Ageless and defiant, AC/DC stays on top without going digital
Over the years AC/DC's music hasn't matured much, to the delight of its fans. The band has always delivered an aggressive take on rock's raw essentials: slicing guitars, driving rhythms and racy lyrics. Its new album, “Black Ice” (Columbia), set to be out this month, is the band's most focused release in almost two decades, full of the fist-pumping riffs and shout-along choruses the band is known for. And it is expected to be one of fall's biggest rock releases.
Since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales, this Australian band has sold 26.4 million albums, second only to the Beatles, and more than the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin.
AC/DC's commercial success flies in the face of conventional music industry wisdom. The band does not sell its music online and has never put out a greatest hits collection or allowed other musicians to sample its songs. At a time when most pop acts give fans the opportunity to have it their way by offering downloadable tracks and remixes, AC/DC gives listeners a different choice: the band's way or the highway.
“You get very close to the albums,” said Angus Young (lead guitar). “It's like an artist who does a painting,” he added. “If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: this is our work.” The band has said it does not want to break up its albums to sell individual songs as iTunes usually requires.
AC/DC's decision to focus on selling CDs has put it at the centre of an industry debate about whether even superstar acts can continue to dictate the way their music is sold. Although Kid Rock and Buckcherry had recent hits without iTunes, that online store is now the largest music retailer.
AC/DC gets less attention than many bands it outsells. Its songs receive less airplay than those of Aerosmith, according to Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. Its members get less attention in gossip columns than the children of the Beatles. And it has never been a critical favourite. The band makes no pretence to art, and its lyrics often contain what might be called single entendres.
For this, and much else, Angus is unapologetic. “People say it's juvenile music, but pardon me” -- he speaks these last two words with exaggerated politeness -- “I thought rock 'n' roll was supposed to be juvenile. You sing what you know. What am I going to write about -- Rembrandt?”
Much of AC/DC's appeal lies in the group's consistency, its unwavering focus on cranking up the rhythms of early rock into stadium-sized anthems. Although AC/DC has fans of all ages, it is almost unique among '70s bands in that it never tried to grow up with its audience. The band never experimented with different genres, made an “unplugged” album or even recorded a ballad, and none of its songs sound rooted in a particular time.
The group's raw aggression is as relevant to teenagers who listen to its albums on iPods as they were to those who heard them on record players. “Back in Black,” which has sold 49 million copies worldwide since 1980, according to Columbia, could serve as a catchy soundtrack to teenage frustration for as long as it exists.
Obsessed with rockers like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, brothers Angus and Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar) formed AC/DC in 1973 when they were teenagers, and won a reputation for giving raucous concerts after their sister suggested that Angus perform in his school uniform.
AC/DC had its first big hit in the United States when the producer Robert John (Mutt) Lange gave its guitar riffs a pop shine on the 1979 album “Highway to Hell.” The next year, after the singer Bon Scott died in a misadventure with alcohol, the band recruited Brian Johnson. The group's next album, “Back in Black,” has sold about 22 million copies in the United States.
Since then AC/DC has lost its way (“Fly on the Wall,” 1985) and recaptured its old energy (“Razors Edge,” 1990). But its catalogue kept selling.
These days the band's members don't spend much time together between albums. The Young brothers split their time between London and Australia; the drummer Phil Rudd lives in New Zealand; and the bassist Cliff Williams and Johnson live about a half-hour apart in south-western Florida.
“Going back a few years, everyone was going digital but people were still buying our albums,” Angus said. “They said everything was going that way, then they came back to us and said, 'You're hanging in there.' So what's the rush?”
Comments