Part VI: “Thunderstruck,” Black Ice, Wal-Mart, and the “Event Album”
Of course, what kids really want to do is play along (witness the Guitar Hero/Rock Band phenomenon of the last few years), as rock and roll retreats into a safe and relatively nostalgic entity, where you participate interactively via your living room instead of in a scary stadium full of fans.
. . . . Unless that scary stadium of fans is a Palin rally last month where she emerged to an apoplectic crowd to the tune of the opening tweedle-dee tap-flashing of “Thunderstruck,” off of 1989’s The Razor’s Edge. Why “Thunderstruck”? (Besides the fact that it fucking rules?) Well, as the lady puts it herself: “I don’t think we’ve ever had intro music by AC/DC before. That was kinda cool. In fact, we were on the bus today, we were making a list of who are some celebrity singers who could come out and help us and gosh, for the life of us, the pickings were slim there. Who’s quasi-conservative out there in the celebrity-land?”
There aren’t really any stunners on their new Black Ice like “Thunderstruck,” although new single “Rock N Roll Train” has a terrific gang-vocal chorus that feels as anthemic as anything (if not more so) than anything they’ve done in the past 20 years or so. The rest of the album is terrific (if somewhat monotonous), mostly because they reiterate their theme of loving rock and roll. But they are clearly past the point of making new statements. For a band as iconic as AC/DC to change the game at this point would be almost reckless.
The exclusive deal between Wal-Mart and the band to distribute Black Ice might have surprised some, but it was ultimately an astute move. This band wants to continue to get live human beings to purchase tangible recorded albums in brick-and-mortar stores, a desire whose fulfillment has become increasingly elusive for so many artists and labels in the last few years as the wagons circle on the major-label music industry. Consider this, then, perhaps one of the major label eras final Event Albums, records where everyone had to show up at the store to buy it and then collectively respond with either enthusiasm or a sea of “meh”s. Event Albums are so rarely the albums that rock history is kind to. We’re talking about Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I & II, etc. —hyped albums by bands that have been around long enough that the industry looks to them to save them.
The move was, predictably, a mammoth success: Black Ice sold almost 800,000 copies in the US in its first week alone, and is already the second best-selling record of 2008 (behind only Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III). We all know how this is going to play out: successful tour, lots of happy fans, uptick in AC/DC shirt sightings worldwide for the next few years, and maybe they’ll tour again or maybe not. At this point, AC/DC’s mission as the alpha and omega of modern rock music is relatively complete, and it’s just victory lap after victory lap for them until they can no longer run the track anymore. In which case, it will become someone else’s duty to be the official back-to-basics archetype for the next 35 years. Any volunteers?
AC/DC + THE ANSWER | TD Banknorth Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston | November 9 at 7:30 pm | $90 | www.livenation.com
