stratigrafia

RATING AC/DC ALBUMS, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

8/24/24

I’ve been listening to a lot of AC/DC lately and torturing my brother with morning quotes from their lyrics. (Of course, he knew them all). As we debated the pros and cons of various albums, I decided it was time to rate them like I did for Rush.

The plan was the same: to rate every song on a four-point scale and use those to calculate an average for each album, weighted by the lengths of the songs. The four-point scale centers on how likely I am to skip the song if it comes up on a playlist. 4 is a desert-island song that I’d never skip. A 3 is a great song, one that I’d be unlikely to skip. A 2 is an okay song that I’d be likely to skip, and a 1 is a song I’d nearly always skip.

I was originally going to rate the ones I always listen to, from their first through Back in Black. Although I didn’t include live albums for Rush, I included Let There Be Rock because I’ve always loved the album.

Then I thought I ought to rate For Those About to Rock, even though I’ve never liked it. After talking with my brother about how AC/DC lost their way, I thought I should at least go a couple of albums into that period, so I added Flick of the Switch and Fly on the Wall. After listening to them, I decided enough was enough.

Here’s what I came up with:

Rating all the AC/DC albums

If You Want Blood You’ve Got It is the clear winner, not just because it includes many of their best songs, but also because AC/DC put on a great live show. Let There Be Rock is the clear favorite of the studio albums, followed by essentially a three-way tie between Highway to Hell, Powerage, and High Voltage. All of the top five are Bon Scott albums.

Back in Black comes in next, surprisingly low because I had thought it was one of their better albums. It’s also by far the best-selling and probably best-known of theirs. I ranked some of the songs on it low because they’re overplayed. I swear if I hear You Shook Me All Night Long one more time I'm going to scream. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is a good bit behind, matching my memories of liking a few songs but skipping most.

For Those About to Rock is almost a full point lower and lies in that dreaded space between 1 and 2, where most songs would be skipped. Flick of the Switch is even lower. Fly on the Wall has a rating of 1, meaning I’d likely skip every song on there. All three of these are Brian Johnson albums.

Except for Back in Black, nothing here seems like a surprise, and the ranking matches how often I listen to these albums. I love the Bon Scott albums but really lost interest when Brian Johnson took over, even though I love his voice and his stage presence. In listening to those later albums again, I realized the songs weren’t necessarily bad, and I had to remind myself that a 1 didn’t mean the song was awful; it just meant that I’d skip it. I’d skip most of the songs on these latter three albums because they lack anything special.

Something changed in the band after Brian Johnson settled in. The lyrics were no longer funny and clever like they were with Bon Scott. Well, maybe they are, but I can’t understand Brian Johnson. I love the tone of his voice, but I seldom understand what he’s singing.

It’s more than that, though. On For Those About to Rock, it seemed like the band was rehashing old licks and phrases; I kept thinking songs reminded me of older songs. On the last two albums I ranked (there are seven more studio albums that I didn’t review!), AC/DC sound like they’re mimicking other popular bands of the early 80s, like ZZ Top (Badlands), Judas Priest (Playing with Girls), or Great White (Shake your Foundations). On other songs, they sound like a bar band. The music isn’t bad, and I can imagine I’d enjoy it if I were sitting in a club with some friends over beer: it’d be a great rockin’ night. But on an album ... there’s just nothing memorable that makes me want to listen again. Bands can evolve, but AC/DC lost what made them special: witty lyrics, catchy riffs, and their unique style of blues-based music.

Desert-island songs

19 of the 95 songs (20%) on these AC/DC albums make it onto my desert-island list, having ratings of 4. If you exclude the live album (Let There Be Rock), only 15% (13/85) make the list. That compares with a third of Rush songs that did the same. Here’s the great songs; daggers (†) mark live recordings.

The skippables

25 of the 95 songs I’d say are immediately skippable. That 26% dwarfs the 3.5% for Rush. Nearly all of the skippable songs are on the last three albums, and the three that aren’t are:

Methods

All analyses were performed in R, and the data file and R source code are available. The last column of the data file contains all the song ratings; the code will work with any rating scale and similarly constructed data file.

Home