For Those About To Rock We Salute You (1982)
1. For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)
2. I Put the Finger on You
3. Let's Get it Up
4. Inject the Venom
5. Snowballed
6. Evil Walks
7. C.O.D.
8. Breaking the Rules
9. Night of the Long Knives
10. Spellbound
It is difficult to consider For Those About to Rock... without casting an eye over the triumphs (and tragedies) that immediately preceded it. After flirting with transatlantic recognition on Highway to Hell, and then, in what could only be described as a thunderclap of resilience, following the death of Bon Scott with the epoch-defining Back in Black, AC/DC were not merely rock gods — they were thunderbolt-wielding immortals.
And so, with platinum barely dry on their hands, the band did what all freshly anointed chart kings were expected to do in the early 80s: march back into the studio and crank out another slab of heavy glory. Enter For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) — an album that, while unashamedly massive in intent and delivery, now betrays, through the lens of hindsight, signs of strain and overextension.
The title track (and opening salvo) is the obvious centerpiece: a martial, cannons-blazing juggernaut that was built less for speakers and more for stadia. A live anthem par excellence. But here’s the rub: its power, though seismic in the right venue, loses much of its luster in the quotidian confines of headphones or car stereos. The grandeur becomes theatre, and the bombast, a touch overripe.
Much of the album follows this pattern — loaded with muscular riffs and primal energy, but lacking the lethal economy of their best work. Where Back in Black was a laser-guided strike, For Those About to Rock... often feels like shock and awe for its own sake. Tracks like Put the Finger on You and C.O.D. hint at the band’s finer instincts — the former, especially, might well have been a superior lead single. These songs retain the band’s signature stomp and swagger, but without the exhausting self-parody that begins to creep in elsewhere.
There’s a point — perhaps around Breaking the Rules — where one begins to suspect that the band had mistaken shouting for singing, and repetition for force. It is not that the songs are weak — far from it — but rather that they seem engineered less as songs and more as arena chants, designed to stir the beer-fueled faithful rather than explore any new musical terrain.
Producer Mutt Lange, who previously wrought miracles with the band’s tauter outings, seems less omnipresent here. Indeed, this album doesn’t sound like a Lange record in the classical sense. The razor-sharp precision, the tension-and-release arrangements — largely MIA. Whether this was due to overfamiliarity, fatigue, or friction is anyone’s guess. But the chemistry — or alchemy — that made Back in Black fizz and explode is no longer quite so volatile.
Closing track Spellbound is a strange triumph, and perhaps the album’s finest moment. It’s drenched in atmosphere and eschews some of the more adolescent bombast for something darker, even brooding. Had the rest of the record displayed such discipline, we might be talking about a worthy successor to Back in Black instead of a weighty, somewhat bloated follow-up.
Even the press couldn’t decide. Rolling Stone, in their infinite wisdom, declared it the band’s “best record ever.” One imagines they wrote that beneath a shower of confetti and cannon fire.
In truth, For Those About to Rock... is a fascinating but flawed document — a monument to a band caught between superstardom and self-parody, firepower and fatigue. It salutes us. We salute back. But perhaps, quietly.
Go to the Next Review
Back To Main Page