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“just Power sounded Up very powerful. Simple. Direct. Or you could go the other way and say it’s very Frankenstein, you know. Almost like
creatinga monster”
As it turns out, Young has indeed spent a fair amount of time these last few years “tucked away somewhere in a room and putting together ideas and songs.” Which is how we’ve wound up, rather unexpectedly but certainly quite happily, with Power Up, AC/DC’s 16th (or, if we’re counting in Australian, 17th) full-length effort.
As for what makes it unexpected?
For starters, the band recorded it under a complete media blackout — traditional, social or otherwise. Aside from a few rumors — kicked off by surreptitious photos that surfaced in 2018 of various band members, coffee cups in hand, trolling alleyways around Vancouver’s Warehouse Studio, where they’ve recorded their last few efforts — things have been radio silent in the AC/ DC camp for several years.
More significantly, of course, there’s the fact that since the end of the Rock or Bust world tour there has been the looming question of just who, or even what, AC/DC is anymore.
The tour itself was, like every AC/DC jaunt for decades now, a massive success — and maybe their most massive yet. It kicked off with a headlining stint in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 at, of all places, Coachella, and then over the next year-and-a-half proceeded to sell out arenas and stadiums from Brisbane to Buffalo, racking up ticket sales of more than $200 million in the process.
Internally, however, things weren’t running so smoothly. AC/DC is not a band immune to trial and tragedy — the death of inimitable front man Bon Scott in 1980, and the band’s subsequent resurrection with , is a permanent part of rock lore — but even by their standards the era was exceedingly challenging. It began with the pronouncement that the band’s co-founder, stalwart rhythm guitar player and, in many ways, musical and ideological rock, but his parts on the recording, as well as his spot on the stage, were assumed by his and Angus’ nephew, Stevie Young. Malcolm passed away in November 2017 at age 64; just three weeks earlier, he and Angus’ older brother, George, who had helped guide AC/DC to success, as well as co-produced several of their albums from their 1975 debut, , to 2000’s , died at age 70.
