One of the most prolific and influential bands of all time, AC/DC, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, has never changed its style over more than five decades of existence and is one of the best-selling bands in history. They have sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide, packed with songs that are adored by fans from different generations around the world.
Although their discography is often considered perfect by their fanbase, the late Malcolm Young and Angus Young have expressed different opinions. There are two albums that they believe could have been better if they had put more work into them.
The 2 AC/DC albums Angus Young said could have been better
“Flick of the Switch” (1983)
The first album mentioned by Angus is “Flick of the Switch”, released in 1983, which marked the first time that the band produced an album themselves. “I think with those albums, there were lot of good ideas that we felt… If you thought about, that we could have taken them and done more with them. So I think if we had put more time with some of the ideas that we had to, we could have come up with even probably better albums at the time,” Angus Young said in an interview in the DVD “Live at Donnington”.
That album was the follow up of the three very successful ones: “Highway to Hell” (1979), “Back in Black” (1980) and “For Those About To Rock” (1981). So after those three incredible musical achievements the band felt they already knew how to do it. “We were probably looking to go back in a way. We had worked with Mutt for three records in a row and we felt that we knew what we wanted and how to get it. So we decided to have a go ourselves,” Angus told Guitar World in 2003.
His late brother Malcolm agreed with him, but although the album flopped, he believed there were good tracks on it. “We went back after the big productions with Mutt (Lange) and Mutt had then moved on to other areas. We just thought: ‘Well, we’ll just go back and be what he were’ (laughs). We’ll just knock down a raw album basically. No big production, (we will) just get in there, let’s just put this out. It’s against the grain, but let’s just do it. Because MTV world had come around and the big video world.”
He continued:
“We hadn’t yet worked with David Mallett (who directed several AC/DC clips) or people like that. Any other time we’ve made a video, it was a real cheap nasty little job. So we just went to that basically, we made the album in three weeks. We (thought, let’s) just put some headbanging tunes in, the fans wanted it raw again, the hardcore. We said: ‘Let’s give it to the kids. Let’s throw it out and see how it goes’. And it didn’t do that well, to be honest (laughs), so they say that was our biggest flop. We still like it, there’s some good tracks on it,” Malcolm Young said in the “Live at Donnington” DVD (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Flick of the Switch’ was the final album drummer Phil Rudd recorded with AC/DC before leaving the band for the first time. That same year, he was replaced by Simon Wright, who remained with the band until 1989. The album peaked at number 4 on the United Kingdom charts and number 15 in the United States, but it failed to sell as many copies as its predecessors. Besides the title-track, other two better known songs from that record are “Nervous Shakedown” and “Guns For Hire”. According to Setlist.fm, AC/DC played songs from the album live almost 200 times. All of them in 1983, when they were promoting the record.
“Fly on the Wall” (1985)
The other album mentioned by Angus was exactly the follow up “Fly on the Wall”, released two years after “Flick of the Switch”. It was the band’s second attempt to produce the album themselves, with the production being credited to Angus and Malcolm. Curiously, at the time he was actually happy about the record: “We think we’ve done a good job and we achieved what we wanted. We just wanted to make a tough and exciting rock and roll record. And that’s what we made,” he told Guitar World in 1986.
His and Malcolm’s opinion changed only a few years after the album was released. His late brother once noted that even the album covers of those two records were quite simple, as the band was trying to get back to its roots, since everything related to AC/DC had grown bigger at the time. “Neither of those albums were big sellers, but we were just trying to become a simple little band again. Because it was getting pretty complicated carrying cannons and bells everywhere! So that was a bit of an interesting period,” Malcolm Young told Guitar World in 2003.
Some of the best-known tracks from the album are “Shake Your Foundations”, “Danger” and “Sink the Pink.” AC/DC also did not play songs from the album very often in concert. They performed them only 269 times, all in 1985 and 1986 while promoting the record. Despite the promotion, the record performed worse on the charts than the previous one. It was their first studio album with the British drummer Simon Wright, who after being fired worked with Dio.