AC/DC
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

THE REVIEW

Mr. Frank Zappa from Baltimore was someone who understood something about rock and music; Mr. Francesco Zappa was very fond of a band of wild little guys whom he had the pleasure of meeting on his journey to Australia, in the year 1976, January. That band was, of course, called and still is called AC/DC; they had just come from a series of devastating tours in their homeland, stories of huge adoring crowds, successes, hilarious and delirious performances on shows like "Countdown" where they gave free rein to all their crazy stage creativity, but also stories of brawls and various sexual misadventures of the different members, and now the band was about to face their first critically important British tour. The genius of Baltimore was the first to want to bring the five little devils to the States; nothing came of it, never mind; the band was therefore able to focus on writing and recording the new album "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", which would complete an essential initial trilogy started less than a year earlier with "High Voltage" and continued with "T.N.T." Unlike these first LPs, recorded in a few days, this new work was produced over about two months to allow the band to finish the tour; the producers were, of course, the usual: Young and Vanda.  

The opener is, in my opinion, the most devastating piece in the group's history, even more than "Let There Be Rock" and "Whole Lotta Rosie", absolutely stunning the riff, absolutely fantastic the backing vocals, simply wonderful the whole thing; the lyrics also mentioned the numbers 36 24 36, which are the modern 90 60 90, which, as often happens in these cases, were mistaken for a phone number, causing distress to a poor widow in Sydney. The excellent "Love At First Feel", present only in the worldwide edition, introduces the hilarious "Big Balls", which with its brief rock blues reiterates that the so-called cojones are certainly not lacking in AC/DC; "Rocker" is another bomb, born in its embryonic version during a soundcheck, it came from "T.N.T.", and listening to those explosive three short minutes, one understands why the five were sometimes labeled as punk rock, even though it was not strictly such (after all, punk was nothing other than bare and violent rock n roll).  

"Problem Child" is also present in the next LP (albeit slightly different in the end) and I skip it having already addressed it in the review of that album and move directly to "There's Gonna Be Some Rockin'" which maintains a very high level always on a hard blues magnificently supported by the unmistakable "alcoholic" voice of the great Bon; the next last three before bidding farewell to one of AC/DC's greatest albums introduce us to one of the longest moments ever in the Australian's discography: it starts with the very long "Ain't No Fun (Waiting Round To Be A Millionaire)", which is their longest piece ever (almost 7 minutes), the last track "Squealer," which sees our Bon dealing with a little virgin, is another very long piece and ends up being a bit repetitive; something that does not happen, however, with the splendid "Ride On", I deliberately close this narrative with this long and intense pure blues ballad that tells us about a restless and reflective Bon about his situation as a young/old rocker, a man who was having a great time but who, shortly before his tragic passing, confessed to friends that he dreamed of settling down and perhaps starting a family. Stunning.    

In conclusion, we can talk about a great album and a very important point in their career: rejected by the American Atlantic, it was the first album to be published in the United Kingdom, in November '76, and musically an important midway between the previous two records and the next one; it alternates indeed aggressive tracks with more rock blues ones, always in the old unmistakable AC/DC style, this to demonstrate that one can evolve while maintaining a well-defined style and genre. To contradict those who superficially dismiss AC/DC as a band that "always made the same album."  

An album still (barely) imperfect, maybe a few pieces are too long but that shows how the guys were on the right track towards the subsequent masterpieces; it was the perfect introduction to the historic "Let There Be Rock" and everything that followed.