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AC/DC's albums between 1983-1988


Sosso

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Albums like Flick of the Switch, Fly on the Wall,  Blow Up Your Video and the soundtrack Who Made Who had received very negative reviews from the press.

I think that they are underrated. Especially Fly on the Wall. The songs are really good but the production is really bad. Who Made Who is my favourite song from that time.

It's sad that these songs weren't played live for about over two or three decades now.

 

What's your opinion about these albums?

Edited by Sosso
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As an album I like flick of the switch best of that group and think its great.  Special shout-out too Nervous Shakedown and Landslide too.  For the other albums there are songs I really like on each. Mainly the standards like shake your foundations,  sink the pink,  heatseeker and who made who.  I'm certainly glad these albums all exist but I tend to favor the earlier albums.

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Flick of the Switch is okay but Fly on the Wall and Blow Up Your Video are horrible. there's not really a song on those albums thats worth playing twice not to mention it sound like somebody recorded it from the hallway of the studio...it seems to me they got lazy and just released abunch of throwaways and hit the road to tour again 

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Flick Of The Switch is my second favorite Brian album, and probably in my top 5 AC/DC albums. It's a shame it was viewed unfavorably for so long - it's got some fucking great tracks on it; This House Is On Fire, Flick Of The Switch, Nervous Shakedown, Guns For Hire, and Bedlam In Belgium are some of my favorites. Luckily it seems more and more people are coming to appreciate this album as the overlooked gem of the Brian era. 

 

As for the rest, they all have their problems. Fly On The Wall could've been a decent album if it weren't for the insufferable production. The title track, Shake Your Foundations, and Sink The Pink are the only songs where the quality of the music overpowers the horrid production IMO. Who Made Who is...eh. Don't get me wrong, the three original songs on it are great (Even if the title track is far superior on AC/DC Live), but it's only three new songs, two of which are instrumentals. I'd have liked WMW more if the rest of the instrumentals from Maximum Overdrive had been released on the album - there was some good music in the movie, that one slow blues jam is especially tasty. Blow Up Your Video is just awful, it's one of only two AC/DC albums I absolutely despise (The other being Ballbreaker). I honestly can't even tell you the last time I listened to anything off it besides Heatseeker or That's The Way I Wanna Rock N' Roll. That said...I do like the album cover :lol:

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flick of the switch is criminally underrated and one of my favorites, it should have been the follow up to back in black to be honest. i also really like fly on the wall, never really understood the production of the album and why they fucked up the vocals so bad but the songs are a lot of fun and probably the heaviest ac/dc ever got. the rest i'm not a fan, blow up your video sucks.

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Flick of the Switch is a great album, it is too bad that even the band itself looks down on it. It is by far the meanest and hardest rocking albums of the Brian years. They wanted to go back to a time where they didn't have the bells and canons and polished production. In that way they fail to make it sound like their older albums with Bon, but they achieved a bad ass album that makes all the the would-be rockers at the time look like posers. 

 

Fly on the Wall suffered bad production as pointed out before. I think Brian's singing style was taking its toll on him which could be why his vocals are turned down a bit or the guitars are turned up. The band itself is becoming less inspired. 

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15 hours ago, Sosso said:

Albums like Flick of the Switch, Fly on the Wall,  Blow Up Your Video and the soundtrack Who Made Who had received very negative rates from the press.

I think that they are underrated. Especially Fly on the Wall. The songs are really good but the production is really bad. Who Made Who is my favourite song from that time.

It's sad that these songs weren't played live for about over two or three decades now.

 

What's your opinion about these albums?

Fly on The wall is probably the weakest AC/DC record

 

Flick of the Switch is awesome, though.

Blow Up Your Video was OK. Who Made Who is a bit dated by now, but i can't really look at that record as a full album

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13 hours ago, Powerage5 said:

Flick Of The Switch is my second favorite Brian album, and probably in my top 5 AC/DC albums. It's a shame it was viewed unfavorably for so long - it's got some fucking great tracks on it; This House Is On Fire, Flick Of The Switch, Nervous Shakedown, Guns For Hire, and Bedlam In Belgium are some of my favorites. Luckily it seems more and more people are coming to appreciate this album as the overlooked gem of the Brian era. 

 

As for the rest, they all have their problems. Fly On The Wall could've been a decent album if it weren't for the insufferable production. The title track, Shake Your Foundations, and Sink The Pink are the only songs where the quality of the music overpowers the horrid production IMO. Who Made Who is...eh. Don't get me wrong, the three original songs on it are great (Even if the title track is far superior on AC/DC Live), but it's only three new songs, two of which are instrumentals. I'd have liked WMW more if the rest of the instrumentals from Maximum Overdrive had been released on the album - there was some good music in the movie, that one slow blues jam is especially tasty. Blow Up Your Video is just awful, it's one of only two AC/DC albums I absolutely despise (The other being Ballbreaker). I honestly can't even tell you the last time I listened to anything off it besides Heatseeker or That's The Way I Wanna Rock N' Roll. That said...I do like the album cover :lol:

Nick of Time is a great stadium rocker:lol: But yeah, after Flick of the Switch, until Thunderstruck, the band went on a downhill really

Ballbreaker is almost as weak as Fly on the Wall, though and i'm not a big fan of the Stiff Upper Lip record, it's pretty generic. The 2 last records blow SUL out of the water, imho

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8 minutes ago, Strange Broue said:

Nick of Time is a great stadium rocker:lol: But yeah, after Flick of the Switch, until Thunderstruck, the band went on a downhill really

Ballbreaker is almost as weak as Fly on the Wall, though and i'm not a big fan of the Stiff Upper Lip record, it's pretty generic. The 2 last records blow SUL out of the water, imho

I actually really like Stiff Upper Lip, but I know I'm in the minority there.

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3 hours ago, Georgy Zhukov said:

Fly on the Wall suffered bad production as pointed out before. I think Brian's singing style was taking its toll on him which could be why his vocals are turned down a bit or the guitars are turned up. The band itself is becoming less inspired. 

I think Brian's voice was intentionally buried in the mix. It was in pretty rough shape at that point. The solution seemed to be to hide it behind the guitars. The poor guy just needed a break! The rest of the mix suffered from some of the typical eighties production values - bass that is nowhere to be heard, overly compressed snare sound with a wall of reverb, and so on.

I'd add more to this topic but @Powerage5 covered exactly what I would have said (except I like Ballbreaker).

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1 hour ago, Powerage5 said:

I actually really like Stiff Upper Lip, but I know I'm in the minority there.

I like the title track, House of Jazz, Safe in New York City and Satellite Blues. 

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6 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

The problem with the Simon Wright albums is they all sound the same - even by AC/DC standards. They all have that sterile '80s production.

The production could have been better. But I like Simon Wrights drum playing, especially on Who Made Who and Blow Up Your Video.

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IMHO they all have there merits....let's face it if you took all those albums a played them on shuffle most people would have no idea what song was on what album....

I love AC/DC but they have been making one long album their whole career.. you could switch out songs from any album and they would not seem out of place.......:lol:

 

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10 hours ago, classicrawker said:

IMHO they all have there merits....let's face it if you took all those albums a played them on shuffle most people would have no idea what song was on what album....

I love AC/DC but they have been making one long album their whole career.. you could switch out songs from any album and they would not seem out of place.......:lol:

 

I wouldn't say that. Songs like "House of Jazz" or "Anything Goes" would be out of place on albums like "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" for example.

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