'NOT FOR RADIOHEAD FANS' IS WHAT THE stickers should say. Barely a chance to breathe since we were brought face to face with the aural carnage that was the AC/DC box set, and EMI are at it again, exoceting four more of the Aussie troglodytes' vintage late-'70s elpees at us to remind us quite what Beelzebub listens to in his lighter moments.
Little changes in AC/DC world except the names and places. Ballads are outlawed. Instead we get countless opportunities to hear the words 'rock' and 'roll' screamed very loudly spliced against enough minimalist metal guitars to make Billy Duffy and every bedroom guitarist who ever lifted a tennis racquet blush in reverence.
Accordingly, you have to take your surprises when you can. So, we get long-term anti-PC brigade favourite 'The Jack' on 'High Voltage'; a weirdo Talking Heads-style sleeve and the super-moronic 'Rocker' ("I'm a rocker/I'm a roller/I'm a right out of controller!") on 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap'; and the all-time 'DC classic 'Rock'N'Roll Damnation' as the opening track on 'Powerage'.
All of these then get a thorough going-over on 1978 live album 'If You Want Blood' which, as well as containing arguably their finest moment in 'Whole Lotta Rosie', features Angus being stabbed through the heart with his guitar on the sleeve. In all other respects, these albums are identical.
This, of course, is AC/DC's trump card. Whilst all manner of rock giants have floundered over the decades through planet-sized egotism or poodle-haired fashion crimes (or both, if you're Van Halen), the 'DC have always seen change as heretical. Instead, through a combination of calculated stupidity, pure genius and sheer bloody-mindedness, they've managed to sledgehammer the opposition into a pulp and influence everyone from Rick Rubin to Mogwai. Never in the history of pop has one band managed to be so stupid and so clever at the same time.
"We got a big fat sound/Gonna share it round/Got a big bass drum/Gonna have some fun" screams Bon Scott during 'There's Gonna Be Some Rockin'' (from 'Dirty Deeds...') with the conviction of a man who knows that heavy rock went belly up the day Led Zep started rambling about 'the East' and that every punk band worth the name harboured a sneaking admiration for Angus' way with a two-chord guitar assault.
Later, of course, would come the greater glories of 'Highway To Hell' and the definitive post-Scott comeback elpee 'Back In Black', but for now these will do as a reminder of just how brilliantly dumb rock can get. If you let it. Rock for the unreconstructed.
