Let There Be Rock (1977)
1. Go Down
2. Dog Eat Dog
3. Let There Be Rock
4. Bad Boy Boogie
5. Problem Child
6. Overdose
7. Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be
8. Whole Lotta Rosie
It was with Let There Be Rock that AC/DC ceased being a promising barroom brawler and became a full-fledged heavyweight contender in the rock pantheon. Their third album, released in 1977, was a thunderous, full-throttle declaration of intent: stripped-back, raw, and gloriously loud. While the band had not yet conquered the world, the fuse was most certainly lit.
The opening salvo—Go Down, Dog Eat Dog, and the immortal title track—is as potent a triple threat as any in their catalogue. Go Down is unrepentant blues sleaze, Bon Scott snarling through the verses like a man with nothing to lose. Dog Eat Dog refines their working-class nihilism into three minutes of street-brawling groove. But it's Let There Be Rock—an overdriven sermon in praise of the holy trinity of Chuck Berry, electricity, and volume—that properly defines the album. Scott's biblical roll-call of rock's birth is matched only by Angus Young's incendiary solos, which are little short of Pentecostal.
The album does sag slightly at the midpoint, though not fatally. Bad Boy Boogie, while anchored in a deliciously scuzzy riff, overstays its welcome and never quite justifies its swagger. Worse is the reappearance of Problem Child—a retread from Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, puzzlingly included on this release with minimal edits. It remains a serviceable rocker, but its inclusion here feels like filler—a rare misstep in sequencing.
Side Two rescues the momentum with gusto. Overdose oozes menace, its lead riff slithering like a live wire under Bon Scott’s leering vocal. Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be finds the band flirting with theology and double entendre with equal abandon. And then, to close, the monolithic Whole Lotta Rosie—a track so definitive, so primal in its power, that it effectively renders most of their contemporaries irrelevant. Equal parts tribute and detonation, it’s hard not to hear echoes of Led Zeppelin, but AC/DC push it further, faster, and louder. It’s a performance of volcanic confidence.
Let There Be Rock was not AC/DC’s commercial breakthrough, but artistically it may be their true beginning. It’s rough, unfiltered, and free of frills—yet its clarity of purpose is unmistakable. This is rock 'n’ roll in its rawest, most elemental form. The band may have made tighter records, but none that hit harder or rang truer. With this release, AC/DC didn’t just let there be rock—they insisted on it.
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