After the top
Rock and roll took a long time dying, and may not be dead yet…but it’s definitely dropping out of the picture. Originally a Baby Boomer phenomenon, Generation X picked the torch. But after that the world turned to…well, almost anything else. Rap, pop, electronica, autotune - more complex music for a more advanced age.
Rock and roll still rules the historical charts. According to Business Insider, the lifetime league table looks like this (rock and roll acts - real or alleged - in boldface):
The Beatles (183 million certified album units)
Garth Brooks (156)
Elvis Presley (147)
The Eagles (120)
Led Zeppelin (112)
Bill Joel (85)
Michael Jackson (84)
Elton John (79)
AC/DC (75)
Pink Floyd (75)
George Strait (69)
Barbra Streisand (69)
Aerosmith (67)
Mariah Carey (67)
The Rolling Stones (67)
Bruce Springsteen (66)
Madonna (65)
Metallica (63)
Whitney Houston (59)
Van Halen (57)
Yes, rock artists hold 13 of the top 20 spots. The problem is that this is a lifetime list, and most of these acts are wrapping up (or have wrapped) their careers. Here are the top selling-acts from the younger generations:
30. Eminem (47)
31. Taylor Swift (45)
44. Tupac (37)
43. Backstreet Boys (37)
49. Britney Spears (35)
Ok, Dave Matthews (35) is #50, but that shows you where we are. Well, you might say - that’s albums, but what about tracks? We get our music from Youtube now. Ok, according to Statista, the most played songs on Youtube through November 2020 were:
Luis Fonsi w/ Daddy Yankee - “Despacito” (7.0 bn)
Ed Sheeran - “Shape of You” (5.1)
Wiz Khalida - “See You Again” (4.8)
Mark Ronson - “Uptown Funk” (4.0)
Psy - “Gangnam Style” (3.8)
etc. etc.
It doesn’t get better - Justin Bieber’s up next. I’m not complaining, exactly, some of these are great. “Uptown Funk” and “Gangnam Style” have played loudly on our car stereo many times, without a murmur of complaint from me.
No disrespect intended or implied
As far as commercial music goes, rock and roll is off the front page, probably forever. Apart from the legacy acts and cover bands, most of what survives inhabits small clubs, street corners, and subway platforms. A solo act with a little talent can sound pretty good. Grab a guitar and start strumming for dollars, and chances are a rock and roll song will come out:
I can’t say I’ve been a huge fan of this song, or the band. I generally admire AC/DC’s intentions, but when I want what they’re selling I find ZZ Top is more my thing. But there are exceptions. My views on “Girls Got Rhythm” are well-documented. “It’s a Long Way to the Top” is an earlier, perhaps simpler effort.
I won’t say much about the original recording except that I don’t particularly admire it, and the opening chords gave me goose bumps when I just played it again. Here it is on Australian tv in 1975, with Bon Scott, the band’s original singer, gleefully lip syncing:
Angus explains the opening riff here, after giving the dumbest/best possible explanation for the chord structure of “High Voltage”:
Critics have debated about where to place AC/DC in the subgenera of rock and roll. Were they hard rock, heavy metal….or what? The band has always just said rock and roll, but in its original performances I’d argue “It’s a Long Way to the Top” had a kind of proto-punk sound. There was (briefly - gone now) a video on Youtube of an early club show in Australia, and it looked like something you’d see at CBGB. It was rough and loud, messy and elemental. Scott was shirtless, screaming girls, and I felt kind of sorry I missed it.
But if it ever was punk, it wasn’t for long. They polished it right up. Here is how it sounded live at the BBC in 1976, and holy crap is there anything better? Those guitars are as tight as Bon Scott’s pants:
Despite the title, AC/DC was nowhere near the top when they wrote the song. The jump to the pantheon came in 1979 with the U.S. release of Highway to Hell, and Scott drank himself to death a few months later; the band never performed “It’s a Long Way to the Top” again. A grateful Australia put up a statue, switched the Aussie dollar to a floating exchange rate, and moved on.
Which is not to say that no one sings the song any more.
First of all, notice that many AC/DC songs translate well to alternative formats. The postmodern acts of the early 2000s had a field day with AC/DC. Richard Cheese turned “You Shook Me All Night Long” into a lounge anthem. Hayseed Dixie produced a really enjoyable album of bluegrass covers, which appears to have kept them working and fed for the next 20 years. Postmodern Jukebox recently did an interesting but less-triumphant Back in Black.
“It’s a Long Way to the Top” went Hollywood instead, serving as the closing number in School of Rock. Unlike the postmodern covers, Jack Black’s performance is more of an appreciation than a parody. Black understands that the song is fun but in earnest, and sings it that way. And of course it is simple enough that a band of kids can play it:
All well and good, but the song suffers when you gimmick it up too much with interludes and such. It flies best when there’s no fourth wall, no gimmicks, like the way Motörhead did it:
The Dropkick Murphys do a good job with it, too, although their lead vocalist is not in the same class as Scott or Lemmy:
If you feel these little bands could do with more power, you’re not alone. You can do the song with hundreds of singers and drummers, and they have. Put in all the power you want, the basic structure is as strong as vibranium-reinforced concrete:
Senior Australian rocker John Farnham subtracts the army but adds Tom Jones, so let’s call it even::
They’ve done a few of these duets over the years, all quite listenable. I picked this one because it swings a little, which is probably heresy but…call it a guilty pleasure.
There are a lot of less fortunate power performances, though, lots of failure. Thank you for the bagpipes, but there’s so much posing, so much “come on now!” and “sing it with me!” Something seems unearned. I look back at that original live performance at the BBC and feel that we’re going backward, maybe even misunderstanding the song.
There’s more there. To find it, you have to turn the volume down. Here is a recent acoustic cover by a talented German who basically stole my retirement plan of playing hard rock songs on acoustic guitar with restrained lyrics. He adds insult to injury by adding some really good harmonic details.
Thoroughly enjoyable. He’s dialed in on both the rhythm and the lyrics, and what a great touch having the metronome click along after he finishes. He sings the lyrics expressively, without the operatic affectation of the power guys.
Bon Scott may not have been Poet Laureate but hearing the lyrics away from the big rock machine makes it easier to appreciate how concise and metrically sophisticated they are. The basic form is a series of spondaic two-beat phrases that build tension, which then releases with “it’s harder than it looks” and “playin’ in a band”. The chorus has the same character, with the tension building on “it’s a long way to the top”, and releasing with “if you want to rock and roll”. This push/pull dynamic is why playing it for pure power is a mistake - it’s loud, but it’s also poetry:
Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to a show
Stop in all the byways
Playin' rock 'n' roll
Gettin' robbed
Gettin' stoned
Gettin' beat up
Broken-boned
Gettin' had
Gettin' took
I tell you, folks
It's harder than it looks
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
If you think it's easy doin' one night stands
Try playin' in a rock roll band
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
Hotel, motel
Make you wanna cry
Ladies do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin' old
Gettin' grey
Gettin' ripped off
Underpaid
Gettin' sold
Second hand
That's how it goes
Playin' in a band
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
If you wanna be a star of stage and screen
Look out, it's rough and mean
It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll
etc.
Harder than it looks, indeed.
I very much appreciate this 2016 performance from the Singapore band Wishful Thinking, still spare but with a little more instrumental support, and a really nice vocal performance:
So there’s actually some beauty in the song. But as much as I like these dialed-down versions, we do lose some of the original’s tribalism, some of the auld Scottish warrior that inhabited Bon Scott’s body. Can you get that in an acoustic performance? These Finnish guys have a good try, anyway. They’ll take you right back to the source of this music, and there’s a raging accordion solo (bonus 360 video - try 1080s):