6/6/2023 0 Comments Flick of the swichAs it is, it’s a fairly throwaway track and not even another furious solo from Angus can redeem it. The band clearly felt that this would be the track to slow things down a tad after the full on rock swagger of the previous tracks. Next up is “Nervous Shakedown” a slow tempo tune which is honestly pretty average. No fancy nonsense or high concept here, just AC/DC captured in full flight. The track features a memorable music video too, recorded at an aircraft hangar with the band just rocking out. Another excellent foot tapper which warns of the vagrancies of bad women with Johnson gleefully screeching lyrics like: “With a flick of the switch she’ll blow you sky-high”, the song blisters through at an electric pace if this is the sound of a band tired, then I must be going deaf. Next up is “Flick of the Switch” the title track and second single from the record. The track is straight ahead good time AC/DC and features yet another furious guitar solo from Angus. The track is a fine opener to the new record and neatly showcases the stripped back, organic feel the band was seeking on Flick of the Switch. Next up is “This House is on Fire” featuring a memorable main guitar riff which is almost exotic sounding in its feel. Rudd, who had recorded all of his drum parts, would be replaced by young Mancunian Simon Wright for live duties.įlick of the Switch kicks off with “Rising Power” a groovy, slightly bluesy rocker full of the tried and true AC/DC brand of double entendre which frequents the album (rising power eh Brian?) and features a memorable guitar solo from Angus. Indeed there were some tensions throughout all of the band. In a lot of ways, Flick of the Switch is an album from a tired band and that would be reflected in the departure midway through recording sessions of longtime drummer Phil Rudd who had fallen into drugs (no hit men just yet) and was generally burned out from the constant touring, an absence that would last some eleven years before his return on the flawed Ballbreaker in 1995. Most critics and fans consider the record to be the beginning of a slippery slope for AC/DC a fall from grace and irrelevance for most of the next decade that didn’t really stop until the release of 1990’s stunning The Razors Edge. By 1983 AC/DC were a musical behemoth comfortably straddling the globe with lucrative touring and with two critically acclaimed albums under their belt with vocalist Brian Johnson, it is curious that Flick of the Switch is regarded as a curious mis-step for a band that, up until now at least, could do no real wrong. On the 15th of August, 1983, AC/DC released their eight (or ninth if you hail from Australia) studio album entitled Flick of the Switch to mostly mixed reviews. After the run away success of For Those About to Rock, and the massive touring cycle for that record, the band were keen to return to a more stripped back, raw rock sound and this sound would be captured once again at Compass Point Studios in Nassau in the Bahamas, produced by the band themselves with the record being engineered and mixed by Tony Platt on the back of his work on Back In Black.
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