Friday, August 24, 2012

Rolling Stone's Top 100 Albums of the 80's - #26 - AC/DC - Back In Black

Continuing the series on the Top 100 Albums of the 80's.  Or at least the ones I have....
Continuing to work backwards:

#26 - AC/DC - Back In Black


Landing just outside the Top 25 is AC/DC's 1980 release Back In Black.  This here is a rock and roll album.  You won't find any comments about "elemental imagery"  or music that is "pastoral, understated and carefully arranged".  Nope, we're talking "real party atmosphere" that " captures all the blood, sweat and arrogance of the [heavy metal] genre".    Yep good fun, not necessarily of the "clean" variety.

The album peaked at #4, and chruned out a couple of minor radio hits:  "You Shook Me All Night Long" (#35) and "Back In Black" (#37).    But this isn't about pop hits.  Back In Black is the #3 selling album of all time with of 50 million copies.  Wow.

I have to admit that I'm not a huge AC/DC fan, and didn't even own this album in the 80's.  Just no my preferred stlye of vocals...   But somewhere along the way I picked it up, for the 3 or 4 iconic songs.  And it's a great album for what is it, good time head banging rock and roll!


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Like you, I never owned this album until recently. But of course I knew all the songs. At the time AC/DC was just a little too simplistic for my tastes, but in retrospect I realize that this was a truly great album. I bought it used, on vinyl, to grab a few tracks for a party and ended up listening to the whole thing with joy. "You Shook Me" is a top 50 all-time rock and roll song. Maybe even top 20.