By STEVE MASCORD
LIST stories, eh? People SAY they hate them but the back end of WordPress says otherwise.
In fact, it would appear readers enjoy being indignant, at reading something they know will annoy them, especially when it comes to rock music. Writing a list story is like taking a job as a parking cop – you don’t do it to make friends.
So here we are with the first ranking story, as far as I can recall, that Hot Metal has ever done … certainly since the birth of the website in 2012.
For our maiden voyage we had to make it as Australian as possible so it could only be Ackadacka. But on the other hand, what aspect of AC/DC hasn’t been ranked? The quality of plastic flashing horns sold to punters at gigs has probably been listed one to 632 somewhere.
So here’s what we came up with – the closing tracks on side one of AC/DC studio albums, ranked 17 to one. Enjoy. I look forward to the hate mail.
17. “Got Some Rock’n’Roll Thunder” | Rock Or Bust | 2014
“I’m in a band that plays rock’n’roll/We sing songs about … rock’n’roll!” Airbourne’s Joel O’Keeffe once famously crooned. Which is funny. Unless you’re listening to Ackadacka’s worst album, Rock Or Bust. “Well I’m heading on out, down to a major town,” is the opening line. Yeah, we all say that, don’t we? “Let’s head out to the major town, mate, and have a popular beverage at a leading bar”. Perhaps AC/DC had access to Chat GPT a decade before the rest of us and it wrote this entire album.
16. “Anything Goes” | Black Ice | 2009
Truth be told, this doesn’t really sound like an AC/DC song – and it’s the only one on this list about which you can say that. Written by Angus and Malcolm, it’s just far too polished – although Angus’s breakdown is unmistakeable. If Third Eye Blind released it, you’d not give it a second thought. Hard to believe this was a single.
15. “Stick Around” | High Voltage | 1975
The normally lascivious Bon Scott is delightfully vulnerable here as he … well he’s not imploring, is he? He’s asking his paramour to “stick around”. “You’ve been acting like a lady, not a dirty photograph”. “All the good lays that I get, never seem to last”. Musically it’s a very early example of the irresistible instinct for a riff that made AC/DC something more than big brother George’s Easybeats. It’s a wonderfully restrained Angus solo too…
14. “Snowballed” | For Those About To Rock | 1981
For Those About To Rock couldn’t quite match its predecessor Back In Black – nothing could, really, could it? This riffy romp is about being conned. “Meaning,” Angus once said, “you’ve been conned, fooled again. And we figured we’d been tricked enough in our time, so we came out with that. It could be the woman you’re paying alimony to, anything.”
13. “Landslide” | Flick Of The Switch | 1983
Flick Of The Switch didn’t do as well as Back In Black or For Those About To Rock and songs like “Landslide” may have been the reason. Some of the light and shade of the Bon Scott years had evaporated by 1983 – and everything had been significantly sped up. It’s hard to imagine Bon being able to be Bon at this cracking pace! Nonetheless it’s a skull crashing ditty and listening to it today is certainly no chore.
12. “Can’t Stand Still” | Stiff Upper Lip | 2000
There’s a bit of a recurring theme here whereby the boogie burner or rockabilly romp goes at the end of side one. This is certainly an example of that, although “Can’t Stand Still” is a tightly-wound number that never completely unfurls. You expect it to explode at some point in it’s three-and-three-quarter minutes but it never does. Which makes it strangely authentic and, rarely for an AC/DC song, restrained. It finishes like something from Bill Haley and the Comets. “Thank you lads!” Brian says.
11. “Rock Your Heart Out” | The Razor’s Edge | 1990
For all the comments about AC/DC doing “the same album over and over”, this list shows a surprising degree of diversity. Having said that, this song is based on one idea: “do-da-da, rock your little heart out”. And what a glorious idea it is, a break from the more densely-packed, fast paced Brian Johnson fare, harking back to old school rock’n’roll.
10. “Burnin’ Alive” | Ballbreaker | 1995
I almost put this track from Ballbreaker above “Beating Around The Bush”. Sacrilege! The only thing that kept it out of the spot above it is the somewhat subdued production – it lacks a certain oomph in the headphones. A hidden gem though, with the trademark Ackadacka building intro that makes you already miss them even though they’re still around. You kinda fear their disappearance, right?
9. “Witch’s Spell” | Power Up | 2020
It’s fantastic to have such a recent song so high in this chart. There is no steady decline in AC/DC’s catalogue, nor is there a sequencing habit that sees the best or worst work placed in the same place in each release. The Bon stuff – for all the fan tropes which state otherwise – isn’t consistently, decisively better than the Brian stuff (on this list anyway). It’s all delightfully chaotic and organic. The melodic phrasing and key changes make this such an engaging song.
8. “Kissin’ Dynamite” | Blow Up Your Video | 1988
This song’s so good there’s a band named after it. Blow Up Your Video, much of which was recorded in the control room leaving the actual studio empty, has aged surprisingly well considering it was mostly taken for granted at the time. The dynamic here is not that the song gathers momentum, as so many by Ackadacka do, but that the chorus gains intensity and changes with each recital. A few ingenious ideas and changes of pace at work simultaneously here.
7. “Beating Around The Bush” | Highway To Hell | 1979
How can anything off Highway To Hell rank outside the top three of anything? Good question! But AC/DC has some tough competition here – AC/DC! A febrile boogie from a truly great album, “Beating Around The Bush” is definitely no slouch – particularly in the context of the songs around it. But the final track on side one of this record gives only a peek at the stature of the album as a whole.
6. “Sink The Pink” | Fly On The Wall | 1985
Was this perfect for the time, with the rise of heavy metal and all that, or did it MAKE the time? Fly On The Wall was certainly tailored for the MTV Age, with a series of part-animated video clips. For this fantastic singalong anthem, Angus memorably plays pool with his guitar. The sound isn’t tinny like Flick Of The Switch or echoey like For Those About To Rock. Sure, it’s smutty – but I believe this is is known as a return to form!
5. “Bad Boy Boogie” | Let There Be Rock | 1977
Out of the entire AC/DC oeuvre, this song most fits the word “swagger”. On the day Bon was born, the rain fell down, friends. It was the seventh day, he was the seventh son! Beguilingly, the mood in Bon’s home town that day is reflected by a swirling, moody (yet still direct and visceral) musical arrangement that builds like a weather system until the downpour of Angus’ wild solo. Unforgettable.
4. “Problem Child” | Dirty Deeds | 1976
In the compilation of this list, there was a temptation to list about 10 songs as equal first. That’s how high the standard is. Listening to how fresh and edgy “Problem Child” sounds, it’s difficult to comprehend that it was released almost 50 years ago. But it was only 20 years after “Heartbreak Hotel”. Rock’n’roll evolved so quickly during those 20 years. Twenty more years later we had grunge. And after that? Hmm.
3. “Let Me Put My Love Into You” | Back In Black | 1980
Menacing, rumbling, coiled and epic, “Let Me Put My Love Into You” is a highlight of one of the biggest selling albums in history. The loopy repeated triple guitar thud after “babe” and “line” is, without you being conscious of it, such an essential part of its undeniable appeal. Today the lyrics sound a bit Steel Panther-y, don’t they? It’s such a serious song musically, with a theme that to modern ears sounds jokey. But back in Bermuda recording it, they weren’t laughing. This was 43 years ago…
2. “Live Wire” | TNT | 1975
My God! This is one of the greatest AC/DC songs on any part of any album. The rumbling bass at the start, the steady build, the opening line: “If you’re looking for trouble, I’m the man to see”. It explodes at the end of the first verse, then settles back into a devastating rhythm and accelerates again. “Stick this into your fusebox,” exhorts Bon by way of introduction to one of Angus’ most tasteful solos. The whole spirit of AC/DC, the exhuberance of joie de vivre that conquered a planet, lives in the grooves of this 33 and a third.
- “Riff Raff” | Powerage | 1978
Powerage is this writer’s favourite AC/DC album show you shouldn’t be stunned he would rank the monolithic “Riff Raff” above so many classics by inner-western Sydney’s greatest exports. From the opening Celtic-inspired scales to the sublime breakdown, this is hard rock at its finest, the distillation of the art-form. What makes Powerage so good? Everything. But the way producers Harry Vanda and George Young captured reverb is a thing of wonder. Every element of what makes AC/DC and indeed hard rock rival religion as an all-consuming obsession is present in this carnal expose. Peerless.
