markm1
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2013
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Thanks. Long live Rock and Roll!
I've always loved good classic rock and vintage hard rock, but I shunned it for many years preferring underground metal, alternative and more recently experimental and avant garde rock/punk/metal. But, now I'm returning to great classic rock that I'm either not sick of or haven't heard much of.
Listening to this stuff reminds me how great traditional rock music can be.
It's been a long time since I've sat down and listened to U2, REM, Van Halen and I've never heard the Steely Dan records other than Aja in their entirety. It's no surprise that Steely Dan, King C and Floyd sound brilliant, but what took me by surprise is AC/DC. It's been years since I've heard Highway to Hell. It really sounds terrific remastered.
Looking up the album on allmusic, I'm also reminded that Highway to Hell ironically was Bon Scott's final record....
"Just months after its release, Scott literally partied himself to death (the official cause cited as acute alcohol poisoning) after a night of drinking, a rock & roll fatality that took no imagination to predict. In light of his passing, it's hard not to see Highway to Hell as a last testament of sorts, being that it was his last work and all, and if Scott was going to go out in a blaze of glory, this certainly was the way to do it. This is a veritable rogue's gallery of deviance, from cheerfully clumsy sex talk and drinking anthems to general outlandish behavior. It's tempting to say that Scott might have been prescient about his end -- or to see the title track as ominous in the wake of his death -- trying to spill it all out on paper, but it's more accurate to say that the ride had just gotten very fast and very wild for AC/DC, and he was simply flying high. After all, it wasn't just Scott who reached a new peak on Highway to Hell; so did the Young brothers, crafting their monster riffs into full-fledged, undeniable songs. This is their best set of songs yet,
Some of the credit should also go to Robert John "Mutt" Lange, . Filtered through Mutt's mixing board, AC/DC has never sounded so enormous, and they've never had such great songs, and they had never delivered an album as singularly bone-crunching or classic as this until now".
I never thought of Bon Scott as a Jim Morrison figure, but he must have had one of those personalities that pushed the limits-sadly....like the god Pan.....on a highway to...........
