Nobody believes me that 'Back in Black' is a punk rock album!

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Seriously, whenever I tell people this, they say I'm insane--they say, nah, it's just mullet rock, buttrock, whatever, it's just NOT PUNK. Well I say it is: tight riffs, straight-ahead drumming, attitude, snarl, absolutely none of the fat and excess of prog.

"B-b-but, what about those guitar solos?" Chrissake, even 'Never Mind the Bollocks' has guitar solos! "B-b-but, they're like good at their instruments and stuff!" So were the Clash, duh.

This is part of a larger question, though: namely, are there any albums or groups for which you firmly disagree about the way they're usually classified/stereotyped/discussed? Why do you think they're not what people say they are? (Is 'Back in Black' a punk rock album?)

― Clarke B., Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Gah, another question about how to categorize stuff. Can't we just call it a rock album? I've got a lot to say about this, but I keep writing and deleting... if whatver signifies punk rock to you is apparant on "Back in Black", then you can think of it as punk rock and that's fine. For what it's worth, nobody considered this a punk rock record back in the day.

Is "Paranoid" punk rock? B-b-but its loud/fast/short and those guitars! Yeah well so what. Some songs are loud, fast and short. With yelling vocals, too. Doesn't make 'em punk rock.

See, this is how it works.... ah, never mind.

― Sean, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think it's hard rock, no? Punk rock doesn't usually sing about stuff like saluting those about to rock. Some might even say it's heavy metal, but I don't know how much cymbal the drummer hits. I read the term "heavy metal" was in reference to Led Zep's heavy cymbal-hitting style. I always considered AC/DC metal/hard rock, though. It just don't sound like punk to me.

― Nude Spock, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't call it metal, because ACDC is the only metal-like band that I can think of that didn't do a power ballad. And for that, we salute you.

It's kind of a punk album. And for god's sake, 'Paranoid' is punk! It's punk like the Stooges are punk. Or Eddie Cochran. Or Elvis (the skinny elvis.) If you define punk as the movement that started with the Ramones, then alright, no - not punk. But if you define punk as rockin' out to 3 chords because energy is what's important - then fuck yeah, punk.

― Dave225, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oop here we go: 'glers very very = not punk rock, ESPECIALLY back in black.

(clash also not punk rock heh)

― mark s, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I take it back. "Paranoid" is punk.

― Sean, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was younger, I would have really, really needed to know what to call a certain kind of music. I mean, if it's punk, then it's cool, right? I don't care anymore. All I want to know is is it good or not. That's why the indie thread really petered out for me... this kind of discussion is interesting in a way, but maybe I'm just not bored enough.

― Sean, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ACDC is heavy metal. But then so were The Clash and certainly Wire.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yo sterl!! are you ready for this?

― mark s, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bring it on.

― Sterling Eddy, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Back in Black ain't punk...it's PUNK ASS, daddy-o. A classic beyond whatever stinkin' genre tag you wanna try to affix to it.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's all rock n' roll. Except when it's not.

― Jordan, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is kind of a retarded debate anyway, because how is that record any different from any other AC/DC record, anyway? Highway to Hell? Dirty Deeds is probably more "punk" in that it has more juvenile delinquent themed tunes. Who cares...

― Andy, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh lordy. This again. Well, I will say this...call it "Punk" or whatever, but AC/DC are firmly entrenched in a tiny elite coterie of bands who do basically one thing and one thing only -- and they do it extraordinarily well. Their two obvious peers in this select cabal, to my mind at least, would be the Ramones and Motorhead -- two bands who also blur genre parameters. Bless'em. In any case, I've never met anyone who calls himself a "punk rocker" who DIDN'T like or listen to BACK IN BLACK. As many have said above...be you a punk, a metalhead, a mod, a rocker, a rudeboy, a Ted, a Rasta, whatever....it's a fuckin' classic rock'n'roll album. Period.

As far as those other bands mentioned; the Clash a metal band? The first album maybe -- given the beefy guitars and whatnot, but later on I can't uphold that argument (metal band generally don't compose stuff like "Jimmy Jazz" and "Armagiddeon Time").

The `Glers may not be orthodox "punk" (largely thanks to those unsightly `taches and Dave's keyboard solos), but they'd certainly beat the snots out of you without giving it a second thought and laugh about it later, making them probably a good deal PUNKER THAN YOU...if that shit matters to anyone anymore. Och! In 2001, does any of this really matter?

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

beating people up and laughing = METAL!

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

unsightly 'taches and keyboard solos = jazz-rock!!

― mark s, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

how is that record any different from any other AC/DC record, anyway?

Uh, Back in Black is different than the previous records because it has the vastly inferior Brian Johnson on it, rather than the vastly superior Bon Scott.

AC/DC w/Bon Scott = great
AC/DC w/Brian Johnson = lame

― hstencil, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

AC/DC w/ either = METAL

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(heh did see what i did i pretended back in black = meninblack)

either way = goth

― mark s, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

To be fair, AC/DC originally came of age in what is largely considered the age of Punk (`77), and found lots of acclaim in London from the British Punks (correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I thought I'd read it somewhere), but supposedly had no warm words for "Punk Rock" themselves. I sincerely doubt the band would be happy with any categorization of their music other than "boogie-based rock'n'roll." They're not orthodox Punks by any definition, nor are they strictly a metal band. Ah, once again...who cares?

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ha! 1977 is peak year of METAL when motorhead release first album!

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

zero acclaim from london punks that *i* recall alex: london scene was VERY year- zero ideological (eg reason 'glers not punk is not SOUND or ATTITUDE, but simply that they had already formed before pistols-changed world-blah-blah) (*later* — ie post-banshees arrival — there was also a "feminist"/anti-sex angle which shafted both 'glers AND AC/DC obv)

When Fred Purser joined Penetration (= punk, yes) he got enormous flak for having been in a metal band previously; when he went on to Saxon (was it Saxon, I always forget) it was considered remarkable. The division of the tribes was extreme: Danny Baker, second editor of punk ethix-bible Sniffin' Glue, notoriously described the Reading Festival as a Nuremberg Rally. Part of the reason is easy to seek: many punx had been metalheads only months if not weeks before: a music which required you demonstrate your conversion publicly — easy way, denounce what you formerly loved. Led Zep (are they metal? uh-oh) tried "checking the scene" a few times, a reasonably generous gesture: they were rebuffed.

― mark s, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

AC/DC aren't fast and exciting enough to be punk or slow and depressing enough to be metal. Their best songs are all pop songs and the rest are just boring. Rose Tattoo I would argue is an Oi! band, despite being contemporaneus with and sounding a good deal like AC/DC (w/out the pop songs, of course). But Oi! is just a shoutier form of hard rock anyway, so what's the difference? For me, the quintessential punk band is Plastic Bertrand.

― Kris, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was a confused teen punk latercomer (11 in 77) I thought the sheer technical ability/tightness of groups like AC/DC automatically made them NOT PUNK. Of course, I'd bought the whole McClaren line abt not being able to play - didn't know enough to realise at the time that the Sex Pistols' rhythm section were v. v. 'tight' - but the only acceptable guitar solos were on things like 'Spiral Scratch' - ie not more than a couple of notes, total lack of blues-boogie 'licks'.

Re: 'checking the scene' - Great story in Dave Marsh's bk on The Who about Pete Townsend meeting Paul Cook and Steve Jones at The Speakeasy in '77.

P.T. (speaking to Cook): "Rock and roll's going down the fucking pan! You've got to take over where The Who left off - and this time you've got to finish the fucking job!"

P.C.: "Uh Pete, The Who aren't going to break up, are they?"

A frustrated Townsend then proceeds to get v. drunk, wakes up in doorway, is questioned by a copper, goes home and writes 'Who Are You?'

Another sad quote from P.T. on punk: "I prayed for it, yet it's too late for me to truly participate. I feel like an engineer. Just let me...watch."

― Andrew L, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think ACDC aren't punk because the minimalism of the guitar lines, when it's there, is conscious, almost classicist minimalism (ie playing exactly two strings, exactly on the beat, with an exactly measured pause between each chord), and the solos are a totally baroque contrast - what defines punk is surely not precision of this type. And also, maybe if you listen to the drumming, you wouldn't think it was punk, because again, it's more classical rock, use of cymbals in a particular and precise way, that type of stuff. I don't know much about drumming. Perhaps it happens to sound like punk because it is carefully considered music, not like the reified type of rock so common by that time, as punk wasn't either, but surely this is a coincidence, an approach to certain similar goals but from different starting points?

― maryann, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Another thing - though I wouldn't consider this particularly important - is that ACDC didn't have the kind of sociopolitical awareness and cynicism that defines punk in terms of 'attitude' and ideology.

― maryann, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Back in Black' sucks compared to 'Highway to Hell' anyway. 'Highway to Hell' is like the 'Odyssey', or 'Inferno', starting with an overture and ending with a climax worthy of 'Faust' ("Night Prowler"), with prescient psychic stops along the way ("Cruisin' down the motorway, got alot of booze"). 'Highway to Hell' is like if the Rolling Stones were taking crack and PCP while recording 'Let it Bleed', or if Bruce Springsteen would've recorded 'Nebraska' at 17 instead of 31. 'Back in Black' OTOH is just butt-rock, i.e. highly calibrated and expert butt-rock.

― dave q, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was younger, I would have really, really needed to know what to call a certain kind of music. I mean, if it's punk, then it's cool, right? I don't care anymore.

Wow, I can't wait until I grow up and move beyond categorization--END LABELS, MAAAAAN!!! Jeez, you all pounced on me without really seeing that I don't give a shit if it's a punk album either--it's not as if there's a "real answer" to that question anyway. If I were worried about categorization, I would have decided not to like it until I was happy with how it was classified. But like it I do, and quite a lot. I just like to say stuff like this to make people who really DO care about whether something's "punk rock" or not get really pissed off.

― Clarke B., Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Highway to Hell' anyway. 'Highway to Hell' is like the 'Odyssey', or 'Inferno', starting with an overture and ending with a climax worthy of 'Faust'...

Hmmm, sounds like a prog-rock epic to me, Dave. ;-)

'Highway to Hell' is like if the Rolling Stones were taking crack and PCP while recording 'Let it Bleed'...

So, you mean it's kind of like punk then? ;-)

― Clarke B., Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Wow, completely ignore my last post--I read it as "'Back in Black' is like the Rolling Stones..." and posted the "sounds like punk" comment accordingly.

― Clarke B., Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

I bought 'highway...' and 'back in black' on cassete today. listening to 'back...' as i post.

'Is back in black punk?' = 'Is AMMMusic 1966 industrial?'

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 20 September 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

nine years pass...

Me on Back In Black: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/acdc-back-in-black.html

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 17:39 (thirteen years ago)

Excellent as always, Marcello.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 18:00 (thirteen years ago)

amazing

― kl0ppa john's (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 18:07 (thirteen years ago)

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