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I know that it's evil,
I know that it's got to be,
I know I ain't doin' much,
Doing nothing means a lot to me . . .
I got holes in my shoes,
And I'm way overdue:
Down Payment Blues.
There are two schools on how one says the name of AC/DC's 1978 album Powerage.
The
conventional
school
holds
that
it's
really
two
words,
a
portmanteau:
Power
Age.
The
minority
position
is
that
the
album's
title
refers
to a
unit
of
measure
nearly
rhyming
with
"coverage."
Given
the
electrical
wires
in
lieu
of
arms
shooting
forth
from
Angus
Young's
coat
sleeves
and
the
fact
that
he's
glowing
inside
and
out,
the
minority
school
makes
a
strong
case.
However you choose to say it, Powerage is a perfect album, serving up nine helpings of what this hard-rocking, hard-working band from Sydney, Australia does best. Some other hard-rocking musicians who feel the same way are Keith Richards and the late Eddie Van Halen, both on record as saying that Powerage remained their favorite AC/DC album despite later LPs, even the titanic-selling Back in Black.
AC/DC never went wide, just deep. Very deep. Starting in 1973, they began
diligently mining a narrow seam of pure musical gold: rock and roll. In
their great catalog of songs there are no acoustic numbers, no ballads, no
collaborations with symphonic orchestras, no duets with pre-fab Pop divas.
AC/DC unplugged? That's a non sequitur. The only group to outdo them in
their laser-like focus on a kind of straight-ahead, hard-driving Rock song is
The Ramones. And let's just take a second to imagine that double-bill. Man,
if there is a heaven….
Speaking of heaven, there's a bronze statue of AC/DC's inimitable lead
singer, Bon Scott, in Fremantle, Australia; the man it depicts dwells on Mt.
Olympus, no doubt without a shirt. Powerage is the penultimate Bon Scott
-era AC/DC LP. By the time he cut this record, he had reached the height of
his singing and songwriting powers. His vocals seethe with character. He
could modulate his voice from sinister dictation nearly spoken to an ardent
plea that shatters glass, from a moaning croon to the defiant scream that
ends "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." His lyrical chops were just as fierce,
equal parts Ogden Nash, Dashiell Hammett, and the double entendre
-loving lads of Spinal Tap.
Sadly, just one LP (Highway to Hell) and two years later, Bon Scott would
also reach the depth of the attendant lifestyle, literally drinking himself to
death.
Powerage is easily the most underrated album of AC/DC's Bon Scott era,
which is to say their greatest era. It is to AC/DC what Presence is to Led
Zeppelin. Since it doesn't have "household name" tracks like their other
albums, I'm not going to do a song-by-song exegesis. Just listen to the
record and be rocked. But I will mention a few favorites and one ultimate
favorite.
The epigraph of my piece is from the first song on the record, "Rock 'n' Roll
Damnation," an ideal mid-tempo swinger to kick things off. In this age of
utterly ineffectual multi-tasking coupled with manic, device-addled
distraction, the line "doing nothing means a lot to me," well, it means even
more to me now.
If the album is pronounced "powerage," then "Riff Raff" delivers the most
of that stuff. It has an overture-like introduction, as if lead guitarist Angus
Young and the boys begin by winding up a giant friction motor. How many
watts do Angus and drummer Phil Rudd expend on this relentlessly
rocking number? Well, not as many as the song yields—if only "Riff Raff"
could be harnessed to solve the world's energy crisis. And be warned: this
song can be very dangerous when driving an automobile; it compels you to
go fast.
All things being equal (and Bon Scott-era AC/DC records are uniformly
superb), Powerage contains my very favorite AC/DC song, "Sin City." And
from a group that gives its listeners so many candidates—my mind reels
with the abundance of choices: "The Girl's Got Rhythm," "Shot Down in
Flames, "Problem Child," "Back in Black," "Shake a Leg," "Shoot to
Thrill"—that's saying something.
But this song—tragically, so rarely played on FM Rock radio—moves with a
swagger and assurance which commands. "Sin City" comes out of the gate
with massive authority, an ex-convict's conviction about life's essential
truths. If Las Vegas had any real balls they'd have made it their official song
decades ago:
Diamonds
And dust;
Poor man last,
Rich man first.
Lamborghinis,
Caviar,
Dry martinis,
Shangri-la.
I got a burning
Feeling
Deep inside a' me,
It's a yearning
But I'm gonna set it free:
I'm goin' in
To Sin City.
I'm gonna win
In Sin City.
Where the lights are bright,
Do the town tonight,
I'm gonna win
In Sin City!
In all of Rock's sprawling achievement, there is no greater Quiet Time in
the canon than the hush that follows the blaring guitar solo in "Sin
City"—those plucked bass notes and frugal hi-hat taps awaiting Bon Scott's
exquisitely lascivious voice to intone a solemn incantation:
Buddy, I can only write so much about a song this ass-kickingly great, an
album this perfect (however one chooses to pronounce it) before I'm forced
to repeat myself: just listen to the record and be rocked.
Powerage
Side 1
Rock 'n' Roll Damnation
Down Payment Blues
Gimme a Bullet
Riff Raff
Side 2
Sin City
What's Next to the Moon?
Gone Shootin'
Up to My Neck in You
Kicked in the Teeth
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