Malcolm Young, a founding member of the seminal blues/hard-rock/heavy metal band
AC/DC,
died recently, just over three years after he retired from the band because of his
dementia diagnosis. Although he was "just" a rhythm guitarist, Malcolm co-wrote, with his brother
Angus, the music for all AC/DC songs. Considering all the memorable riffs AC/DC has produced over 40+ years, that's quite an impressive feat.
So which one should I choose to mark Malcom's passing? It's actually pretty difficult. I remember "
Back in Black", with its many hit singles, when it was a new release in 1980, coinciding with my budding awareness of music. After that, Bill Glidden got a lot of their early catalog (e.g., "
Highway to Hell", "
Powerage"). I also have some pretty enjoyable memories of "
For Those About to Rock We Salute You" at Robert Gordick's house.
Instead of the many great songs from those LPs, I will choose "
Jailbreak", which first appeared on Australian version of their 1976 LP "
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", but not on the US version of that LP which did not come out until 1981, a full year after the death of
Bon Scott and
Brian Johnson replacing him for the seminal "Back in Black". The song "Jailbreak" wasn't released in the US until the 1984 EP "
'74 Jailbreak".
Confused yet? Well the
discography of AC/DC is filled with all kinds of anomalies, mostly arising from different versions of their LPs for Australia, Europe, and the US. And a 1976 song, not released in the US until 1984, on an EP that suggests 1974, perfectly captures the disorder of their early catalog -- which includes two essentially different LPs with the
same title!
So why does AC/DC continue to have such appeal? Danette and I talk about this occasionally. First, the songs are heavy and feature memorable riffs, but the blues origins are clearly maintained. The lyrics, especially those of Bon Scott, are funny even when they're sophomoric. We often wonder if we first heard songs like "
Big Balls" today (instead of 35+ years ago) if we'd still find them funny, but I suspect we would. We recently decided that a deciding factor in their appeal is they are, to the best that we could remember, one of the
least misogynistic hard rock bands. Sure, there are a lot of songs about women and sex, but we can't recall any that are especially mean-spirited or degrading. Perhaps that's why we have all-female tribute bands, like
Hell's Belles.
Officially,
AC/DC continues, but with death of founding member Malcolm, the voluntary retirement of long-time bassist
Cliff Williams, the involuntary retirement of
Brian Johnson, and long-time drummer Phil Rudd landing in jail because of living out the story line of "
Dirty Deeds...", well I'm not sure it's still really AC/DC.
There's a 1976 video for "Jailbreak", which features Malcolm in the opening sequence (in a guard's outfit). A video is pretty rare for 1976, so I suppose we should forgive them for not figuring out how to get all five band members in frame at once.
AC/DC - "
Jailbreak"
