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ARTIST: AC/DC
ALBUM: Blow Up Your Video
Produced by Harry Vanda and George Young
Engineer - Tom Swift
Recorded at Studio Miraval, France
Released 1988 on Albert Productions
Brain Johnson - Vocals
Angus Young - Guitar
Malcolm Young - Guitar
Simon Wright - Drums
Cliff Williams - Bass
Track List
Side One
1. Heatseeker
2. That's The Way I Wanna Rock And Roll
3. Meanstreak
4. Go Zone
5. Kissin' Dynamite
Side Two
6. Nick Of Time
7. Some Sin For Nothin'
8. Ruff Stuff
9. Two's Up
10. This Means War
(All songs Young - Young - Johnson)
Often overlooked as a stand up album, Blow Up Your Video is a great example of a rock band issuing fine product during turbulent times. Long a closet classic, aging AC/DC fans will often nod their heads and exchange knowing glances at the mere mention of this album's title. Recorded in August 1987 and released in 1988, this was AC/DC's first real album in 3 years. (Aside from the smash hit title track, the Who Made Who soundtrack album released for the film Maximum Overdrive was a hodge-podge of old album tracks and uninteresting incidental movie music - it can't really count as a serious album. The fact that they re-released You Shook Me All Night Long at this time illustrates just how thin on the ground the new material was.) With the gap between hit singles widening by the day the band needed a solid effort to keep the ship steady. This was also a bad time for guitarist Malcolm Young who was fighting a long standing battle with alcoholism which actually prevented him from performing at live shows.
The material that appears on this album is generally snappy in feel and in many ways a departure from the blueprint that set the tone of the previous few releases. However the overall melancholy of the songs (even the hard rocking ones) must in many ways reflect Malcolm Young's mindset at the time. It seems that they finally discovered minor chords.
Production duties fell back to AC/DC's old pals Vanda and Young. They had worked together again on the Who Made Who single and further work on this albums sees not so much a return to the early AC/DC sound, but a familiarity nonetheless. There seems a little too much reliance on reverb to make the band sound big which actually results in a strangely muted soundscape.
Unfortunately the artwork on the album is disappointing and seems cheap and rushed. On the front cover the AC/DC logo is off centre while a rather uninspiring Angus Young sends painfully fake shards of TV screen glass towards us. The back cover features a pretty lame "exploded television" (or rather a crack in the black plastic back of a television with a few wires sticking out) which leads us to the question "what's all this nonsense about bloody videos?". This cover design was by the Bill Smith Studio and all I can say further on the matter is that should you ever need to design an album cover for God's sake don't use him. Fortunately this album stands on its music!
Opening side one is Heatseeker. This was also the first single released off the album and it catapulted into the charts in the first week of release (the result of so much time passing since any AC/DC product, plus an extremely loyal fan base). Heatseeker is by no means the best song on the album, but it starts proceedings nicely. Without actually feeling like it, Heatseeker is a blues song in spirit with both guitars picking out licks and chugging along nicely, while Cliff Williams makes the most of his trademark use of major thirds. Ultimately this song went to No 12 in the USA, No 2 in the UK and top 40 in Australia.
The next track That's The Way I Want To Rock And Roll is about as close to the old style AC/DC that the band are going to get until the Ball Breaker album. An infectious riff played by both the six and four stringers alike with solid drumming by Simon Wright saw this song released as the second single from the album. The phrase "blow up your video" appears in this track.
Meanstreak is next. This song has a great groove! Trying something different, Angus and Malcolm Young play off each other with chord slashes and a sassy little guitar figure while Williams' bass winds in and out of the groove. This style of playing differs form the powerchord assaults of previous albums and shows that the band is happy to try out new techniques. Its a bit of a pity that they had to tack a corny crash ending onto the finish of this song - but I suppose it is a trademark.
Keeping the mid-tempo groove-thing going is Go Zone. In this instance the groove is in the guitars, but it's there nonetheless. Johnson's vocals are firm here, and in fact he eats up most of the album easily. A nice trade of finger picked guitar awaits the listener in the middle eight.
Ending side one is Kissin' Dynamite. Lyrically this song isn't really much chop - its fairly standard AC/DC fare. In fact most of the words on this album seem like they were spat out of the "Insta-Lyric 2000", in some songs they just work better than others! Musically this song swings nicely between spacey chord riffing and head banging four-on-the-floor. The chorus of this song dips somewhat into the musical melancholy mentioned earlier and prepares the listener for side two.
Flip the vinyl over (humour me, I'm 35) and off we go with Nick Of Time - quite possibly the best AC/DC song never to be released as a single and most definitely one of the best songs they've ever written. The song starts with a menacing opening chromatic run assisted with urgent hi-hat work from Wright. The song then takes off with great energy, the fast chord changes threatening to derail us. Hit the bridge and a finger picked guitar steadies the assault and whisks us along to the chorus - a stop, a burst of melodic guitar, "saved in the nick of time" and back in again. This song is pure magic and Angus Young provides the album's best solo with wild slides and scrapes. Underpinning this great song is an enormous feeling of desperation and sadness in spite of the thundering tempo - a song of conflicting emotions.
Some Sin For Nothin' follows with its squawking guitar and old style chord riffing. There's a good rhythmic feel to the changes here though the song does drag a bit.
Ruff Stuff is another track with an infectious groove and that trademark AC/DC swagger. Again, there is a lot of note riffing rather than straight out powerchords, and its refreshing to hear. This song is high energy, and again dips into the slightly melancholy.
The desperate sounding Two's Up keeps the mood going with a straight out minor key flavour. Johnson blurts out the lyrics here with a seemingly nervous urgency increasing the all over tension of the song. Often misquoted, Johnson does actually sing "Give me heads, give me tails" in the chorus in spite of what your ears may tell you. A dazzling guitar solo provided by Angus Young is the icing on the cake.
Closing Blow Up Your Video is the manic This Means War. Not hard to see where AC/DC got their inspiration for the verses - what with the phrasing of the lyrics almost identical to Vanda and Young's Easybeats hit "I'll Make You Happy". I'm sure Harry and George didn't mind that much!
This is probably the last AC/DC album to feature Brian Johnson's voice in anything other than a shattered and spent condition. While certainly raspy on the Blow Up Your Video album, Johnson at this stage actually still does sound like the guy who did Back In Black. Sadly after this point his voice would deteriorate almost to the point of unlistenability. For this reason, and for its general left-of-centre feel, this album is an essential for anyone who enjoys hard rock. Highly recommended.
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