Black Ice (album)

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Black Ice
Brendan O'Brien
AC/DC chronology
Stiff Upper Lip
(2000)
Black Ice
(2008)
Backtracks
(2009)
Singles from Black Ice
  1. "Rock 'n' Roll Train"
    Released: 28 August 2008
  2. "Big Jack"
    Released: 18 December 2008
  3. "Anything Goes"
    Released: 25 February 2009
  4. "Money Made"
    Released: 5 July 2009

Black Ice is the fifteenth studio album by Australian

Brendan O'Brien. It marked the band's first original recordings since Stiff Upper Lip (2000), with the eight-year gap being the longest between AC/DC's successive studio albums. Black Ice has the longest running time of any AC/DC studio album. The album was the band's final studio release to feature founding rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young, who left the band in September 2014 after being diagnosed with dementia
, and died three years later.

The album's development was delayed because bass guitarist Cliff Williams sustained an injury and the band changed labels from Elektra Records to Sony Music. The first composing sessions between guitarists/brothers Angus and Malcolm Young were in London in 2003. Recording happened during March and April 2008 at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. O'Brien tried to recapture the rock sound of the band's early work, as opposed to the blues orientation of Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip, with suggestions such as adding "soul crooning" to Brian Johnson's singing. The songs were mostly recorded live in the studio; engineer Mike Fraser used only sparse overdubs and effects to keep the tracks as close to the originals as possible.

Black Ice was released exclusively in physical formats, as the group did not sell its music digitally at the time.

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends and had shipped 6 million copies worldwide by December. Critical reviews were generally positive, praising the music and its resemblance to the classic AC/DC sound, although some critics found the work too long and inconsistent. The track "War Machine" won the Best Hard Rock Performance category at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. The album itself was nominated for many awards, including the Grammy, Brit, Juno and ARIA Music Awards; and was supported by a world tour
between 2008 and 2010.

Background and production

Black Ice is AC/DC's fifteenth studio album release in Australia and their fourteenth international release. The band took a break after finishing the Stiff Upper Lip World Tour in 2001, and resumed performing in 2003, with eight presentations that included AC/DC's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they opened three concerts for The Rolling Stones' Licks Tour.[1]: 192  During those two years, guitarists Angus Young and Malcolm Young wrote music separately, then met in a London studio to work on new songs.[2]: 2 

The production of Black Ice was delayed for several reasons. AC/DC left their label Elektra Records, signed a deal with Sony Music and changed labels within Sony from Epic Records to Columbia Records.[3][4]: 14–15 [5] Bass guitarist Cliff Williams suffered an injury to his hand in 2005 and was unable to play for 18 months.[6] While Williams was recovering, the Young brothers perfected the songs they had written.[7] Angus revealed that there was no pressure from Sony for the band to release a new album, as the label was releasing DVDs and remasters of the AC/DC catalogue, and thus the group "could afford to sit back and say we'll do another album when we think we've got all the goods."[2]: 2  In a 2004 interview, vocalist Brian Johnson said that Angus had written harder riffs than those on Stiff Upper Lip and that he would be writing song lyrics for the first time since the band's 1988 album Blow Up Your Video,[8] but his input would end up minimal, with all tracks on Black Ice credited to the Youngs. Johnson explained that the brothers had done most of the lyrical job, and his collaboration was that he "helped with melody and just filling in gaps that I thought needed filling in".[9]

While producer

Brendan O'Brien.[5] Angus said the band had considered talking to O'Brien since the 1990s, as "he seemed to us a very competent professional" and because he and the band would benefit from working with a producer they had not worked with before.[10]

On 3 March 2008, recording started at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, where Stiff Upper Lip was recorded,

reverb effects on the vocals and other instruments, and overdubs only for the lead guitar and vocals.[11]

The first title considered for the album was Runaway Train. Malcolm suggested using a photograph of the 1895 Montparnasse derailment for the cover, but reconsidered after he found that American rock band Mr. Big had used it for their album Lean Into It (1991).[14] According to Angus, Runaway Train was rejected because it had been used by many musicians, including Elton John and Eric Clapton ("Runaway Train"); and Tom Petty ("Runaway Trains"), and he "wanted something unique, new, different".[10] So he suggested Black Ice, which refers to gigs played during winter in Scotland. He said, "it rolled off the tongue" and it reminded him of "radio warnings up north of black ice."[15] Angus was inspired to write the eponymous song by a similar warning heard on his car radio during production.[10]

Composition

The AC/DC music that I remember most is Highway to Hell and Back in Black, which I view as pop songs done in a very heavy ferocious way. Angus and Malcolm were writing songs that had a lot of hooks and my only job was to make a record that made people say, "I've missed AC/DC, and I'm glad they're back."

— Brendan O'Brien[5]

With Black Ice, Brendan O'Brien tried to recapture the rock sound of AC/DC's early work on albums such as

hi-hat cymbal. Both musicians expressed contentment with their roles in the band; Rudd said, "I'm not repressing skills. Most drummers are scared to try this", and Williams admitted he plays "the same thing in every song, for the most part", but added "in AC/DC's music, the song is more important than any individual's bit in it".[18]

Angus said that when composing with Malcolm they share ideas to make each track "work together" to form a complete album,[20] and Johnson added "these songs belong together. It's about five boys having a damn good time in a studio."[21] With 15 songs and a running time of over 55 minutes,[17] Black Ice has the longest running time of any AC/DC studio record.[22] Malcolm said that "about 60 or 70 song ideas" were developed.[12] Angus said that the first attempt to sequence the album resulted in a track list comprising eleven songs, "but as the days went by each band member voted for a new track, and then another, and other one" so they decided to include all the recorded tracks.[10]

Most of the album's tracks are about rock and roll itself–Angus stated, "Certain songs just seem to come to life when you add that phrase". However, other themes served as inspiration. "Money Made" is a criticism on how, according to Angus, in the US "everything is money these days".[2]: 4  "War Machine" was based on a documentary on Hannibal, which led to the conclusion that the military has not changed since Ancient Rome.[2]: 5 [23] "Wheels" tells about Johnson's passion for motorcars.[23] He described the album's release as the "best one we've done", he felt that while Back in Black was great for its time, Black Ice shows the band's versatility.[3] Angus also said he admired the album's diversity, saying "It is sufficiently varied to please people in varied moods".[10]

Release and promotion

On 18 August 2008, Columbia Records announced that Black Ice would be released on 20 October in the US, and began accepting pre-orders.

WrestleMania XXV.[34]

The CD version was also available in a hardcover, deluxe edition with a 30-page booklet containing exclusive new illustrations, studio and live photographs of the group and lyrics.

Gibson guitar pick, was issued in Germany and the United Kingdom in December.[36][37] The album was released as a double LP on two 180-gram discs in a gatefold package featuring the standard red lettering artwork on the front. The LP was sold through the official website and through independent record shops in the US.[38] An unknown number of copies of the vinyl version were incorrectly pressed; side 1B had tracks from The Clash's Live at Shea Stadium.[27] Black Ice was not issued digitally as the band refused to sell their tracks separately. Angus declared, "If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album – and we don't think that represents us musically."[39] However, the entire album was leaked online a week before the official release.[40] Rumours spread that Sony Music tried to control leaks by releasing fake tracks on peer-to-peer websites.[41]

Inside a supermarket, boxes of the video game Rock Band, a display with music CDs, and a display with the AC/DC logo atop it, featuring shirts, CDs and the Rock Band instruments.
Wal-Mart created special stands in their shops to promote AC/DC's Black Ice in North America.

In North America,

AC/DC Live: Rock Band, and products from sponsors.[43][44] Gary Severson, a Wal-Mart senior vice president, said that AC/DC was one of the rare artists whose loyal fan-base allowed them to display other merchandise along with the music.[45] In October, MTV, Wal-Mart and Columbia created "AC/DC Rock Band Stores" in cities without regular Wal-Mart retail locations–New York's Times Square and Los Angeles. "Black Ice" trucks were dispatched on the streets of these cities after the release, playing tracks and making stops each day to sell merchandise.[46][47] Advertising agency Arnold Worldwide was awarded both Best Activity Generating Brand Volume by the Marketing Agencies Association,[47] and Best Retail/Co-Marketing Campaign by Promo Magazine for Black Ice's marketing campaign.[44]

A digital version of Black Ice was made available on iTunes, along with the rest of AC/DC's catalogue, on 19 November 2012.[48]

Tour

Distant shot of a concert stage. An arch with spotlights stands above a life-size locomotive and two big screens which display the male singer in left profile. Below and in front of the locomotive is musical equipment and four band members. At extreme left is a male playing guitar, he wears a school boy's uniform. Central stage has two guitarists with a drummer and his kit between them. Front stage has a catwalk with the singer turned to his left profile, he is cradling the microphone in his right hand and has his left fist near his face. He wears a cap, dark singlet and jeans.
AC/DC on-stage, Black Ice World Tour, Madrid, Spain, 5 June 2009

To promote Black Ice, AC/DC launched the Black Ice World Tour on 28 October 2008 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.[49] Two days earlier, they had held a dress rehearsal in the same city. The tour lasted for 168 shows in 11 legs, with the last in Bilbao, Spain, on 28 June 2010.[50]

Mark Fisher, who had worked on the Stiff Upper Lip World Tour, designed the stage. The set's centrepiece was a full size locomotive, weighing 3500 kg, that was inspired by the working title Runaway Train and the track "Rock 'n' Roll Train".[51] Five songs from Black Ice were included on the tour's set list; "Rock 'n' Roll Train", "Big Jack", "Black Ice", "War Machine", and "Anything Goes".[52]

The Black Ice World Tour was AC/DC's most successful, grossing $441.6 million, making it the

River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires were released as the DVD Live at River Plate on 10 May 2011.[55]

Packaging

The cover art of Black Ice was drawn by Joshua Marc Levy, art director for Columbia and a longtime fan of the band who volunteered for the project among "many people at Sony who desired to work on it".[14] There are four different covers; the standard edition has a red logo, the deluxe edition has a blue logo, and two variants to the regular design include yellow or white logos.[56] Angus said the options were not to deliver the message that fans would need to purchase all covers. He said, "We know most people will only purchase the record once, in their colour of choice. For me, it's not relevant. What matters is that fans enjoy it. Music is the essence."[10]

After working with the cover for the album, provisionally titled Runaway Train, Levy went on vacation and travelled with Pearl Jam on their 2008 tour. After a concert in Washington D.C., Levy came up with the idea "to do it all graphic black on black" and sketched what would become the yellow artwork. The record company liked it and requested he do two more in the same style, which became the red and white versions. During the promotional photography sessions, Levy made the deluxe edition art. The tracks on the album did not have much influence on the artwork as Levy had heard "maybe 5 songs at that point", but he found it curious that his artwork fit the title track "Black Ice", which was not among the tracks he had heard.[14][57] Levy said that since the album had many similarities with Back in Black – "Black" in the title, dark covers, and AC/DC resurfacing with a sound based on the band's early work – the art was "like a time travel, which is why there are so many psychedelic drawings".[14] The artwork's resemblance to a train, echoing lead single "Rock N' Roll Train", was a coincidence, given Levy "never thought of it that way". Atop the image there is a cog with an image of Angus with his fist in the air resembling the statue on Stiff Upper Lip, because Levy "just thought it was great as a continuing icon."[57] The photographs for the booklet and promotional photography were taken by music photographer Guido Karp,[58] in August 2008 in London.[59]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Village Voice
[69]

Critical reviews of Black Ice were generally favourable according to Metacritic, which provided a normalised rating of 69 out of 100 based on 24 reviews from mainstream critics.[60] Most reviewers complimented the album's sound, with The Village Voice's Richard Bienstock considering that Brendan O'Brien's production restored a sonority closer to the Vanda and Young produced 1970s albums and effective choruses like those with "Mutt" Lange,[69] and Aaron Burgess of The A.V. Club finding Black Ice the most inspired AC/DC album since The Razors Edge while sounding "harder, hungrier, and more relevant than anything on contemporary radio."[62]

"There's a sense of purpose to this new album that far outstrips its predecessor, Stiff Upper Lip," wrote Paul Eliott in a 7/10 review for

the one after Back in Black."[70]

A common argument was that Black Ice succeeded because AC/DC did not want to change the style that succeeded in previous albums. Bernard Zuel of The Sydney Morning Herald declared that "almost all of [the tracklist] could have appeared on any AC/DC album of the past 28 years".[71] Chris Jones of the BBC said the band's "almost platonic form of rock 'n' boogie that was hand built to last" remains because they "have no reason to tinker with a formula that was well-nigh perfect to begin with".[72] Writers such as Spin's David Marchese and The Observer's Peter Kimpton complimented the band's attempts at "some new sonic tricks", such as the slide guitar of "Stormy May Day" and the quieter "Decibel".[66][68]

However, some reviewers found the album inconsistent, overly long or formulaic. Black Ice was described as a retread of other AC/DC albums without the same inspiration, with Spence D. of IGN declaring that "the band sounds tight, but very few of the songs actually resonate with that sense of classicism found on much of their earlier efforts",[65] The Austin Chronicle's Austin Powell feeling that despite "a few cheap thrills" the album lacked "the urgent indecency and iron force that defined the Bon Scott era",[73] and AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine considering that after "Big Jack" the tracks went into a "too-comfortable groove, fueled by too-tight rhythms and guitars that sound loud but not beefy".[61] Many complained about the lack of variation, made more flagrant by the long track list. Entertainment Weekly's reviewer Clark Collis wrote that "even 2000's fairly monochromatic Stiff Upper Lip had more varied material",[63] Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone felt that Black Ice "feels longer than its 55 minutes, thanks to a stretch of throwaway rockers",[17] and Robert Forster of The Monthly thought that a shorter running time would "maximise the album's impact", given he found the first four songs and the title track the best for sounding more diverse, while the other tracks were let down by poor songwriting and a "numbing predictability".[22]

Commercial performance

Black Ice made history by debuting at number one on album charts of 29 countries, and is Columbia Records' biggest debut album since

sales certifications in 24 countries, with multi-platinum status in eight, platinum in twelve more, and gold in the four remaining.[76]

On the first day of its US release, 20 October 2008, Black Ice sold over 193,000 units.[77] By 28 October, Black Ice debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 albums chart, selling over 784,000 copies in its first week, the second highest one-week sales of an album in the US of 2008, behind Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III.[78] It was AC/DC's second release to top the US charts, after For Those About to Rock We Salute You (1981)[78] and became the biggest debut ever by a mainstream hard rock album.[74][79] As of 31 December 2008, the album had sold 1.915 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan,[80] and was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.[81] Black Ice also debuted at number one on the ARIA Album Charts, selling over 90,000 units,[82] and the UK Album charts, with 110,000 copies sold.[83] It was their first number one in the UK since Back in Black (1980).[84] In Canada, Black Ice debuted at number one and sold 119,000 copies in its first week, making it the best-selling album debut in Canada in 2008.[85] The album held the top spot in Canada for three consecutive weeks, with sales of over 200,000 copies.[86][87] In Germany, Black Ice became the 14th best-selling album of the 2000s, with sales of 1 million copies and being certified 5 times platinum.[88]

Black Ice was ranked 41st on Rolling Stone's Top 50 Albums of 2008 list,

APRA Awards of 2010 Angus and Malcolm won Songwriters of the Year, and "Rock 'n' Roll Train" won Most Played Australian Work Overseas.[99]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Angus Young and Malcolm Young.[100]

Black Ice track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Rock 'n' Roll Train"4:21
2."Skies on Fire"3:34
3."Big Jack"3:57
4."Anything Goes"3:22
5."War Machine"3:09
6."Smash 'n' Grab"4:06
7."Spoilin' for a Fight"3:17
8."Wheels"3:28
9."Decibel"3:34
10."Stormy May Day"3:10
11."She Likes Rock 'n' Roll"3:53
12."Money Made"4:15
13."Rock 'n' Roll Dream"4:41
14."Rocking All the Way"3:22
15."Black Ice"3:25
Total length:55:38

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[100]

AC/DC

Production

  • Brendan O'Brien – production
  • Mike Fraserengineering, mixing
  • Eric Mosher – engineering assistance
  • Billy Bowers – additional engineering
  • Richard Jones – equipment technician
  • Geoff Banks – equipment technician
  • Rick St. Pierre – equipment technician
  • George Marino – mastering
  • Alvin Handwerker (Prager and Fenton LLP) – management
  • Guido Karp – photography
  • Joshua Marc Levy – art direction, design, illustrations (containing vector graphics by You Work For Them, LLC)

Charts

Certifications and sales

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Argentina (CAPIF)[174] 2× Platinum 80,000^
Australia (ARIA)[175] 5× Platinum 350,000^
Austria (IFPI Austria)[176] 3× Platinum 60,000*
Belgium (BEA)[177] 2× Platinum 60,000*
Brazil (Pro-Música Brasil)[178] 2× Platinum 120,000
Canada (Music Canada)[180] 5× Platinum 341,000[179]
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[181] 4× Platinum 80,000
Finland (Musiikkituottajat)[182] 2× Platinum 49,660[182]
France (
SNEP)[183]
2× Platinum 400,000*
Germany (BVMI)[184] 5× Platinum 1,000,000^
Greece (IFPI Greece)[185] Platinum 15,000^
Hungary (MAHASZ)[186] 2× Platinum 12,000^
Ireland (IRMA)[187] 2× Platinum 30,000^
Italy
2008 sales
150,000[188]
Italy (FIMI)[189]
sales since 2009
Gold 30,000*
Japan 54,064[190]
Netherlands (NVPI)[191] Platinum 60,000^
New Zealand (RMNZ)[192] 2× Platinum 30,000^
Poland (ZPAV)[193] Platinum 20,000*
Portugal (AFP)[194] Gold 10,000^
Russia (
NFPF)[195]
Platinum 20,000*
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[196] Platinum 80,000^
Sweden (GLF)[197] 2× Platinum 80,000^
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[198] 4× Platinum 120,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[199] Platinum 300,000^
United States (RIAA)[200] 2× Platinum 2,000,000^
Summaries
Europe (IFPI)[201] 2× Platinum 2,000,000*

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Release dates and formats for Black Ice
Country Date Format Label Ref.
Europe 17 October 2008
  • double LP
Columbia [202]
Australia 18 October 2008 CD Albert [38]
United Kingdom 20 October 2008
  • CD
  • double LP
Columbia [203][204]
United States
Japan 22 October 2008 CD Sony Japan [205]
United Kingdom 1 December 2008 CD (limited edition steel-box) Columbia [37]
Germany 5 December 2008 [206]
Various 19 November 2012 Digital download (iTunes exclusive) [48]

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