Wow! Two posts in a day! Aren’t we all lucky. As the title of this post suggests, my purpose today is to address a few comments I got on my inaugural post. (Have a look at the post and the comments if you please.) Now, my response.
First, to John I say bad luck man. Getting ripped off is never fun, whether by a religious leader or a car rental company. Personally I don’t wish death on Mr. Aranza, but then, all he took from me was middle school, which sucked anyway. Maybe I should thank him.
Next up is Andrew, with whom I could not agree more. I wish that I had kept my copy of “Backward Masking Unmasked,” but alas, I had no foresight. It is absolutely true that many of the allegations in his book were absurd to the point of being laughable, like that the Grateful Dead were satanic because they had a song called “Friend of the Devil.” And honestly it would be funny, if so many parents had not taken it seriously. Granted, there was a satanic panic gripping the nation at the time, but still. Reasonable people can debate the merits of rock music without lapsing into hysteria.
And finally we have Christian, who alleges to be the son of the very subject of my first post. I won’t even address the myriad of grammatical errors and contradictions in his comment, nor will I attempt to validate any of his claims. But I will say this - I don’t care how Jacob Aranza is as a father, husband, neighbor, pastor, driver, taxpayer, butcher, baker, or candlestick maker. In fact, he might very well be perfectly funny and charming, but it’s not his character I care about. Honestly, never having met the guy, I’m in no position to evaluate. But I did read his book and I can comment on how he - and many other fundamentalists at the time - made specious claims about musicians and music for nothing other than personal gain, and in the process made my early-teen years more miserable. Like I said in my first post, listening to heavy metal in middle school made me feel good when few other things did. I never fell under the control of dark forces or sacrificed goats, so what’s the big deal? Maybe Mr. Aranza does regret the book, maybe not. But in as much as it represents the fundamentalist line on rock music, my objection remains.
Finally, yes, at the behest of my fan(s), I am happy to announce the return of Music is My Radar. It has been a minute or two since my last writing, and I can’t claim that the various factors which forestalled my posts have been eliminated - mostly a lack of discipline coupled with a fall schedule more obscenely difficult than I ever imagined - but for now at least, I’m back.
A couple of notes before I continue with the meat of this post. First, does anyone know of a decent spam filter for use with Wordpress software? Before I posted tonight, I had to mark as spam over 300 comments, which advertised everything from porn to software hacks to Pirelli tires. Seriously spammers, I am not that dumb. Leave my blog alone. So if anyone knows how I can eliminate these comments before they hit my in-box, I’d be most appreciative for your advice.
Second, my CD buying has continued apace, just as it was during the heydays of MIMR. I very much need to update my reader(s) on my recent purchases, and as soon as I get caught up at work and with laundry, I’ll make that happen.
OK. Back to the lecture at hand. All that said, I would like to nominate Back in Black by AC/DC as the single best comeback album of all time. Indeed, given the context in which AC/DC recorded Back in Black - and the speed with which the album was released in the aftermath of the tragic event that precipitated its recording - it’s hard to imagine an album that could stand even as a close second to Back in Black. For the unfamiliar, here’s the story.
AC/DC was formed in Australia in 1973 and released its first album, High Voltage, in 1975. The group, consisting then of the brothers Angus and Malcom Young on lead and rhythm guitars, respectively, with sibling George on bass, Tony Currenti on drums (for the record, to date AC/DC has gone through no fewer than eight bassists and nine drummers, a number only Spinal Tap could top) and the inimitable Bon Scott on vocals. After recording five more studio albums and one live album, Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott was found dead on the morning of 19 February 1980. While the circumstances behind his death remain a matter of debate, likely it was precipitated by the lifestyle embraced by Bon and his bandmates.
Of course, numerous bands have had to deal with the death of a founding/seminal member, some better than others. I generally prefer the break-up-and-after-a-few-years-have-a-reunion-show-with-the-child-of-your-former-now-deceased-bandmate model, but that’s just me. Anyway, after Scott’s death, the remaining members recruited vocalist Brian Johnson from the band Georgie to fill his position.
Which is what makes the success of Back in Black so surprising (it is the second-biggest selling album of all time, after … well, you know). It was recorded a matter of months after Scott’s death - apparently with his mother’s blessing - and was released slightly more than five months after Scott died. It very well could have bombed, especially given the speed with which it hit the market. But how could anyone argue with the opening notes of “Hell’s Bells,” as funereal a beginning of a song as I’ve ever heard? Not to mention that halfway through the first verse, Johnson sings “… you’re only young, but you’re gonna die.” [shiver] It’s almost as though Bon Scott himself were singing from beyond the grave.
But why take my word for it? Here’s the song.
The rest of the album is no slouch of course, including the anthemic title track. (Personal trivia - occasionally I go through periods of obsessively listening to the first 10 seconds or so of the second verse of “Back in Black” over and over again. OCD, anyone?) But as brilliant as it is, the album is not just a comeback but a transition as well. I’ve never found Brian Johnson to be comparable as a lead singer to Bon Scott. Not that Scott had operatic chops - the difference was in persona. Johnson always looked to me like a working-class English footballer, just off a shift pounding rivets and singing in a bar with his, er, blokes. (God that was awful.) Scott on the other hand seemed positively sleazy, the kind of guy who would have been voted most likely to claim your 15-year-old sister’s virginity out behind the vo-tech building. (And that was worse.) Anyway, the band really changed with the singers. Latter-period AC/DC is really where they got the much-deserved reputation of only knowing and using three chords, not unlike a violent Australian version of Jimmy Buffet. But just watch this video of a live performance of “Whole Lotta Rosie” (hands down my favorite AC/DC song) from 1977’s Let There Be Rock and tell me that they are in any limited in their ability to kick ass.
Damn. So goods it makes me want to have sex with the morbidly obese. Is there any wonder why, when AC/DC first came to England, they were popular with both the punks and the metalheads? Ass getting kicked is a universal language, after all.
Anyway, as the years passed the band fell more and more into the mode that we know today. Increasingly, their songs began to sound the same and the group lost much of their early menace. I’ve heard they just released a new album, Black Ice, but I haven’t heard any songs from it. I did however dress up as Angus Young for a friend’s annual Rocktoberfest party, to rave reviews. But in closing, to mark the return (don’t call it a comeback!) of MIMR, I tip my hat to AC/DC for their career-defining comeback album, Back in Black.