acts produced by Vanda and Young for Albert Productions were basically guaranteed radio play all over Australia because their “boss” owned the stations. Obviously ACDC later became huge but they definitely got a massive lift in the early days through Ted Albert who was a multi millionaire and trusted Vanda & Young. Needless to say when he sold his radio stations that was it for Vanda and Young productions because they werent guaranteed high volumes of radio airplay back when radio broke acts in the 70s.