LET'S alphabetically ROCK MOTHERFUCKERS (Abba-AC/DC)

OK, so, here we are then nearly a year after the last one. But this time it's not a movie post, it's a music post. Because over the weekend I had a notion that I would spend all day at work on Monday listening to the complete recorded output of.....err, who was it now? Erm, come on, come on, think, who was it? Nope, it's gone. And I was so irritated that I couldn't remember, I realised that the only possible way of actually achieving the original goal would be to listen to every record that I own, in alphabetical band order. And that's what I'm doing. This week anyway; it's certain that I'll get bored of this project within a few days and consign it to the gigantic theoretical pile of unfinished projects that lies strewn in my psychic wake.

Anway, anyway, we started with a challenge: Abba-The Album (1977). Now, I'm OK with Abba, I really don't have a problem with Abba, but I'm not prepared to engage in some post-modern flim-flam about what astonishing songwriters Benny & Bjorn were. They're alright. That's about it. Until you put Abba-The Album on and get Eagle first off. Good God, Eagle really is shit. I mean, totally shit. Astonishingly bad. But, you know, to give the album as a whole credit, it's really just a companion piece to the brilliant Abba-The Movie which is an honest to goodness treat. If you haven't seen it, check it out, it's great. The fantasy section where Robert Hughes, playing a DJ dispatched to interview our musical chums, dreams of having a highly erotically charged picnic with Agnetha and Anni-Frid is simply jaw-dropping. There are some great tunes on Abba-The Album: it's got 'Take a Chance on Me', 'Thank You for the Music' and 'The Name of the Game', but it's also got some absolute stinkers ('I'm a Marionette', oof).

Then we had the Chiquitita 7" (1979) (great tune, my favourite Abba number) with 'Lovelight' as the B-side (another horror show), and then Abba's Greatest Hits vol. 2 (1979) which, much like Abba-The Album is a curate's egg, some fine tunes ('Gimme, Gimme, Gimme', Alan Partridge fans) and some frights ('Angeleyes', 'Rock Me') but it's also got 'Summer Night City' which is great but for some reason reminds me of David Hasselhoff and those amazing spoof reviews people did on amazon for his greatest hits.

Anyway, Abba done, it's on to The Lexicon of Love by ABC (1982). Nobody, but nobody can deny the greatness of this fine slab of 80's popular music. This is surely the other of the twin peaks of smartarse white soul come pop besides Scritti Politti's Cupid and Psyche '85 (1985) casting their long shadows across the blighted top 40 landscape. If anybody wants to tell me that Martin Fry's hyper-earnest delivery of his own laughably ambitious (and therefore pricelessly stupid) lyrics isn't a thing of wonder, well, then that person is a fool, sir. Will Martin ever find true love? (sigh) I don't know. And anyway, it's true, brothers and sisters should he-ellp each other. And besides, Yipee-ay, yippee-ay yay-ay. Was ever a truer sentiment uttered? WAS IT?

Next was the Opposites Attract 7" (1989) by, oh yes, Paula to the Abdul. Now obviously the existence of the Opposites Attract 7" is by it's very nature, a sin against humanity, but I've got to say, I think it's a great tune. And full props to MC Skat Cat. No, really. Full props.

Then we have to skip over Abe & Malka's freak-folk workout from 1977, City Folk. It's a great record, but I only have it on vinyl and it isn't on Spotify or Grooveshark so I can't listen to it at work.

With Abe and Malka out of the frame, it's on to the eponymous A Camp album (2001). If anybody doesn't know, this was the side project of Nina Persson from the Cardigans (who will be appearing later in some volume. Under C. For Cardigans) and pre-death Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. It's a strange record in many ways, a kind of off-kilter Americana with some lovely tunes and some downright peculiar arrangements, but you really have to focus on it otherwise it kind of drifts off into the horizon and out of sight. It's one of those records that sound like they should be played as background music, but don't actually work as such because you will not only miss the nice little touches, but also because it will take a while to realise that the album actually finished quite a while ago.

So, with the gentle and always surprisingly successful Swedish Americana project over, it's on to some serious work - a whole bunch of albums by the mighty AC/DC. Clearly the High Voltage (197 6) album is phenomenal ('It's a Long Way to the Top', 'The Jack', 'T.N.T.') but both High Voltage and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) are a little too heavy on a sort of, can I use the term, "blues-boogie" (or am I confusing the DC with Jools Holland?). We really great cracking with Let There Be Rock (1977) (I agree with Bon, once the universe was created, there really wasn't much left for God to do but say let there be drums, let there be guitars, and indeed let there be rock). Anyway, apart from the occasional mis-step ('Crabsody in Blue' anyone?), Let There Be Rock is great, legs spread, heads-down, er, rock ('Bad Boy Boogie', 'Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be', and of course 'Whole Lotta Rosie'). The live album If You Want Blood (1978) is probably about as good a live rock album as you'll find (this side of Humble Pie's Live at Fillmore East at least, an album which sounds eerily like warm up for the DC). Then there's the treading water of Powerage (1978), a decent album but there's nothing much going on than hadn't already been covered by the previous albums.

But then - but then, it's Highway to Hell (1979). Well, what is there to say about Highway to Hell that hasn't been said a gazillion times. Pretty much nothing. It's great. Although, perhaps a new approach is to sound an note of caution. There are at least two terrible songs on Highway to Hell. Is it, er, (the opposite of) blasphemy to say so? Well, I'll add more controversy, the production is absolutely appalling. Typical Mutt Lange overlayering and anodysing. All the blood has gone out of the sound, and although it's a BIG ROCK NOISE, it's got very little soul. He's an idiot so it's no surprise, but I can't help but feel that a different producer and the absence of 'Touch Too Much' and 'Night Prowler' would have meant an even greater album.

Anyway, Bon chokes to death on his own vomit and in comes Geordie singer Brian Johnson to give an injection of northern grit and here's Back in Black (1980). Yep, Back in Black. Well, there it is, everybody in the universe knows how good Back in Black is. Then we've got the sorely underappreciated For Those About to Rock (1981). I love FTATR. It's got far and away the most transparently foul sexual nonsense in rock lyrics ('Inject the Venom', 'Let's Get it Up' - Johnson couldn't even be bothered to come up with double entendres), which obviously makes it brilliant and my word it's got some blistering tunes. It's a testament to the band that both Back in Black and For Those About to Rock survive nearly unscathed from Mutt Lange's bombastic crotch-grabbing approach to production. Next up it's Flick of the Switch (1983). A little like Powerage you feel that the spirit is waning a bit. Apparently the band had wanted to get back a bit of the rawer, pre-Mutt Lange sound, but by then the damage had been done and Flick of the Switch just sounds a bit weak.

My record collection then leaves the DC for a lengthy stretch, taking in only the Heatseeker 7" (1988) (a fine tune and many consider Blow Up Your Video something of a return to form. I've never been so sure about that, but the Heatseeker B-side Go Zone isn't up to much) before 2008's Black Ice. Well, it's the 800th AC/DC album and the formula has been recreating itself for so long now that the band didn't even need to turn up to the recording studio apparently. It's rock, but it's certainly rock as we know it.

Till next time, for a nightmarish trip through the world of the Acid Mothers Temple, rock on chaps.