• AllMyVinyl #121
• Band: AC/DC
• Album Title: Flick of the Switch
• Release Date: 19 Aug 1983
• Date purchased: 22 Feb 2025
• Location purchased: Joseys Records
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This is an album that pretty much defines “gets better with time”.  When this was new, a lot of fans (myself included) were disappointed with this one.  The band had just had three banger albums in a row – “Highway to Hell”, “Back in Black“, & “For Those About To Rock”.  One common denominator in those three is they were all produced by Mutt Lange. The work he did with them is stellar, so for this third album in the Johnson era, the band decided to produce it themselves. It was the same lineup as the last two albums before that, just self produced.

This resulted in a more bare bones, back to basics band.  Kind of like the first couple of albums I suppose.  It’s this reason I’m sure a lot of people were turned off by it, as the Lange polish that had been there was gone.  I know myself I was disappointed in the album in general (although I did like some of the songs) when it was new.   But time changes things, and it did here.  Now I view this album as a solid slice of hard rock, and that the lack of polish is a positive not a negative.  There’s some good solid songs on here, as I’ll mention later.

My history of this album is simple.  I bought it on cassette tape when it was new, because at this point I was all about walking around with the giant boom box with me, so I was into cassettes vs vinyl.  I still bought vinyl at this point, but I was leaning towards cassettes mostly at this point.  I still have MY OG cassette of this in 2025, I’ll include a picture below.  I never got it on vinyl until VERY recently.  On Saturday the 22nd of Feb in 2025 I was in a record store not too far from my house, and they had Flick of the Switch available in the racks.  I checked out the quality (as this place lets you spin anything to make sure the quality is good), and so I went home with it.

The creation of the album had some problems.  The old “drugs and alcohol” issue raised its head here.   There were issues with Malcolm (which would raise their head far stronger when it came time to tour for the Blow Up your Video album), but Phil Rudd bore the brunt of this.  Apparently he was fired most of the way through the album’s production for these reasons, although he had completed his drum parts.  He was replaced by Simon Wright who is also known for playing with Dio, Rhino Bucket, and Geoff Tate.  Simon didn’t play on the album, but mimes in the music videos from the album, as well as the entire tour as well as the next couple of albums and tours too.  I didn’t see them on this tour, but I did on the one after this.

When I picked up this vinyl, I was excited, as it’s been awhile since I’ve listened to this album in full, and was glad to fit it into my vinyl project right away.  So enough blather..

Rising Power – I’ve used the phrase “statement song” a few times in this series, and this kind of does that.  It shows the simple pared down version of the band right away.   So much so that the simple riff that starts the song keeps going into the song past the past the vocals start.  When I was driving yesterday and I knew this was coming, I put this song on in the car.  I noticed the vocals were mixed way behind the guitar.  The guitar REALLY dominated the vocals in the version of the song that’s on Apple Music.  A long time ago I bought Flick off of iTunes music store, so that’s what I listened to.   So I got out my cassette tape (which is why it’s in the picture below), and played that.  It didn’t sound mixed that way.  Nor did the vinyl.  I wonder what’s up with the iTunes version, and why I never noticed it before. My Apple Music app says I’ve played it before ,so I wonder why I never noticed that.  Odd, but as this is a vinyl series, that’s what I’m focusing on – but I wanted to mention that.

Once I got past that spot in the song where the vocals start, I stand by what I said first = it’s a statement song in that ie shows you that it won’t be something like “For Those About to Rock”, “Back in Black” or anything like that.  This is a different sound for AC/DC, and it works – because it’s simple.  At their core, AC/DC has always been about Angus’ guitar sound.  This is a solid beat that goes through the song.  Nothing flashy, nothing super in your face, just a good solid riff from Angus driving a beat laid down by Cliff and Phil.  It’s AC/DC.

This House is on Fire – This song is similar to the first one in that it’s a mostly simple straightforward song.  However, this one is a bit more catchier in the chorus, and sounds like it has a hook that wouldn’t be out of place on the prior album.  I always enjoyed this song, I thought it could have been a single, but it wasn’t.    There’s not a ton to write about here, another good solid riff with some good singing by Brian, a great AC/DC song that often gets overlooked.

Flick of the Switch – The title track was the second single from the album, and it’s easy to see why.  It’s far catchier than the first two.  Has a pretty standard Young brothers batch of riffing.  The chorus is VERY catchy, one of the more accessible tracks on the album, IMO.  Just listening now I’m brought back to 1983 when you’d hope to see AC/DC pop up on MTV.   Even their videos were stripped down.  This was 1983 and MTV was all about big productions for music videos – the three AC/DC videos from this album are just the band standing in what I presume is a rehearsal studio playing the songs – nothing else.  This is a great mix of Angus’ guitar work with the underlying beat.  One doesn’t override the other, they’re blended together nicely.  Got me tapping my feet at my desk today.  Great track.

Nervous Shakedown – This was the third single from the album.  It starts off with a slower guitar sound.  It’s also the longest song on the album at 4:27.  There’s actually two videos for this.  One is the one that matches the other two in a rehearsal hall.  The other is a live clip.  When I first heard this song, my brain would transpose some of the lyrics from the Stones song “19th Nervous Breakdown” – don’t really know why.   Most of this is the slower beat through the whole thing.  If this were Black Sabbath, it would fit on Volume 4, I suppose.  It’s not the faster paced AC/DC riffing here.   This might not be your fav track if you’re all about things like “You Shook Me All Night Long”.  Nice change of pace track.

Landslide – Love the riffing that starts this song – feels like some other guitarist’s work, but I can’t put my finger on it.  Once the whole band kicks in, it’s my favorite thing – a 3:58 min long fast paced track.  I could see this song being used in a racing video game – it’s got that kind of feel to me.  No bloody clue what it’s about because most of the lyrics are like Kurt Cobain – I can’t understand what they’re singing. Oh, I could go look ’em up, but I prefer to take them as they come.  So because I can’t understand the lyrics (mostly), I get off on the riffing, which is good.  Love me a good fast pace riff.  This works VERY well for me.

Guns for Hire – Side 2 of the album starts off with the first single.  It also starts off with just Angus on guitar doing a different kind of intro, similar to Landslide – it’s not just the riff drop at the start – there’s a little change of pace to start.  In some ways, the opening guitar sound reminds me a LITTLE of the opening guitar sound from the track “Thunderstruck”.  I can definitely see why this was chosen as the lead single.  Very accessible track.  Good chorus, good beat, basically a really good track.  This isn’t a song where I’m gonna have a ton to say about WHY the track is a good track, but if you listen to it, you’ll get it right away.  This one works.

Deep in the Hole – Well, we’re back to the sex lyrics that AC/DC is known for.   I mean go read the lyrics.  It’s not even hiding anything.  It’s right there.  You almost don’t even need to read the lyrics, it’s right there in the title.  I mean come on Brian.  Really? :)  As for the music, it’s just kind of there.  Not my favorite song on the album.   It’s not bad as such, but it doesn’t do anything for me – part of the problem is the song title is sung more than anything else in the lyrics and it gets repetitive really quickly.

Bedlam in Belgium – This song has a familiar sounding beat to it – like I could swear I’ve heard it in some other AC/DC song.  It’s another just kind of “there” song.  Again, not bad, but nothing in this one screams out to me to latch onto it.

Badlands – This song is kind of the middle in terms of slower vs faster.  It’s got a guitar riff that’s a bit more blues based than most AC/DC riffs are, that’s a nice sound.  Love that the blues sound keeps going through the song.  I ESPECIALLY liked the guitar solo here.  It’s played on top of the beat that keeps going through that too.   Really great mix of the base song and the solo, which isnt’ your typical Angus solo.  Very nice stuff here.

Brain Shake – My favorite song on the album.  It’s 4:00 exactly, and a fast paced, blistering piece of hard rock.  AC/DC doesn’t do thrash, but this is one of the fastest songs they’ve done.  At least that’s how my brain has it filed.  It’s a faster song for sure, but listening today it’s not as fast as my brain has it remembered.  I VERY much like what Brian does with his vocal delivery for the lyrics “Toe to toe with a black widow”.  No part of this song is like the “the best riff ever”, or “the greatest solo”, or “the best drum fill”, but all of the parts put together work VERY well.   It’s the most played song from the album according to the play counts in my Apple music library.  They do sing the song title a lot once the main lyrics are over, but it doesn’t seem to bother me here like it did with “Deep in the Hole’.  Really love this song.  Great stuff.

Basically this album is way better than its reputation is.  I don’t know where it happened, but somewhere over the years it went from disappointment coming off “For Those About To Rock” to being a solid entry in their catalog.  I really enjoyed it to today – even the two tracks I wasn’t as enthused about I still enjoyed.  None of this is bad, so get it out and give it a spin.  Good stuff awaits.