Live Wire (Live from the Atlantic Studios)
Live from the Atlantic Studios was a radio promo, recorded in 1977. I recorded it off the radio, some time in the early 1980s, when Tommy Vance played it in its entirety on Radio 1's Friday Rock Show (its public release in 1997 was the main reason I shelled out for the Bon Fire box set). It's my second favourite AC/DC album, and it opens with this: what a great way to begin a set. A single-note bassline, a muted three-chord pattern, then the bones of the riff, before the main riff itself begins. And finally Bon Scott's perfect opening line: "Well if you're looking for trouble/ I'm the man to see." Live Wire doesn't seem to get the public plaudits AC/DC's biggest songs get – it's more of a fans' cut; perhaps because by AC/DC standards it's so understated – but it's the defining early statement from the band, dry and hard and uncompromising, a song that proves less is more.
Whole Lotta Rosie
I so nearly didn't put this in. Yes, it's the single greatest riff in AC/DC's history (and named the greatest rock song ever in the first edition of Kerrang!). But it gets hard to feel affection for a song one has heard so many times. The prospect of the demands for it in the thread made me relent. My favourite clip of it – from a 1978 edition of BBC2's Rock Goes to College – is sadly unavailable on YouTube, but you can see it on the Family Jewels DVD set, and it's well worth tracking down: first, for the sight of a band who would soon be among the world's biggest playing a tiny stage at Essex University in Colchester, and second for the fact that the band seem so excited I'm pretty sure the song actually speeds up. Two side notes: First, on the subject of tiny venues – I once found a 1977 of the Slough Express in my parents' loft that featured an advert for upcoming attractions at the Skindles Hotel, Maidenhead. Among them: AC/DC, admission 50p. Second, on the subject of the priapic nature of Bon Scott's lyrics – given the coded meaning of "backdoor man" in rock and blues (one who indulges in anal sex), is there anyone else who has found themselves wondering about the third verse of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, in which Scott is offering his services to a man fed up of his wife: "For a fee I'm happy to be/ Your backdoor man"?
What's Next to the Moon?
The best AC/DC album, hands down, is 1978's Powerage, the only one free of sexual innuendo, and the first without the der-dum throb of the bluesy shuffle – it's all four-to-the-floor. And the best song on it is this. On an album that was all about struggle, here was the most downbeat song of all, an almost Jim Thompsonesque story about a remorseless man killing his lover: "All right officer, I confess/ Everything's coming back/ I didn't mean to hurt that woman of mine/ It was a heart attack." It's set to one of the Young brothers' least showy performances, a brilliant match of lyrical and musical mood. Those who love the downbeat side of AC/DC are advised to seek out the album named after this song by Mark Kozelek, in which he reinvents the AC/DC catalogue as acoustic laments.
Hell's Bells
The first song on the first album AC/DC released after Bon Scott's death was the perfect way to return, and a staple of setlists ever since – and not just because it comes accompanied by an iconic stage prop. It's a bravura mixture of mournfulness and defiance: that tolling bell, leading into a lyric that states, plainly, that AC/DC have not been cowed by tragedy: "I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine/ If you're into evil you're a friend of mine." If I've been erring on the side of the downbeat, Hell's Bells is AC/DC at their most dramatic.
House of Jazz
Though they remained one of the world's biggest bands, a huge touring attraction, AC/DC weren't anywhere near the top of their game musically through the 1980s and 90s. Sub-par album followed sub-par album. Even the Rick Rubin-produced Ballbreaker in 1995 failed to match expectations. What revitalised them in the studio was a return to their original producer, Malcolm and Angus's older brother George, for 2000's Stiff Upper Lip. Suddenly, the AC/DC sound – which, if hardly dramatically altered over the preceding 20 years, had certainly gained some layers of sheen – was back at its pared-back best (I've often wondered what they would sound like recorded by Steve Albini). If Stiff Upper Lip never matches the peaks of the 1977-1980 run of albums, it never really faltered. House of Jazz also showed that AC/DC could manage to do something ever so slightly different without sacrificing their Dakkerness. House of Jazz rests on a dirty, bluesy grind that sounds like something from one of the better ZZ Top albums. The less said about the lyrics, mind you, the better. "Ball stripper. Big ripper/ Got a slap and tickler/ To make you growl"? Really? Well, no one goes to AC/DC records for meditations on existential angst.
