AC/DC - Back in Black
No, you know what? Screw it. Nobody even noticed that it's an ironic album. Bon Scott died, nobody cared that they auditioned like 47 sound alikes 'cause Bon Scott was already the second singer, and everybody said "hello, Brian Johnson. That'll do, pig. That'll do." I don't have any sentimental attachment to any of them, but i also can't ague that they sucked. Even their dumbest of dumb songs are great rock and roll. I accept full responsibility for not caring, so roll that beautiful bean footage.
They come from the land down under, where women blow and men chunder... no sorry "Thunder" isn't from this album... um... oh, i know, AC/DC is the Australian ZZ Top. They aren't singing these songs about your Christian Mingle, loving mother, PTA mom type of lady. They're singing about the type of empowered entrepreneur who will gladly kick you in the testicles for 40 dollars, and file the appropriate tax paperwork later. It's a gimmick, not real life. It was always a joke, and it never stopped being a joke all the way to the end.
We had congressional hearings about this stuff. Dee Snyder of all people testified before Congress. The problem isn't good people with macabre or even crass artistic personas and senses of humor, the problem is nasty people hiding under the facade of wholesomeness while committing heinous crimes in their personal free time and teaching that lying two-faced garbage to the heirs of their fortunes. Potato chip fights and toilet paper hoarding was a serious problem three months ago, and we won't even go near the concept of sexually fetishizing My Little Pony. Not my fault that you're psychotic. It's supposed to be offensive; metal is the appropriate place to give those horrible ideas a safe outlet as the horrible ideas they are.
I know that can be a difficult distinction, but pretending to be bad for entertainment is better than pretending to be good to get away with the bad stuff in real life. The appropriate response is "yay that was fun, i'd get dead if i acted that way in real life."
Even Christgau and the other guys who hated it admitted it was an excellent example of what it was supposed to be: crass, misogynistic, and juvenile. Cattle prod to the scrotum, indeed. Show me the guy who takes this serious as opposed to tongue in cheek and i guarantee the headbanging didn't exacerbate his already established spiral into psychosis; he was long gone before AC/DC became a convenient scapegoat.
Feminist critics frequently sit on the fence because as i said about ZZ Top, the context is not taking advantage of women. The context is clearly defined as speaking to women who want them to speak that way. There's no confusion, they are simply filling their own role in this mutually agreed roleplay, and naively misunderstanding that context is hard to defend from an analytical perspective. How dare the farcically juvenile macho bad guy says he's going to do naughty things to the poor innocent damsel! Are you mental? Again and again the women are in charge of these situations because that's the emasculating fantasy at play here. I like women who aren't afraid to put me in my place is quite obviously different from i like to drug women and take advantage of them like an actual psychotic pervert. It frightens me when you can't tell the difference.
So to sum up, the women on this album aren't Trisha Yearwood, or Tori Amos, or The GoGos, Brian's singing to Peaches, or L7, or Lita Ford, or Joan Jett. Notice he isn't calling them bimbos, hos, or bitches, he's having an imaginary conversation and most of the time he's the one taking orders.
You're still allowed to not like it, and i'm still allowed to be "meh," but again those are the appropriate responses to the subject matter. It's fantasy kept as fantasy the way it should be. And, it sounds amazing.
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