AC/DC - Highway To Hell

It was thirty years ago today that AC/DC’s Highway To Hell was released. It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks, I will finally be seeing the band live for the very first time.
Of course, it would have been awesome to see the band circa ’79-hell, any Bon Scott era show would have been great-and it would have been great to hear how the band would have progressed had Scott managed to control his drinking to the point where he didn’t get so loaded that he could turn his ass over to vomit properly.
Some of you may be too young to remember this (Jesus, I sounded like my Dad right there), but there was a time when AC/DC were downright dangerous. A lot of that danger was because of Bon Scott, a dude that looked like he’d drink you under the table, try to steal your girlfriend, and the try to kick your ass the moment you tried to stand up for your old lady.
Highway To Hell was the album that attempted to tame AC/DC enough to get airplay on AOR radio. It worked-Mutt Lange does a fantastic job of bringing the riffs front and center, letting Phil Rudd kick the who thing in the ass, and giving Bon Scott the opportunity to…well, nobody told Scott to do anything, so it’s pretty much just business as usual for the frontman.
Because to tame Bon Scott would be the same thing as neutering a tomcat. The thing becomes fat, lazy, and devoid of aggression. Lange may have given the kitty a flea bath, but it’s obvious from the mix that he’s left the balls throughout the album’s ten songs.
There’s not a dud in the lot, which begs the question: why didn’t radio just spin the piss out of any one of these songs? Each one is unmistakable. Each one, undeniable. Yet in the ears of fickle radio programmers, they latched on to a pair of tunes while their audience obviously fell in love with this album; it launched the band into stardom.
It was also the last album for Bon Scott, but what a great record to leave on. It’s too bad he didn’t get to try to repeat the success, because his tenure with the band was certainly the most consistent and most rewarding.
The next record-the eulogy that was Back In Black-not only turned out to be the band’s biggest seller, it became one of the biggest sellers period. There are rumors that Scott actually demoed a lot of Back In Black’s material, but so far, I have never been able to track down any recorded evidence of this.
Highway To Hell is all we have as the final word for AC/DC’s original (and still better) vocalist. It’s a masterpiece of raunchy, barroom bravado. Scott may have been the consummate teenage hood, but the difference between him and his predecessor Brian Johnston was how natural he was at it. It’s probably because it wasn’t act; the man you heard on Highway To Hell wasn’t projecting an image, he was living it.
Unfortunately, his death all but showed us how fast Bon Scott really drove down that road. And it sounds like one hell of a ride.