MattA75's Full Review: Highway To Hell [Remaster] by AC/DC
When one thinks about rock and roll heavyweights AC/DC, no doubt there are certain images that come straight to mind. Guitarist Angus Young in his schoolboy outfit, drummer Phil Rudd smoking a cigarette while he plays the simplest drums you've ever heard, and singer Brian Johnson holding onto his hat while he's onstage screaming his lungs out like there's no tomorrow.
Before there was Brian Johnson though, there was a wildman named Bon Scott, who tragically died in 1980. This album, Highway to Hell, would be the last to feature his scratchy and almost painful vocals. It also stands as one of AC/DC's more commercial efforts on the whole. They simply stick to the tried and true AC/DC formula: loud, blues-influenced guitars, pounding drums and fills, and the aforementioned vocals of Scott.
The title track is by far the best known piece of work from this record, and with good reason. More than anything, this is a definitive foreshadowing into what would come of the Bon Scott tribute, Back in Black. There's just something about this song that makes you get up and play air guitar and bang your head right along to the driving drumbeat. Nothing beats being outside an AC/DC show and seeing all the religious people with their oh so clever signs ("if you go inside, you're following the highway to hell"). More than anything, aside from what the lyrics convey, this song is a celebration of being bad, and celebrating exactly where your dirty and shameful and immoral soul is going to end up.
The other song that got a ton of attention from this album is the closing track, Night Prowler. Apparently, a killer in California left behind an AC/DC hat at a crime scene, and immediately, attention was turned to this song. The lyrics, as pointed out by Malcolm Young on the band's Behind the Music, are more about sneaking into your girlfriend's bedroom while her parents are asleep instead of committing cold hearted murder. Of course, the fact that the song has an easily mis-interpreted title and appears on an album called Highway to Hell didn't help. Either way, this song is great blues rock at it's best. It creeps along exactly the way a night prowler would in the dark. It's much more restrained than the rest of the material on this record.
Shot Down in Flames is a song every guy should be able to relate to. There is just something about a guy talking about being shot down by a girl at a bar that makes me think most people could relate to it. Besides that, I think it's the best song musically on the album. Although, there is something to be said for the next track, Get It Hot, in that respect as well.
For the headbanger in all of you, there's the decidedly heavy Walk All Over You, a song that just kicks some serious a*s. It drives ahead with intensity and focus, and you'll be bouncing your head up and down in no time.
This entire album is a great example of how good hard blues rock can be when it's done right. It's not the best AC/DC album, but it's not far off. Some may make the (valid) argument that AC/DC is a one or two trick pony, that their brand of meat and potatoes hard rock appeals to the lowest common denominator of our musical minds. To that I say "simple is oftentimes more enjoyable." This is one of those times.
Tracklisting/Rating out of 10
Highway to Hell 10
Girls Got Rhythm 8
Walk All Over You 10
Touch Too Much 7
Beating Around the Bush 9
Shot Down In Flames 10
Get It Hot 10
If You Want Blood (You've Got It) 8
Love Hungry Man 9
Night Prowler 10
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