Stiff Upper Lip (2000)
1. Stiff Upper Lip
2. Meltdown
3. House of Jazz
4. Hold Me Back
5. Safe in New York City
6. Can't Stand Still
7. Can't Stop Rock and Roll
8. Satellite Blues
9. Damned
10.Come and Get It
11.All Screwed Up
12.Give It Up
It had been five long years since Ballbreaker when Stiff Upper Lip hit the shelves, and if the gaps between AC/DC records had been gradually widening, it wasn’t for nothing. The raw energy that had once sounded like it could punch through brick was mellowing—not vanishing, just growing older, heavier, more lived-in. By now, the lads weren’t raucous young punks storming clubs—they were rock veterans, bruised, battered, but unbowed. And with Stiff Upper Lip, they proved that they weren’t done yet. Far from it.
Back behind the controls was George Young—older brother to Angus and Malcolm and, more importantly, the man who understood their sonic DNA better than anyone. His touch here is unmistakable: lean, tough, stripped back. The production doesn’t showboat, it snarls—like a dog baring its teeth, not barking. It’s bluesier than most, moodier than many, and under George’s watchful eye, they’ve delivered what might just be their most coherent record since Blow Up Your Video—his last go at the helm in ‘88.
The title track, Stiff Upper Lip, kicks the door in with a low-slung groove that owes more to 'Tres Hombres' than Back in Black. For a moment, you think Billy Gibbons has hijacked the session, as Brian Johnson drops into a smoky lower register you hardly knew he had. But no—soon enough, the screech is back, and all is right in the AC/DC universe.
There’s no pretending this is uncharted territory—AC/DC don’t reinvent wheels; they roll them downhill at full speed. What sets this record apart is the way it feels: Safe in New York City has taken on a whole new eeriness since 2001, but even without hindsight it was a track full of tension and steel. Satellite Blues is a blast of pure rock’n’roll euphoria, as raucous and reckless as anything they laid down in their prime.
At 12 tracks and 48 minutes, it walks the line between feast and overindulgence. A touch of the razor in the editing room might have helped—All Screwed Up and Hold Me Back don’t quite hold their own and sag under the weight of their predecessors. But this is a minor gripe. You don’t come to AC/DC for delicate curations or thematic precision—you come for the thunder.
And thunder they still bring.
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