Finally (finally!) the peerless music of AC/DC is on Spotify. That means 40 years of minimalist metal crunch and sky-high demon wails (courtesy of the late Bon Scott and Brian Johnson) is now available for your soon-to-be-bleeding ears.
For those who may not know, there’s far more to AC/DC than Black In Black. Unlike a number of classic rock acts, AC/DC made legitimately solid albums. If you explore beyond radio hits like “Highway to Hell,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “Moneytalks,” you’ll find a trove of hard-rock gems waiting to be unleashed.
See AC/DC’s Albums Ranked From Highest to Lowest Charting on Billboard 200
To get you started, here are 7 lesser-known AC/DC gems you should listen to right now. For those about to stream, we salute you.
7. “Sink the Pink”
Despite its just-plain-icky title (seriously, is this a song from Spinal Tap?), “Sink the Pink” is one of the band’s best ’80s songs not on the Back in Black album. It comes from the first real dud LP in their catalog, 1985’s Fly on the Wall, which explains why few people know it.
6. “Chase the Ace”
Unless you’re a massive fan of the so-bad-it’s-unbelievably good 1986 film Maximum Overdrive (directed by Stephen King, starring the voice of Lisa Simpson and featuring homicidal semitrucks as the antagonist), you probably don’t know this instrumental AC/DC jam. Which is a shame — it’s a reminder their guitars can screech as effectively as their vocals.
5. “School Days”
Like the Beatles, Stones, et al., AC/DC paid tribute to the incalculably influential rock pioneer Chuck Berry by means of a cover on their Australia-only second album T.N.T. Thanks to its inclusion on the Bonfire Box compilation, you can experience the rare AC/DC track that finds Bon Scott sounding gleeful (as opposed to possessed).
4. “Spellbound”
For Those About to Rock We Salute You was a commercial letdown (though it did hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200) compared to Back In Black, but hey, it’s hard to follow-up one of the planet’s best-selling albums of all-time. The final track on that album is what the band does best: Start with a chugging, muscle-y riff and work it over and over until it threatens to explode.
3. “Riff Raff” (live)
Boasting the rare AC/DC double entendre that doesn’t pertain to sex, this Powerage rocker features one of their most fiery riffs and some unstoppable drumming from Phil Rudd. As great as the studio version is, it’s the live version from If You Want Blood You’ve Got It that’s truly incendiary.
2. “Ride On”
Bon Scott vows to change his “evil ways one of these days” with a sly wink on this rare laid-back, bluesy number from AC/DC. But even as the band rides a cool, self-assured groove, their guitars crackle with explosive energy.
1. “Baby, Please Don’t Go”
Originally released as a blues song in 1935, the tune found got a second life when it became a ’60s garage rock standard (the best-known version comes from Van Morrison’s group Them). On their Aussie-only debut LP High Voltage (different from the U.S. High Voltage album from 1976), AC/DC cover it faithfully for the first 2 minutes before embarking on a pile-driving deconstruction of the tune that’s more Zep than AC/DC. As it made its first U.S. appearance on the mostly forgotten ’74 Jailbreak EP in 1984, this remains a little-known masterpiece from one of the world’s biggest bands.