Jeff Miers: Sound Check
As AC/DC returns to Buffalo, some thoughts on the band’s endurance
Earlier this year, following the release of its massively successful “Black Ice” album — the band’s first new effort in 11 years — AC/DC was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.
All well and good, unless you happened to have been a true fan of the band over any period of time during its 30- odd-year life span. If so, you might remember the dripping sarcasm, open disdain and general attitude of superiority with which the magazine treated the Australian band, when it bothered to acknowledge the group at all.
This was interesting, and not just because AC/DC was selling albums by the truckload. The group is second only to the Beatles in terms of worldwide sales, having moved some 200 million albums.
What was toughest to swallow about the condescending attitude that dogged the band at Rolling Stone was that attitude’s lack of merit. Most of the rock criticism establishment wrote AC/DC off as a childish heavy metal band, one with a penchant for bone-headed lyrics, (well, duh!), simplistic riffs and hackneyed chord progressions.
So AC/DC’s appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone was interpreted as a victory by some, and the final insult by others. Meanwhile, “Black Ice” kept on selling, crossing generational lines, hostile borders and decades of popular music, to the tune of some 5 million copies. Simultaneously, pieces of the band’s back catalog started flying out of stores, combining for a total of roughly 5 million more copies. Most of these were albums that had already gone multiplatinum the first time around, the implication being that a whole new generation of younger listeners was getting into AC/DC.
When AC/DC hit the road in support of “Black Ice,” it was not exactly surprising the tour was selling out everywhere it went. Add to all of this the continuing success of the “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” video game empire — AC/DC has its own version of “Guitar Hero,” and believe me, watching preteens playing it is an absolute blast, so immediately do they relate to the music — and 2008-09 was quite the year for this bunch of aging Aussies.
Of course, commercial success does not imply worth or value in popular music. Plenty of marginal acts sell millions of albums, and they always have. So what’s so great about AC/DC?
Glad you asked. Last week, Harper Collins released a book by veteran music journalist (and former Rolling Stone contributor!) Anthony Bozza, beneath the imprimatur “Why AC/DC Matters.” The book is a hoot, but it’s also more than just that — it seeks to undo decades of nasty criticism by claiming for the band’s musical legacy the highest of honors.
According to Bozza, AC/DC’s primal art is fully actualized, its apparent simplicity belying the consummate skill beneath.
“You could argue that they’re a metal band and that metal fans are dedicated,” writes Bozza on his Web site ( www.AnthonyBozza.net ). “But AC/DC’s music transcends that. It’s much more primal and fundamental, which is the real case for their widespread appeal. There is a reason that Chuck Berry and all the forefathers of rock and roll started a revolution. It was because there was no denying the electricity of the music and the magnetism of the back beat. It spoke to, and continues to speak to, generations of fans. AC/DC’s contribution to music history runs parallel to that.”
Bozza raises an interesting point. For what feels like forever, the popular wisdom concerning AC/DC suggested the group was a heavy metal act. Most of the folks who’ve suggested as much must not really know what heavy metal is, but oh-so-clearly, AC/DC ain’t it.
In a nutshell, heavy metal is largely a European construct. It is grandiose music, delivered with incredible energy and volume, but its motifs are largely classical. It has virtually nothing to do with the blues. AC/DC, though the band hails from Australia and Scotland, is a proponent of American art forms — most clearly, the Chicago blues of the 1950s and ’60s, and the deepest strains of American rock ’n’ roll. The band has much more in common with the Rolling Stones than it does with Black Sabbath, for example, and its allegiance is to Muddy Waters, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, not Satan. (Har, har.)
If you took Chuck Berry’s “Carol,” say, and cranked it through a wall of Marshall stacks, you’d get something an awful lot like “Whole Lotta Rosie,” “Riff Raff” or “Problem Child.” The reason so many young people are succumbing to the swank and swagger of AC/DC’s bad boy boogie today is the same reason people fell for Jerry Lee, Elvis and Little Richard; the same reason proper English society was absolutely horrified by the Rolling Stones’ raw sexuality; the same motivation behind a million parents banging on a million teenaged bedroom doors and screaming “Turn that awful noise down!”
It’s the power of that back-beat. It’s got the life force in it.
The last time AC/DC played in Buffalo, the walls the group’s mighty sound rattled belonged to the old Aud. That building is history, but AC/DC has endured. On Sunday, thousands of people will see AC/DC for the first time, my 9-year-old son among them. I’m proud to pass it on, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
AC/DC plays HSBC Arena at 7:30 p. m. Sunday (box office, Tickets.com). jmiers@buffnews.com
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