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Powerage by Released5 May 1978RecordedJanuary–March 1978 at Albert Studios in , Australia, Length39:43,  chronology
(1977)Powerage
(1978)
(1978) from Powerage ""
Released: June 1978

Powerage is the fifth studio album by Australian  band . It was the band's fourth internationally released studio album and the fifth to be released in Australia. It was also the first AC/DC album to feature  on bass. All songs were written by ,  and . Powerage was re-released in 2003 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series.

Background

After a 12-date European tour opening for  in April, bassist  was fired from AC/DC on 3 May 1977. In the AC/DC memoir AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, former manager Michael Browning states, "I got a call one day from Malcolm and Angus. We were in London, I went to their apartment and they told me they wanted to get rid of Mark. Him and Angus didn't see eye to eye. They used to have a sort of tit-for-tat thing going, but nothing that I would have ever thought was going to be gig-threatening." According to Browning, the Young brothers were seriously considering  of  fame until Browning, who feared Pattenden was too old and did not fit their image, pushed Englishman Cliff Williams, who had played with  and . Williams, who could also sing background vocals, passed the audition and would go on to record on Powerage, although Evans insists that the album also has bass by him, as the Powerage songs started being done during the recording of his last album , and producer  while Williams was having trouble getting his . In a 2011 interview with Joe Bosso that appears on , Evans reflected on his ousting from the group:

With Angus and Malcolm, they were put on this earth to form AC/DC. They're committed big-time. And if they feel your commitment is anything less than theirs, well, that's a problem. Angus was intense. He was AC/DC 100 percent. His work ethic was unbelievable. When I was with him, he expected everybody to be just like him, which is pretty impossible...At the time, Malcolm said something about them wanting a bass player who could sing, but I think that was a smokescreen. I don't know if there was any one reason. It's just the way it went down. I felt the distance growing between me and Angus and Malcolm. When I was fired, it wasn't so much a surprise as it was a shock. There was a lot of tension in the band at the time. We'd just been kicked off a Black Sabbath tour, and this was right when a trip to the States was cancelled because the record company rejected the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album. So it was a hard period.

The band finally toured America for the first time in the summer of 1977, focusing on smaller markets at first but eventually playing  in New York City and the  in . In December they played a set in front of a small audience at  in  which was broadcast live over Radio WIOQ in  and hosted by Ed Sciaky. The promotional album,  would be released on the 1997  box set. In early 1978, the band returned to  to record their next album.

Recording and composition

According to the Murray Engleheart book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, several songs that wound up on Powerage were started in July 1977 during the band's first rehearsals with Williams at , including "Kicked in the Teeth", "Up to My Neck in You", an early version of "Touch Too Much", and possibly "Riff Raff". The Powerage sessions officially got going in January 1978 and stretched over a period of about eight weeks. Although the album features the same ferocity and live feel that had characterized the band's previous LP Let There Be Rock,  executives in the United States complained that the album did not contain a radio-friendly single. With the first pressings of Powerage ready to go in the UK, the band complied and recorded "". The song, which features handclaps and maracas and does not have a traditional guitar solo, was released in Britain at the end of May and went to #24, the best performance yet by an AC/DC single. However, Powerage would be the final Bon Scott-era studio album the band would record with the team of  and George Young, who had produced all of the band's albums up to that point (George is the older brother of Angus and Malcolm and enjoyed his own pop success with the  in the 1960s), the feeling from Atlantic being that a more commercial producer might do wonders for the band's profile in the lucrative American market.

Although Powerage might be the band's least successful internationally released album from the Bon Scott era, the LP is highly respected -  guitarist  has stated that Powerage is his favorite  record - and remained a favorite of Malcolm Young, who is quoted in AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll: "I know a lot of people respect it. A lot of real rock and roll AC/DC fans, the real pure rock and roll guys. I think that's the most under-rated album of them all." Another often overlooked aspect of the record is the high quality of Bon Scott's lyrics, with biographer Clinton Walker writing in his 1994 Scott memoir Highway to Hell, "'Gimme a Bullet' was perhaps Bon's most accomplished piece of writing to date, in which his penchant for hardcase metaphors finds even more genuine pathos and humour than it had before." "What's Next to the Moon", with its allusions to  and , as well as the elusive "Gone Shootin'" and the unapologetic "Down Payment Blues" ("I know I ain't doin' much, but doin' nothin' means a lot to me"), clearly show that Scott's writing, much like the band's sound, had evolved from the novelties of the group's early albums. "Bon was a street poet – he described it as 'toilet wall' poetry," former AC/DC manager Michael Browning explained to Peter Watts of  in 2013. "That was unknown. They signed a singer and got a lyricist, as well." "Sin City", which the band would perform frequently in concert, explores the seductive charms and dangers of , while "Kicked in the Teeth" addresses a two-faced woman with "two-faced lies". Musically, Powerage contains some of the band's fiercest rockers, including "Down Payment Blues", "Riff Raff," "Kicked in the Teeth", and "Up to My Neck in You", and, as with previous albums, the songs were recorded as live as possible (on "Up to My Neck in You", Angus Young can clearly be heard changing from rhythm to lead for his guitar solo). In an interview with Bass Frontiers, Cliff Williams recalls the sessions fondly: "The guys had already been in the studio for a while and we went in to do what turned out to be the Poweragealbum. Great work environment. Albert Studios there in Sydney was a great little rock and roll room...Great producers. Obviously a lot of chemistry there being brothers. Just a real fiery, energetic work environment. And we had about three weeks to do it, 'cause that's about all the money we had...It was really a tremendous experience."

Releases

Many of AC/DC's early albums were altered for release in other markets, and this practice continued with Powerage, although it was the first LP to be released nearly simultaneously in both Australian and international markets and the first to use just one cover image for both. However, the first UK pressing also includes different mixes than all later versions, most noticeably on "Down Payment Blues" (which excludes the bluesy coda heard on later pressings), "Kicked In The Teeth" (the opening chord was omitted on all other pressings but is present on the UK vinyl version) and "What's Next to the Moon" (which omits solos and backing vocals heard on later pressings). The European vinyl edition (specifically, the first UK pressing of the LP) included "Cold Hearted Man", a song that was not previously released, and would not be released on any other AC/DC album until 2009's  boxed set. The song became more widely available through the boxed set of Bon Scott-era   in 1981. The song was packaged on a single-sided in the 1987 boxed set. In some territories, Powerage omitted "" due to a rushed job in getting the LP to pressing plants in time for the release date, hence "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" (which was not yet completed) was omitted, "Cold Hearted Man" was added, and the rushed mixes are different from the 'finished' mixes that were thereafter used.

Reception Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingfavorable

Powerage was originally released on 5 May 1978 on  and reached No. 133 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart in the US, eventually going platinum.  gives Powerage a rating of three and a half out of five stars, stating that while "it is the most uneven of" AC/DC's 1970s material, the album still contained a "few genuine classics", specifically mentioning "Down Payment Blues" and "Up to My Neck in You". Edwin Faust of  considers Powerage "AC/DC’s best album...because it isn’t simply about sex, drinking and tongue-in-cheek Satanism", but shows a band "growing up". In 1994, Bon Scott biographer Clinton Walker opined in his book Highway to Hell that "altogether, Powerage just seemed to lack the uncompromising coherence and relentless body and soul that was its predecessor's greatness." Band biographer Jesse Fink cites the album as containing "their best ever collection of songs" and deems it "a high point creatively for the three Youngs, an album arguably superior to the commercially successful  circuitbreakers that followed, Highway to Helland Back in Black."

In 2005, Powerage was ranked number 325 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.  magazine listed the album at No. 26 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time".

Track listing

All tracks written by ,  and .

No.TitleLength1.""3:372."Down Payment Blues"6:033."Gimme a Bullet"3:214."Riff Raff"5:115."Sin City"4:456."What's Next to the Moon"3:317."Gone Shootin'"5:058."Up to My Neck in You"4:139."Kicked in the Teeth"4:03