In a tastefully luxurious suite at the Peninsula Hotel in New York, Brian Johnson, the lead singer of AC/DC, is crooning the opening lines of It’s a Wonderful World while he waits to have his picture taken. Although he’s known for belting out AC/DC’s hard-rock songs, he can also sing delicately about trees of green and red roses.
Suddenly he clears his nasal passages with a giant snort and cracks up laughing. “What’s green and goes backward at 100 miles an hour?” he asks in a northeastern English accent. Across the room the brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, the band’s guitarists, start laughing along with him. Even at their age — Angus is 53, Malcolm is 55 and Johnson is 61 — the members of AC/DC can’t resist a gross-out joke.
The band’s music hasn’t matured much either, to the delight of its fans. AC/DC has always delivered an aggressive take on rock’s raw essentials: slicing guitars, driving rhythms and lyrics about sex, drink and rock ’n’ roll. Its new album, Black Ice, which will be sold in the US only at Wal-Mart starting today, is its most focused release in almost two decades, full of the fist-pumping riffs and shout-along choruses the band is known for. And it is expected to be one of fall’s biggest rock releases.
Gradually, and without getting much media attention, AC/DC has become the most popular currently active rock band in the US, to judge by albums sold. Since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales, this Australian band has sold 26.4 million albums, second only to the Beatles, and more than the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. Over the past five years, as CD sales have cratered, AC/DC albums have sold just as well as or better than ever; the band sold more than 1.3 million CDs in the US last year, even though it hasn’t put out any new music since 2000. And with Black Ice, increased visibility for the band’s catalog at Wal-Mart and a tour that starts on Tuesdayof next week, it’s possible that AC/DC could sell more CDs overall this year than any other act in pop music.
AC/DC’s commercial success flies in the face of conventional music industry wisdom. The band does not sell its music online and has never put out a greatest hits collection or allowed other musicians to sample its songs. At a time when most pop acts give fans the opportunity to have it their way by offering downloadable tracks and remixes, AC/DC gives listeners a different choice: its way or the highway.
“You get very close to the albums,” said Angus, relaxing on a couch while sipping a cup of tea. Without the schoolboy uniform he’s famous for wearing onstage, he comes off calm and soft-spoken in a black T-shirt, blue jeans and Converse Chuck Taylors. Like his brother he’s short and slight, about 160cm and 50kg.
“It’s like an artist who does a painting,” he added. “If he thinks it’s a great piece of work, he protects it. It’s the same thing: This is our work.” The band has said it does not want to break up its albums to sell individual songs as iTunes usually requires.
AC/DC’s decision to focus on selling CDs has put it at the center of an industry debate about whether even superstar acts can continue to dictate the way their music is sold. Although Kid Rock and Buckcherry had recent hits without iTunes, that online store is now the largest music retailer.
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