Friday, September 5, 2008

Rolling Stone Kissing AC/DC's Big Balls?

After years and years of loathing, it seems Rolling Stone Magazine is finally changing their tune about AC/DC's brand of rock 'n' roll music.

Yes, once again, Rolling Stone has defied their history by gloriously featuring AC/DC in an another preview of Black Ice which was posted online earlier today.

By most fan accounts, that rag has virtually despised AC/DC their whole career (with the exception of Back In Black) but now they seem to want to help promote the new record by actually offering details of the Black Ice recording sessions while, at the same time, praising the new songs.

Of course, this praise is a far cry from what Rolling Stone has previously said about AC/DC's music. For example, back in the nineties, when they declared Brian Johnson's "banshee vocals are even more shrill these days." in their 2 stars out of 5 Ballbreaker review or the time they said AC/DC had set "a new record for the longest career without a single new idea" with the release of the Razors Edge album.

In fact, not once has AC/DC ever been on Rolling Stone's cover in the United States despite the fact that the band are Rock 'N Roll Hall of Famers and they sell more albums than anybody (except The Beatles) in today's market after 35 years in the music business.

I surmise that this seemingly new found respect for AC/DC has more to do with Columbia Records marketing machine than any true change of heart from Rolling Stone, but I guess time will tell as the band prepares to hit the road soon.



In other AC/DC news, it appears Rock Band 2 might feature some hidden AC/DC songs other than the previously announced, Let There Be Rock.

Apparently, if the above rumored screen shot is to be believed, Shoot To Thrill from Live At Donington will be in the mix, too. You'll find the story about it here and why wouldn't they want more AC/DC tracks in Rock Band? One song is certainly not going to be enough to satisfy the average rock fan!



Lastly, I could really care less about what's on TV these days but, it would be remiss of me not to mention that Rock N Roll Train is being used to help promote the season premier of the CBS show, Criminal Minds, called "NYC Under Attack." (see the video above)

Why they didn't use Safe In New York City instead is something I'll never understand. Oh well, score another big win for the Black Ice division of the record company marketing department.

In other minor news of note, Cinema Blend recently posted a review of No Bull - The Director's Cut and some obscure festival is desperately trying to get some headlines by announcing they want AC/DC to play there next year. But, of course, as has been well said before, AC/DC "doesn't want, or need, to share a stage with anyone."

Keep rockin, Jon

8 comments:

Unknown said...

"The fact that AC/DC has never made the cover is enough reason for me to dislike that rag even more."

Or love AC/DC even more. :p

On topic of Rock band, I saw the commercial with Let There Be Rock in the back ground this morning, damn near fell off my sofa.

Anonymous said...

Hey there Jon! Im a long time reader and big AC/DC fan. Im keeping track with your blog for a long time now and i just wanted to ask you: could you put RSS feed on it so i could acces it faster.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Awesome blog, man! Im a big ac/dc fan. I have something to ask you. My father told me about music video (i think its live) of Hells Bells where Brian hits the bell with massive sledgehammer (not that little one like on donningthon). I searched all over the net and couldnt find it. I think you could. many greetings and keep rockin.

Davor said...

On the "safe in new york city" according to wikipedia:

"The track gained poignancy after 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City."

Jon Talisman said...

A few responses:

I'm not an expert on RSS feeds but I just added our feed to Feedburner which, I believe, offers it on RSS. Maybe you could take a look at that and see if it works for you. The link to it is on the top right of the homepage. Please let me know if that works for you...

Secondly, I believe Brian used a bigger mallet on the earlier tours, but don't quote me on that. You might try searching for Hells Bells on YouTube and adding in "BIB tour", "FTATR tour" or something similar to the search terms.

Finally, I guess my take on SINYC is that it was more an instance of very unlucky timing to be released
the year before 9/11. If I recall correctly, it was one of the later singles on SUL, pushing it's prominence even nearer that tragic event in American history. Btw, I'm pretty sure that SINYC was one of the tunes banned by Clear Channel after 9/11.

Anonymous said...

Any news about ac/dc's new music video? When it's supposed to air?

Unknown said...

Rolling Stone treated Led Zeppelin the same way as AC/DC. They wouldn't give them the time of day until Robert Plant and Jimmy Page went on tour in the '90s together. I couldn't believe it when all of a sudden the mag was praising the musicians they'd slagged all those years.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know where I can pick up the copy with AC/DC on the cover? I live in Toronto, and Obama's on the cover on every news stand I've been to. I'm confused.

Any help would be great. Thanks.