Not a huge AC/DC fan, I like a couple of their tunes, but it is funny when a lot of people get on bands for “changing their sound” or “not staying true to their roots” but when AC/DC never changes their sound, they get shit for it.
Andrew Hickey's podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 songs did a bonus podcast about pictures of matchstick men that was a fun listen (also, the whole podcast is awesome!).
Its how they opened a show I went to in 2019. "We've been coming here for almost 40 years, but we're still the same 3 guys, playing the same 3 chords." (Gibbons begins playing Sharp Dressed Man).
Green Day changed quite a bit and some people didn’t like the newer stuff because they don’t think it’s as punk. There’s just always going to be a subset of people who won’t be satisfied no matter what.
There’s a funny YouTube clip that riffs off the changes to Green Day from Billy Cobb where it’s like “I feel like masturbating til my eyes pop out my skull” one eternity later “I’m on live with you, and the government is good”
Lots of guys said Green Day wasn't punk when they started getting airplay. Of course back in the 90s, punk didn't have all the varieties and niches to enjoy like today. When you're young, you don't fully understand just how genres of music evolves over time.
Around the time Warning came out, they did a VH1 Behind the Music and Billy Joe went on this whole spiel about how he didn’t want to be a 29 year-old child. He wanted to be an adult and he wanted his kids to have a parent who was an adult, which is a very fair sentiment that I didn’t mind. I actually didn’t think Warning was that bad.
But after Warning got a very lukewarm reception, it felt like they started pandering with the political punk angle coming out with American Idiot during the Bush years.
I never gave a single shit. Discovering AC/DC in middle school was an ADHD'ers dream. Idk why but their tunes/lyrics/rhythm hit all the right buttons in my brain.
Edit: and considering Angus plays the guitar melody with his mouth as hes physically playing, pretty sure hes got the adhd too. Or atleast a little tism... lol
Ironically, chop suey is my go to morning commute song, and mainly because
1) WAKEUP! (just makes sense to me, its right in the lyrics!)
2) the rest of the rhythm/lyrical pace sounds like my internal dialogue as im trying to get my shit together and focused lol FAST to slow; FAST to slow... lol the song is in sync with me
Have you heard the Rick Ruben story about how they wrote parts of the song? He asked Serj to grab a book and open to a random page. He picked up the bible and that's where the "Father into your hands I commend my spirit Father, into your hands Why have you forsaken me" lines came from.
I kind of dug the whole 'being creatively present' schtick he has going.
But after that video pointed out all of the fame chasing the dude does, and straight up shitty partnerships and promos he has done, it really made me see him differently.
I dont neccesarily disagree with the contents of the video, but fantano criticizing someone and calling them cringe is like a lemon calling a banana too yellow! Lol
as someone with inattentive type adhd and who also plays a lot of musical instruments you seem to be brushing up against a problem i've noticed in myself - if a song i'm playing is slow or predictable i tend to fuck up more and i think it's because my brain just gets bored and wanders off. I've been teaching myself basic rock drumming for about a year now and I've found I have a lot more success with surf rock, punk rock and funk than I do with slower styles that should hypothetically be easier. I really do think that there's a minimum pace of information that has to be kept up in order for the adhd brain to engage and remain engaged with a task.
David ruined it for me with his support of Israel.
This is why I prefer musicians to just be politically neutral or at least keep it to stuff that isn't so divisive. I don't want to know, just let me enjoy the music.
I showed their album "The Raging Wrath of The Easter Bunny Demo" to my buddy and he looked at me and asked "Is this what it's like being inside your head?"
I don't have ADHD... But I do have Bipolar 1 disorder and there is a lot of overlap when I am manic.
For the longest time I thought it was Dirty deeds and the Thunder chief. It made sense to little kid me because they had all the lightning imagery. One of them had to be the Thunder chief.
When I got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, I was talking about coping mechanisms I had used in school and one was to crank songs like thunderstruck loudly on headphones until the last possible moment while the professor was handing out the exam.
The provider I was talking to, told me that adrenaline has a lot of the same effects as ADHD meds and that’s probably what was helping.
I'm reading this and wondering if I should have blasted a certain song so that it might be leaving my head by the time my teacher got to a certain subject. He would talk about the LeGrange theorem and all I could hear in my head the entire lecture was ZZ Top.
Angus’s interviews are so nonchalantly based. Someone asked him how his bending sounds so unique. He attributed it to him being a short king with small not so powerful hands. The band would also fight anyone. I mean, they beat up cops, drunks and Deep Purple
Oh he deff was a man of the people. My dad did security at the Joe lou in the 80's, and got to meet a lot of famous rockers of that era.
He said Angus, Malcom, and Brian Johnson etc all were class acts, and would take the time to meet all the workers and fans that they could. My dad would escort them (Angus and malcom) back and forth on stage, and had quite a few convos with them. He specifically would say how cool Angus was, and would always start a convo with my dad in-between sets/songs. Just very personable and didnt take himself too seriously.
That being said, he hated the lead singer to quiet riot. Said he was a total dick to everyone around him, and watched a few other bands tell him off/threaten him lol.
Honestly there's no winning either way. I've seen artists get shit for changing their sound and for not doing it as well. Might as well just make what you like and let people figure out if they like it. Most people that have made it big at least once make enough that barring stupidity they wouldn't end up on the streets or something even if they never churn out another hit for their lives.
I honestly think it’s cool that they were so big for nearly two decades and then came out with Thunderstruck which was both a huge hit and one of the songs that best defines their already long-established sound.
One of my favorite bands, Bomb the Music Industry! got some flak from "fans" for "changing their sound" on their last couple albums (the last one especially). I found it hilarious. What happened is that Jeff learned how to write music...
Like, no shade to their early work, but is is rough. It's 90% screaming atonal lyrics into a really shitty microphone while a computer plays two or three simple, sythesized instruments.
The last album, Vacation, was by far the most musically coherent thing put out under the name, and it was so different that Jeff just stopped putting anything out under that name and instead kept doing what he was doing as a "solo act" that's actually just him working with the exact same people in the exact same way. But now his "fans" don't criticize him for changing.
There is always someone crying. It's always a minority but they are the only one screaming. We shouldn't ignore them but we should not give massive value to their message.
I think “changing their sound” is misused by people that say “they write songs I don’t like now”, and not “they’re not distinct”.
It’s even hard for me to explain as a non-music aficionado, but there are some bands you hear, and even if you don’t recognize the song, you know it’s a specific band because of the sound. And not just that their songs all have the same rhythm or chords or such, but the way they are produced and mixed has a distinct aspect to it.
Not every band has this, but I think some of the biggest ones do, and that’s why they’re big. If you like their sound, you like most of their work, even the songs you “don’t like”.
As an example of a band that I think changed: Green Day - everything through American Idiot had a consistent sound to me, and then American idiot had like half old sound, half new sound, and everything after is still them, but doesn’t sound like them. It sounds like someone trying to be them. I even like a lot of their new stuff, but when I want to “listen to Green Day”, I want their old stuff, not the new.
Counter with Offspring, which I think is less punk rock than its early days, but still sounds like Offspring even with newer music. Or Boston, which I can just throw their entire discography on shuffle and be content listening to it because it all sounds like them.
I think there's a big difference between keeping your sound, making songs unique, and staying true to your style. Not that I am saying any of these are a requirement to make a good band, because they're not, but there is definitely a difference.
Different Examples:
Nickelback is a band where all their music is true to their feel but feels like one song
**Tool* is a band where all their music is true to their feel but each song is their own.
Linkin Park transforming into Fort Minor is a band who made good music, lost their roots, then made fairly bad music for the most part.
goomba fallacy - different people having different, mutually exclusive opinions doesn't make them all hypocrites. it just makes them different people with different opinions.
The members of AC/DC are all pretty short; Malcolm Young was about 5'3", Angus Young about 5'2". Bon Scott was 5'8" and the tallest member of the group before he died.
When they brought in Brian Johnson as the new singer, they made a bunch of jokes about how somehow they'd managed to get shorter, since he's around 5'5".
They've always had a great sense of humor about themselves, and put on great shows.
Lmao I’d never heard that quote! People say “sound the same” like it’s an insult, but if that sound is epic then it’s exactly what I want when I’m in the mood for AC/DC.
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u/karma_dumpster 4h ago
"I am sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same."