AC/DC – Flick of the Switch

1983

Atlantic

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. 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. 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. 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. Indeed there were some tensions throughout all of the band. Rudd, who had recorded all of his drum parts, would be replaced by young Mancunian Simon Wright for live duties.

Flick 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. 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. The track is straight ahead good time AC/DC and features yet another furious guitar solo from Angus. Next up is “Flick of the Switch” the title track and second single from the record. 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. The track features a memorable music video too, recorded at an aircraft hangar with the band just rocking out. No fancy nonsense or high concept here, just AC/DC captured in full flight.

Next up is “Nervous Shakedown” a slow tempo tune which is honestly pretty average. 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. As it is, it’s a fairly throwaway track and not even another furious solo from Angus can redeem it. “Landslide” follows and normal service is resumed and the track is a genuinely fun one, Johnson is in his absolute element here and the track is a hard and driven rocker, if ever so slightly more tame than is really ought to have been. Next up is “Guns for Hire” quite possibly the best track on Flick of the Switch, which begins with Angus seemingly trying to wrangle the life out of his Gibson SG before launching into the song proper with the rest of the band. Johnson croaks out his chorus lyrics with a throaty fortitude which would be perfected by the time “Thunderstruck” would come around and the song ends with a devastating crescendo. The entire band is on fire here and if this track does not make you move and the melody get stuck in your head, you may well be dead inside.

“Deep in the Hole” follows and it’s easily one of the best tracks on the record. Featuring an excellent granite rock riff from the brothers Young and anchored by Cliff Williams solid bass with an excellent vocal performance as usual from Johnson, the track is criminally underrated and grooves along like it’s nobodies business.”Bedlam in Belgium” is another ferocious rocker, with Johnson describing to the listener of a particularly rambunctious gig one night in Belgium. The track is a straight ahead no-nonsense tune, much like most of Flick of the Switch and easily one of the highlights of the record. “Badlands” follows and it’s a fairly redundant track. Flick of the Switch works best when AC/DC stick to the bare essentials but in a slightly more up tempo and driven way than say, on For Those About to Rock. There really is nothing new about “Badlands” that hasn’t been done better already by the band. Flick of the Switch ends with “Brainshake” which features a nice nifty guitar riff but again somehow falls a bit flat which is a shame because Flick of the Switch has been a genuinely fun record to listen to. It’s also one of the bands best.

Flick of the Switch was not met very well with critics and the record received next to no promotion. I prefer Flick of the Switch to For Those About To Rock. I know that will be an unpopular opinion amongst AC/DC fans, but I have always found that record to be a tad over bloated and more “arena rock” than AC/DC ever intended to be. That record of course has the obvious hits and moments of genius, but there is a charm about Flick of the Switch that is hard to deny. I just love the low rent vibe of the record, the art and most of the tracks contained therein. Sure there is the typical filler tracks that can be found on nearly every AC/DC release, but I feel this s the true follow-up to Back In Black, that the band had always wanted to make. In a 1992 interview with Metal CD the late great Malcolm Young stated that; “We did that one [Flick of the Switch] so quickly and I guess it was a reaction to For Those About To Rock, we just thought “bugger it! We’ve had enough of this crap!” Nobody was in the mood to spend another year making a record, so we decided to produce ourselves and make it as raw as could be… the title track is the song that still sticks in my mind from that record, Flick of the Switch was a great live track”. Perhaps the fact that the band sought to self produce the album meant some of the more weaker tracks could have become leaner, but in all truth, Flick of the Switch is a great AC/DC record and the last truly great album until the bands brief early nineties resurgence. The record may have been too bare bones for some at the time, yet I feel the album continues to be massively underrated. If it has been some time since you listened to this record do revisit it again and if you never really it a chance seek it out, have a few beers and rock out.

Works Cited;

Blake, Mark. (2016, April) AC/DC’s Malcolm Young – The Lost Interview. Classic Rock.

For more up to date retrospectives as they come, please like on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Looking-Back-1967288900049358/posts/?ref=page_internal