Friday, September 26, 2008

You Can't Stop AC/DC


In today's AC/DC News we begin with a brief article from New Zealand about the positive reviews that Rock N Roll Train has been receiving lately from the music press. If you feel so inclined, you can also leave your review of AC/DC's first single from Black Ice on Stuff's site or, at least, read what other fans are saying about the record.

But not all of the music press is so enamored of AC/DC. Just ask Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph, for example.

In writing his review of a recent Columbia Records listening party, intended to preview their album releases for the Fall and beyond, this village idiot didn't have much good to say about the AC/DC portion of the show:

"Rock and roll will never die and all that.

A fact which was emphasised by a preview of AC/DC's 200th album, which sounded exactly like every other AC/DC album, and is expected to sell sqaudrillions of copies. Apparently AC/DC are the biggest back catalogue artists in the world ... including the Beatles. Who'd have thought? Angus is still wearing a schoolboys outfit and (ever more decrepit with age) is really starting to look sinister. Bon Scott looks like he just staggered out of a retired working men's drinking club in the north of England in time to deliver his vocals. It is, of course, loud, leery, immensely effective and utterly ridiculous. I am beginning to worry that they are never going to get around to that experimental album."

Don't you love it when some fool who's trying to be so hip and so cool makes such a boneheaded mistake as to refer to Brian Johnson as Bon Scott? If you ask me, McCormick's slip shows just how out of touch with reality a supposed professional music critic can be.

In other news, AC/DC's snub of iTunes has, apparently, pissed the pants off of Apple fanboys far and wide. I first picked up their indignation from this piece in Macworld but the real shining star among AC/DC's recent critics is Bob Lefsetz.

You might remember Bob Lefsetz as the music writer who basically said Black Ice will be next best thing since sliced bread in his August review of the album. Now, on the other hand, Lefseftz has gone out of his way to tear AC/DC a new asshole in his latest diatribe.

Here's a few excerpts for you to get the picture...

"They’re (AC/DC) the second biggest catalog seller. Behind the Beatles. WHY? Because kids have traded their songs and found out how great their classics are. But now they want to fuck these same kids in the ass and make them buy their new album at Wal-Mart. So they can make fuckloads of money. The whole world is listening to files, shuffling their tracks, but these ignorant musicians from Down Under don’t seem to have gotten the message. Why don’t they tell everybody to give up their computers and use typewriters while they’re at it. The joke is illegal acquisition will dwarf CD sales. Whatever is sold legitimately will be distributed online INSTANTLY! Which is great for the band ultimately. Breeding new fans. But, like the rest of the industry, the band wants to ignore this. Even though without the aforementioned trading of the past decade their tour would not instantly sell out.

At least throw kids a bone. Let them buy tracks legitimately. But just like the inane industry they’re part of, AC/DC doesn’t want fans to have it their way. They must have never been to a Burger King…"

The rest of his rant is much rougher on the boys but I certainly can't fault Bob for not liking AC/DC's deal with the devil, er um, Wal-Mart.

Anyway, whatever your personal opinion, Lefsetz's latest AC/DC column is well worth the read. Click here for the article in its entirety.



Lastly, in nicer news, it appears Angus Young will grace the next cover of Q Magazine, Europe's biggest music monthly. From this article in the business section of The Times Online, it appears that magazine is going through an extreme makeover and will start off their revised publication with the man who's putting his famous schoolsuit back on after many long years away from his army of fans.

According to Q's editors, "AC/DC legend Angus Young is the first cover star of the new look Q. In a global exclusive for Q, Angus Young has agreed for the first time in decades to be studio photographed in his iconic schoolboy uniform. It is the first major interview the band has given in eight years. Subscribers receive their own ‘collector’s edition’ of the issue, which will feature a cover designed exclusively for them."

Sounds like this will definitely be a keeper for all those fans who love to collect magazines with AC/DC interviews and pictures in them. By the way, if you never been before, you should check out my friend Fanch's site called AC/DC Archives. He has one of the largest collections of scanned AC/DC articles around and they're all indexed by country of origin.

Keep rockin, Jon

11 comments:

Waltzing Matilda said...

I hate to agree with this fooker, Lefsetz, but the hard cold fact is that in another 20 years music cds aren't going to exist. PLUS, both Amazon and Itunes have the option to download the entire album. I'm sure AC/DC would be able to work out a deal with both Amazon and Itunes where you could only download the whole album and not individual tracks. Because I'm really rather pissed off that I have to pay to buy a cd - when the only cd player I have is in my computer - rip the damn thing, and then have this disk floating around my house. Wouldn't it be much simpler to just download it?

Not to mention, after I've listened to it a couple of times, I'm going to rearrange the songs into the order *I* think they should be in, mix them up with old AC/DC songs, generally do whatever the hell I like with it, and the boys can't stop me. So, Na!

CrazyMom said...

What makes you a music critic anyway? I read the story to my 8-year old and he right away said "Hey, Bon is dead!" - So, there, you *^%*......never mind, I'm not going to stoop that low to be on that guy's level!!! Seems to me the same way that art critics are....they're too scared to admit the painting is a bunch of crap so they claim it to be the latest in "art".....and while each AC/DC album is very much like the previous (Angus even said they made the same album 13, 14, 15 times...), each one of them is GREAT!
I still totally support AC/DC in their decision to NOT release on iTunes. REAL fans will always buy the whole album. Let the band do whatever they like, and stop telling them what to do. I still like my CDs and want to keep them. Yeah, so I'm an old geezer at 40, but I'm not going to buy an iPod anytime soon. And I still mix my own AC/DC CDs that I play in the truck, which also has a CD player. If I'm not mistaken, Black Ice is also coming out on Vinyl - ther's been a renaissance of Vinyl lately, so who knows if CDs are gone in 20 years? Nobody tells you what to do, but personnaly, I'd rather have the CD than download it - yes, I got a CD/DVD burner and everything, I'm not THAT far behind the times, but just let everybody do whatever they like best!

Unknown said...

I support AC/DC's decision to not release it on iTunes, but you can't blame the guy for getting pissed off.

CrazyMom said...

Agreed. But one of the reasons AC/DC is NOT releasing on iTunes is that the album CAN NOT be locked, meaning you can download the album as a whole IF YOU WANT, but you can also cherrypick the songs you like. It seems Angus would be OK with iTunes if they could lock the album, but doesn't like the album to be picked at. I totally understand that. I also think iTunes shot themselves in the foot by not allowing artists to lock an album.
On a different note - if you rip the album to your laptop, you better have a backup. Put the CD in a safe place in case your laptop crashes or (like mine) gets stolen from the repair shop.....

Anonymous said...

AC/DC Albums are always worth buying the whole thing. I have a F***ing Zune, but I will never Just Download an AC/DC track. Id Love to Order the LP. When You think Rock N' Roll, You think Album stores, You think about Buying an AC/DC Album and Devouring it all, With no "Filler Tracks"

Anonymous said...

I support your right to want to buy the album on cd, and I support the guys' right to say they don't want the album to be downloaded as individual tracks.

But, as I already pointed out both Itunes and Amazon have the option to buy/download entire albums. I don't see why the guys couldn't work out deals with Itunes and Amazon where the album can be downloaded in complete form only - which is how I would prefer to obtain the album.

I, personally, couldn't live without my MP3 player. I'm in training to run in a 5k next spring, and sometimes the only thing that keeps me moving is being able to concentrate on the music in my MP3 player instead of how tired I am. In that kind of situation, a cd player would skip dreadfully.

Unknown said...

That AC/DC archive site will keep me busy for awhile! Love looking back at the Bon articles.

CrazyMom said...

I agree with the idea of making a deal with them to download the whole album only, but it seems to me that AC/DC would have tried that and iTunes are the ones who blocked it. Their loss, I guess!
Good luck on that 5K!

Anonymous said...

Album experiences.. that's what many great bands have always promised... and that's what they've always delivered.. maybe it's an oldschool concept.. but I think it's trully befitting..

bands like AC/DC, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Doors, Queen.. they'd believe in bringing out albums because that's where they started off from..

and personally I strongly dissagree with Mr. Lefetz.. cause it's somewhat simple to make a single song that'll be worth buying, but no easy task to make 15 tracks that are worth your greens

we see this all over in today's industry, as more and more artists are focusing on the single rather than the album (and many of these bands join the one hit band cemetery)

and finally.. I really think he's talking out of spite when he says that this is a money making trick

I think many of us can agree that AC/DC have long ago gotten the money issue dealt with.. and most ppl that know AC/DC's character would know they're now doing it more for the love of it rather than the $

and he can talk for himself the moneymaking corporate nutcase.. I'm an AC/DC fan and I am very interested in listening to each and every single one of the 15 tracks on that album.

Peace out

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