Homefuck Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 (edited) I'm not a big AC/DC-fan, but I've started getting more interest since Axl joined them. I recently browsed through their album's songwriting-credits and I saw that since "Razors edge" (1990), Brian Johnson has not been involved in the songwriting, but before that (starting with "back in black" obviously) he was a part of the songwriting-team with Angus and Malcolm. Does anybody here know why he stopped being included? Google hasn't been of any help. Edited May 18, 2016 by Homefuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MillionsOfSpiders Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 (edited) I've been wondering this too. It's really odd, never noticed it before. If by some miracle they were to ask Axl to do an album with them, I can't see him not having any input. Edited May 18, 2016 by MillionsOfSpiders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Słash Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Ive also wondered this too especially after Rock or Bust that how come all the songs on that album were composed by Agnus and Malcolm. I know they recorded demos before Mal got sick and Agnus mentioned it was hard for him to take out the material and see what is right but how come all of it would be written only by the both of them? So when they went in to the studio, all the lyrics and all the songs were already composed and Brian just went to the studio and recorded the vocals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Jay Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Some say Blow Up Your Video was uninspired, lacked words and great themes. But Brian was sidelined by divorce proceedings in 1990. I think Rock N Roll Dream was pure inspiration, O'Brien told him in 2008 he was a soul singer and not much rocknroll singer. The last two was way better when it comes to melodies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Bond Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Two reasons (more or less). 1. Brian was tied up in divorce proceedings during the recording of The Razor's Edge so, being that he was under a lot of stress, Angus and Malcolm took over the lyrics writing. 2. Brian was, by his own admission, never comfortable "under pressure" so to speak when it came to writing good enough lyrics and having them ready in time so he was happy to continue just letting Angus and Malcolm do it from then on (with Brian just polishing them to taste when he'd go to sing them). He was planning on writing the lyrics for Black Ice but that never happened. It seems he probably writes some lines here and there or pitches ideas but nothing to fully credit himself. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homefuck Posted May 18, 2016 Author Share Posted May 18, 2016 1 minute ago, James Bond said: Two reasons (more or less). 1. Brian was tied up in divorce proceedings during the recording of The Razor's Edge so, being that he was under a lot of stress, Angus and Malcolm took over the lyrics writing. 2. Brian was, by his own admission, never comfortable "under pressure" so to speak when it came to writing good enough lyrics and having them ready in time so he was happy to continue just letting Angus and Malcolm do it from then on (with Brian just polishing them to taste when he'd go to sing them). He was planning on writing the lyrics for Black Ice but that never happened. It seems he probably writes some lines here and there or pitches ideas but nothing to fully credit himself. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ludurigan Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 1 hour ago, Slash787 said: Ive also wondered this too especially after Rock or Bust that how come all the songs on that album were composed by Agnus and Malcolm. I know they recorded demos before Mal got sick and Agnus mentioned it was hard for him to take out the material and see what is right but how come all of it would be written only by the both of them? So when they went in to the studio, all the lyrics and all the songs were already composed and Brian just went to the studio and recorded the vocals? Axl did do that in Guns n Roses By all accounts I read during all these years, Patience and Think about You were entirely (or mostly) written by Izzy Brownstone was written by Izzy and Slash with the help of one of their girlfriends Axl just sang it He probably polished something here and there and added a few words here and there And (this is a guess) Id say that the outro part on Patience is probably his writing There may be more songs were Axl "just sang" in GNR, I am sure some people on this forum may know more about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Słash Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 7 minutes ago, ludurigan said: Axl did do that in Guns n Roses By all accounts I read during all these years, Patience and Think about You were entirely (or mostly) written by Izzy Brownstone was written by Izzy and Slash with the help of one of their girlfriends Axl just sang it He probably polished something here and there and added a few words here and there And (this is a guess) Id say that the outro part on Patience is probably his writing There may be more songs were Axl "just sang" in GNR, I am sure some people on this forum may know more about it Yeah I know Axl just sang Think about you and most of Patience was Izzy's creation, but there are other songs which Axl composed. All the GNR albums don't have Izzy Stradlin and Slash as their only composers. In AC/DC, its just Agnus and Mal all over. They go in the studio on an average like every 5 years and what they even do? its just Agnus and Mal writing and composing things and Brian not even composing a single song? its pretty surprising that how come Brian din't even compose half of a song? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IncitingChaos Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 20 minutes ago, ludurigan said: Axl did do that in Guns n Roses By all accounts I read during all these years, Patience and Think about You were entirely (or mostly) written by Izzy Brownstone was written by Izzy and Slash with the help of one of their girlfriends Axl just sang it He probably polished something here and there and added a few words here and there And (this is a guess) Id say that the outro part on Patience is probably his writing There may be more songs were Axl "just sang" in GNR, I am sure some people on this forum may know more about it This is absurd! Unless you just mean Axl did this for a few songs then I apologize, but Axl wrote a lot of guns n roses lyrics. But I know Wes Arkeen did a lot of writing on songs like Its So Easy and Yesterday's so he had a big influence also, but gnr in my opinion is much more team based writing than ACDC. Every gnr song went through every person in the band before it was official. Most of the time they would have one person write the main portion of the song then everyone goes in and adds their touch to it...so it's similar to Brian in that way but some of the songs were given massive upgrades by the gnr family and so I think everyone's hand print was much larger in gnr than what ACDC does in their camp 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ludurigan Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 1 hour ago, IncitingChaos said: This is absurd! Unless you just mean Axl did this for a few songs then I apologize, but Axl wrote a lot of guns n roses lyrics. But I know Wes Arkeen did a lot of writing on songs like Its So Easy and Yesterday's so he had a big influence also, but gnr in my opinion is much more team based writing than ACDC. Every gnr song went through every person in the band before it was official. Most of the time they would have one person write the main portion of the song then everyone goes in and adds their touch to it...so it's similar to Brian in that way but some of the songs were given massive upgrades by the gnr family and so I think everyone's hand print was much larger in gnr than what ACDC does in their camp i think you didnt read my post i specifically mentioned 3 songs where, by all accounts, it is likely that axl "just sang them" and I also said that there may be more songs that axl "just sang" in gnr === about ac/dc, as far as i know, ac/dc has always been malcolm`s and angus` band and now it is angus band === gnr family? what is that? is izzy part of it? why is he not with the family now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Bond Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 4 hours ago, Slash787 said: Ive also wondered this too especially after Rock or Bust that how come all the songs on that album were composed by Agnus and Malcolm. I know they recorded demos before Mal got sick and Agnus mentioned it was hard for him to take out the material and see what is right but how come all of it would be written only by the both of them? So when they went in to the studio, all the lyrics and all the songs were already composed and Brian just went to the studio and recorded the vocals? Rock or Bust is a bit of an Angus "Frankenstein" project. All the riffs were from the big arsenal of vault riffs that he and Malcolm have written over the years. Angus went through all the riffs and built the songs around them. He credited Malcolm out of respect. All the lyrics were written by Angus with Brian polishing them off and coming up with the vocal melodies. Believe it or not, but another thing Angus is heavily involved with is the backing vocals. Even though he doesn't do much live, he's all over the studio versions (and not just for ROB). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IncitingChaos Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 1 hour ago, ludurigan said: i think you didnt read my post i specifically mentioned 3 songs where, by all accounts, it is likely that axl "just sang them" and I also said that there may be more songs that axl "just sang" in gnr === about ac/dc, as far as i know, ac/dc has always been malcolm`s and angus` band and now it is angus band === gnr family? what is that? is izzy part of it? why is he not with the family now? Don't laugh at me haha I didn't know how else to put it...I mean you have Axl, Duff, Slash, Izzy, and Arkeen were the main song writers on their albums, that's like the core of gnr song writing. ACDC has Angus...and like you said they use to have Malcolm. so what gnr do with song writing is not as similar to ACDC. its just more complicated and it's no surprise there are so many ACDC records compared to GNR records Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Archer Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 2 hours ago, James Bond said: Rock or Bust is a bit of an Angus "Frankenstein" project. All the riffs were from the big arsenal of vault riffs that he and Malcolm have written over the years. Angus went through all the riffs and built the songs around them. He credited Malcolm out of respect. All the lyrics were written by Angus with Brian polishing them off and coming up with the vocal melodies. Believe it or not, but another thing Angus is heavily involved with is the backing vocals. Even though he doesn't do much live, he's all over the studio versions (and not just for ROB). While being aware of Brian's divorce issues and some criticism of his writing, I always saw the lyrics issue as the Young brothers asserting creative control over the band. This may or may not be the truth. But, do you think that with someone like Axl, who can really write some good lyrics, they might consider letting him contribute if they were to work on an album together? Unlike Bon, who was something of a casual poet who could come up with lyrics without much effort, I'm worried that Axl would have problems writing for AC/DC. It could be way worse than Brian feeling under pressure to knock off lyrics. On the other hand though, with the gap in between AC/DC albums, he'd probably have sufficient time to do them, particularly because the music's not going to be his headache. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DexAxl Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 5 hours ago, ludurigan said: Axl did do that in Guns n Roses By all accounts I read during all these years, Patience and Think about You were entirely (or mostly) written by Izzy Brownstone was written by Izzy and Slash with the help of one of their girlfriends Axl just sang it He probably polished something here and there and added a few words here and there And (this is a guess) Id say that the outro part on Patience is probably his writing There may be more songs were Axl "just sang" in GNR, I am sure some people on this forum may know more about it Mr. Brownstone and Think about you are Appetite songs so it's credited as GNR like every other song on album, in early years they all had participated in songs, but when it comes to UYI everybody took credits for their songs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Bond Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 30 minutes ago, The Archer said: While being aware of Brian's divorce issues and some criticism of his writing, I always saw the lyrics issue as the Young brothers asserting creative control over the band. This may or may not be the truth. But, do you think that with someone like Axl, who can really write some good lyrics, they might consider letting him contribute if they were to work on an album together? Unlike Bon, who was something of a casual poet who could come up with lyrics without much effort, I'm worried that Axl would have problems writing for AC/DC. It could be way worse than Brian feeling under pressure to knock off lyrics. On the other hand though, with the gap in between AC/DC albums, he'd probably have sufficient time to do them, particularly because the music's not going to be his headache. I guess my biggest worry would be Axl kind of forcing some "Bon-esque" lyrics instead of writing from the heart. That's not to say it would happen, but you never know. Anything is better than some of the Young/Young lyrics though! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maynard Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 It's not really hard to keep writing the same songs over and over again, is it? Sorry ACDC fans, had to say it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoop Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 I believe the answer simply comes down to money. The Youngs wanted to keep more of it for themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumblefeet Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 32 minutes ago, maynard said: It's not really hard to keep writing the same songs over and over again, is it? Sorry ACDC fans, had to say it This is most noticeable on the last couple of albums but even so, there's always a certain standard and sound to uphold and when you think about it, that takes dedication as well. Especially when you've been called out on it time and time again by the critics, but the Young brothers knew what worked best and kept on delivering. Of course now with Axl in the band, Angus will have to write a ballad for the next album. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoop Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Anyone who thinks it's easy to take the same basic ingredients and and use them to come up with an endless amount of different killer riffs should give it a try. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Archer Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Just now, James Bond said: I guess my biggest worry would be Axl kind of forcing some "Bon-esque" lyrics instead of writing from the heart. That's not to say it would happen, but you never know. Anything is better than some of the Young/Young lyrics though! Yes, totally agree. I thought the same. I wouldn't want to see him to try and rehash Bon. I'm not at all a fan of either the Young&Young or the solo Young writing efforts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
God of Thunder Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Brian himself mentioned several times that he (song)writing did not come easy for him and therefore he left it to the Young brothers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoop Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 He was also busy with his epic Helen of Troy musical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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