After Bon Scott’s death in early 1980, the band had every reason to fold. Most would have. Instead they flew to the Bahamas, hired a Geordie named Brian Johnson who could scream in roughly the same register, and made the best-selling hard rock record there is. The cover is black because they were in mourning. You’d never guess it from the songs.
It opens with a church bell, which is either grief or showmanship or both, and then Angus Young does the one thing he has ever needed to do. Every track is the same handful of chords rearranged, and I mean that as praise. “Hells Bells,” “Shoot to Thrill,” the title riff, “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Phil Rudd keeps time like a man who has somewhere to be and is in no hurry to get there. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is clever. It just works.
It went on to outsell almost everything ever pressed, which is a strange fate for a record made by people who thought they were done. I don’t put it on to think. I put it on for a long empty highway or a driveway that needs shoveling. Forty years later the bell still gets me.
Side A
Side B