Customer Reviews

Why AC/DC Matters

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basically this is the ultimate fan love poem,its like if your teacher said give me 100,000 words on why you love ac/dc and its great,almost to the point where i reccomend it to haters more than fans for the simple fact that it does so beautifully just what it says, it explains why ac/dc matters.it examines every character first the young brothers, then the lead singers, then the rhythem section and it explains how they work together to create the best band in the world with spectacular live shows and one of the greatest fan bases in the world.

this doesn't contain any new info for fans,but it is a nice read for the person who loves all things ac/dc and those curious people who want to know what all the fuss is about some old rockers who always play the same three chords.

I will preface this by saying I do love AC/DC, have always been a fan, have seen them a number of times in concert, etc. I probably would never have bought this book, as I already think AC/DC is arguably the best rock n' roll band, but I won it in a contest so it was cool to read it for free. In any case, while I do agree with Bozza's whole argument that despite what the music "critics" seem to think, AC/DC is an important band, I am not sure whether it was worthy of a book, even one as compact as this. He makes some good points about why what they do is unique for its' simplicity and power, and obviously the whole series of events leading up to 'Back In Black' [and it's subsequent success] speak for themselves. But, providing a good overview on the bands' history does not equate with a justification of why they matter.

Overall, I am not sure who this was written for exactly, except perhaps Bozza himself. For someone who already likes AC/DC, there is really nothing new here. For someone who doesn't particularly like them, or even dislikes them, I doubt they would even pick it up in the first place. And honestly, reading a book about a band is not going to suddenly make you respect or even like that band: I could read that Nickleback has incredible similarities to Beethoven, but I will still think they suck [sorry to any Nickleback fans, but they do... ;) ]. At the end of the day, I think this would have made a much better magazine article than a book - and likely gotten to a wider audience.

But, really, if there's any doubt and if you want to know why AC/DC matter, just get a copy of 'Highway To Hell' and 'Back In Black'. If that doesn't do it for you, then you're clearly never going to be convinced.

At first I found this small little book to be refreshing that it was written by a fan of AC/DC who wasn't just collaborating a bunch of old articles written about AC/DC over the years, nor did he make up mythical B.S like Malcolm Dome-head's buck teeth bobbing around like he knows what he's talking about or Clinton DorkWalker in what should have been called "How I suspect the Young's killed Bon Scott". I did find a little bit of information about the band and it's members that I did not know about, and was pleasantly surprised that it had chapters dedicated to each member of the band, and not just 90% written about Bon Scott.

However, the authors choice of overkill in word structure had me rolling my eyes as he used unnecessary wordings to construct pretty much every paragraph. It's not that I don't understand the big grown up words, it's more I got the feeling he used them so much to make such short writings seem longer by typing up a sentence that you would not hear someone say to you in your average conversation. I think it's the fact that it's explained by the author a billion times in this book that AC/DC's simplicity is a key factor to their success. He should try to implement some of that advice into his own sentence structure and understand that constantly using fancier words, and repeating the same thing over and over again is not needed to get your points across.

I also found some of the writings about the band have not been proof read very well, such times and dates are incorrect and I feel the name Bon Scott and Brian Johnson where mixed up with each other in certain areas of this book. I also was a little put off by so many mentions/quotes by some professor of music, who I don't know if the author put into his own words or not, but dribbled on and on about the same things as much as the author did. You don't need to refer to something as "a vast majority of leaflet filled chirography, forming a diverse advertorial, for today's modern day society patrons learning pleasures" when all you need to say is "it's a book." - It's a book for fans to read, not a presidential speech for F sakes.

Apart from the "nonsensical" sentence structures, it's not a bad read for the price. Just keep in mind that it's a tiny book and a quick read, and if you do read it, you will see what i mean when I say it's a small read, that has been stretched out with a fair amount of overkill to make it seem less shorter then it really is, and should have been.

I grew up in the 80s listening to Queen, Blondie, Michael Jackson, Human League, and everything else that was played on MTV. I grew up in Marin County where AC/DC was very popular at my school (Sir Francis Drake). But I never listened to AC/DC. So when I came across this book I thought I'd find out what I missed.

What I got from the book is that AC/DC plays simple chords very well and they've been doing it for a long time without changing their style. The author tells us this over and over. I also listened to several of their CDs with both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson as lead vocalists.

I don't want to turn this into a review of my opinion of AC/DC. I will say the author did a good job of interviewing music professors, teachers, and notable musicians for the book. It was presented in easy to follow chapters. This book presents some background stories which I found entertaining.

Overall I think the author did a good job. I enjoyed reading the book. In the end I still don't feel I really know why AC/DC matters. I like their music, especially the Bon Scott era. They've sold a lot of albums and been around a long time which is quite a feat I agree, but I guess it really comes down to opinions. The author really likes AC/DC and wants to share his feelings with the reader. I've never seen them live so maybe if I did that would convince me that they matter.

What puts this books above mere worship for the YOung Brothers, is on single passagem when the author admits that most of their work in the eighties ("FLy On The Wall" and "Blow Up YOur Video", mainly, was a creative low for the band. Also, there are some comments by specialists talking about how Brian Johnson's voice is really damaged and that Bon' voice had a lot more more diversity, without taking any credit away from Johnson. I made a particular comment about that because, BACK IN BLACK and FOR THOSE apart, I can't understand how some people cannot perceive that Scott was a much, much, much better singer than Johnson, even before Johnson exploded his vocal chords by singing always above his range since his first record in AC/DC.

There are some interesting comment on the book, and in genearl is a plesant reading, but it's not at all undispensable.