AC/DC - Fly On The Wall (1985)

Let's go back to the mid-80's, deep into the sticks where me and my friend Brian heard about our other friend David's older brother's friend owning a copy of the Fly On The Wall VHS video. This was big news. As scrawny, pimple-faced AC/DC acolytes in a town where one could not buy music cassettes or videos, this was a treasure we had to seek out. Now, this was pre-internet. We didn't know about any AC/DC video. What was on it? Was it a live concert? Some other kind of footage? We were desperate to get our grubby paws on it and find out! My memory is that we rode our bikes to the guy's house, simply knocked on the door, and asked to see him. His mother said he wasn't home, and upon learning that we had hoped to borrow something told us to just go downstairs into his bedroom and find what we were looking for, which we did. And we found it. We cycled, bristling with anticipation to the nearest VCR. (Turns out the video was kinda lame.)

When I think back on those days, it seems that things went down in strange ways. That kind of thing would never happen today. "Some kids that I let in were here rifling through your things this afternoon." "OK mom, what's for supper?"

Though AC/DC were never quite as good with singer Brian Johnson (barring his first two albums with them) they have nevertheless put out a lot of top drawer stuff since the Bon Scott days, right up to the present day. 1985's Fly On The Wall gets a bad reputation for muddy production and poor vocals. But listening to a vinyl copy at top volume, I have no complaints whatsoever. This album is snarling. In addition to the fan favorites (Shake Your Foundations, Sink The Pink), you have unheralded cuts like the title track or the incendiary stomper Playing With Girls (inexplicably not hailed as one of their greatest songs). Additionally you get atypical stylistic shifts like the laid back groover, Danger, which features an extraordinary lightning-in-a-bottle guitar solo by Angus Young - still very much in top creative form throughout. Naysayers be damned, this album rocks my socks off. Unfairly maligned, I say!