AC/DC

Band: AC/DC

Albums I Own: Highway to Hell (incomplete, 1979), Back In Black (incomplete, 1980)

Hunted Album: Back In Black

AC/DC on Pandora

It doesn't get much better than filthy, grungy, distorted, drunk-as-shit rock 'n' roll. It's the brand of music AC/DC practically invented and has proceeded to infect the world with for over 35 years.

In that time, the Aussie foursome has released over 15 albums, weathered a lead singer's death (Bon Scott in 1980), been inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and seen their iconic logo plastered on everything from t-shirts to leather thongs--all on the strength of guitarist Angus Young's dirty-assed, shorts-and-tie-clad fingerplay.

One caveat to this "album:" it's not an album at all, at least in the form I own. I only have five songs from Back In Black (including the title track and oft-heard "Hell's Bells" and "Shoot to Thrill") and only the namesake from Highway To Hell.

I hate having incomplete albums, and I hate setting out to discover a "complete" collection of music only to find out over half the tracks are missing. So all I ask is some forgiveness for the lack of depth in this post. Believe me when I say it pisses me off to no end.

The Album

Back In Black is a beast from a different time. Who knows how it would fare in the digital age (where people are strongly opposed to actually buying music), but history begs the question: What about this album was so incredible that it went platinum 22 times over?

Unlike most of what emerges from their amps, the answer is clear: The Brothers Young know how to play rock guitar.

Of the songs I have, three are immediately recognizable, even before the singing begins. Personally, I'm the type of person who enjoys instrumentals first, vocals second. My girlfriend is the opposite: give her any song (literally) and she'll sing along, but once the chorus is over, it's on to something new.

I feel that Angus and Malcolm are the yin to my girlfriend's yang. Sure, current singer Brian Johnson has ruined his vocal chords perfecting his working-class cat scream, but does anyone really know all the words to "Back In Black?" Not hardly, but every 10-year-old who picks up a guitar hopes to someday play the opening riff.

But enough of the same old shit. As incomplete as it is, this is an album, not a single, no matter how classic the title track has become. I want to focus on two lesser-know songs, one that goes beyond AC/DC's more popular hard rock roots and one that is the epitome of them.

One of my new favorite songs is the bluesy ode to the bottom of a brandy glass, "Have a Drink on Me." Like most of what AC/DC produces, the opening guitar line is contagious. Its mix of long, lazy chords and a slurred melody is the sound of drunkenness.

The solo isn't anything particularly extraordinary, but Angus works the string bends and pulls out some moody deviations on the main riff. It almost makes me forget that Johnson is singing "I'm dizzy, drunk and fightin'/On tequila white lightnin'/My glass is getting shorter/On whiskey, ice and water." Sounds like a fun night out to me.

Even though a blues tune sits a bit strangely on an album with songs like "Hell's Bells," its a nice change of pace. If you're new to AC/DC, you might wonder why a '70s pre-metal band is bothering with the blues. But give it some time to mellow out, and just like good whiskey (which I'm sure the band wasn't drinking when they wrote the song) its more satisfying because of it.

The next song is a bit more traditional AC/DC--plenty of shortened power chords, driving bass, simple pre-choruses, a solid solo. But the best part of "What Do You Do for Money Honey," and the reason you will come back, is the chorus.

I love rock because it just makes you want to grow your hair out, put on your best Mick Jagger snarl and scream along with every oversized line. The chorus is exactly that way, full of gang yells punctuated by power chords and cymbal crashes. Never mind that it's just yelling the song title verbatim--it gets the point across to every gold-digging, fame-chasing party girl while also giving them a reason to dance around the jukebox. That's talent.

After listening to the album a few times, a went through and tried to find a weak point. Honestly, there weren't many. Every riff is catchy, every solo is tight and most of the lyrics aren't half bad. I know it seems like I'm picking on Johnson, but really, his appeal isn't as a wordsmith. The band wouldn't be the same, however, without his signature mewl and low-lying berret.

And what about those lyrics to "Back In Black?" Well, there's not much to them, but maybe that's part of Johnson's genius. He makes the word black work triple overtime, but somehow, it just fits.

If the soundtrack of life included even half the tracks from Back In Black, the world would be a much more enjoyable (if not exponentially more raucous) place. Which is something I'm not necessarily opposed to. The band continues to spit out albums today, with the latest, Black Ice LP, selling 800,000 units during its first week in 2008.

Bottom line: what little portion of the record I did have, I loved. I understand the modern AC/DC is a bonadfide money-making machine, but I think it's time to buy the rest of the album. Besides, with a band full of 50-somethings, someone has to pay their medical bills. I see it as supporting rock itself.

A.F.I.

Artist: A.F.I.

Albums I Own: All Hallows EP (1999), The Art of Drowning (2000), Sing the Sorrow (2003), A.F.I. (Greatest Hits--Nitro years, 2004), December Underground (2006)

Hunted Album: Sing the Sorrow

A.F.I on Pandora

Since the primary aim of The Hunt is to discover music I might have forgotten about, starting with this album might not quite fit my mission. I listened this CD to death when it first came out and occasionally return to it.

However, I've never considered why I enjoy it so much. The Art of Drowning (2000) was my personal introduction to A.F.I., and it still holds a special place in my punk rock heart. It was the first time the group experimented with hooky choruses and vocals, but it only paved the way for what was to come. Sing the Sorrow is the album that secured regular radio rotation and put the band on the collective pop music map.

A Bit of History

A.F.I. spent 13 years as the flagship group for indie punk label Nitro Records, during which time they released five full-length albums and one EP.

In 2004, Sing the Sorrow became the California quintet's major label debut with Interscope Records (home to 50 Cent and Guns N' Roses) and quickly went platinum. They have since released two additional albums--Decemberunderground in 2006 and Crash Love in 2009--both of which left me (and many others) less than satisfied.

The Album

As their first release with Interscope, the band hadn't yet caved to the whims of producers and mainstream music blah-ness. The album maintains the manic punk sound of early releases, while benefiting from more polished vocals, a clear musical direction and fleshed-out instrumentals.

Sing the Sorrow also defined a clear structure the band used ineffectively in subsequent albums. But here, it seems fresh and careful rather than worn out. The album begins with a short prelude, "Miseria Cantare--The Beginning," that is heavy on strings, drum effects and layered vocals. Not quite punk menace, but it works.

To bring the album full circle, there is also an extended epilogue, "...But Home Is Nowhere," a 15-minute conglomerate of three songs:

The first is one of the finest songs on the disc--direct, powerful and badass. Never have lead singer Davey Havok's screams sounded so at home. The second (and longest) part is an ethereal collection of spoken verse, given by a child, a young man and an elderly man, respectively, set over simple piano. The final section sounds similar to the acoustic piece "The Leaving Song," but because it utilizes the full band, it feels more moody and robust.

Like a film, Sing the Sorrow is meant to be enjoyed from start to finish--no skipping around, no fast forward. That was the major advantage of the Interscope move: it resulted in a whole product, not just a collection of singles, and it's one reason why I believe the album is so great.

That being said, there are plenty of classic moments peppered throughout. The second track, "The Leaving Song, Pt. 2," begins with the best guitar hook on the album, and the music video hints at the changes the band was undergoing (tuxedo-clad band members set against a rioting, Molotov cocktail-wielding crowd).

Despite my hatred of most electro-music, the drum breakdown after the first chorus on "Death of Seasons" deserves multiple repeats, and "This Celluloid Dream" features distorted vocals and a catchy palm-muted chorus.

However, my favorite moment is pure, unadultered rock: guitarist Jade Puget's solo on "Dancing Through December." In a different vein than Dragonforce-esque solos-as-songs and technical masters such as Kirk Hammett, it is punk personified: messy, fast and satisfying, without any holier-than-thou showboating. In a little under 15 seconds, Puget manages to create not only a great solo, but a catchy one--no easy feat. I can hum it by memory.

There are only two major downsides to this album, both of which explain why the band has fallen from punk rock (and even popular) grace. First, the lyrics are borderline emo. On "The Great Disappointment," one of the weakest tracks (ironic title much?), Havok sings: "Hope was wasted away/Faith was wasted away/I was wasted away."

This could explain why A.F.I.'s fan base saw a large exodus after the release of Sing the Sorrow. Like pissed off caffeine junkies who can't even wait for the water to boil before getting the shakes, the punk faithful never gave the album time to percolate. After all, what happened to songs like "I Wanna Get a Mohawk?" A.F.I.'s angst was no longer fun; it was depressing.

But the second major problem was enough to eventually ruin the band for me as well. This album works because it finds a balance between the bands' punk roots and mainstream "wall of sound" producing. Unfortunately, with Decemberunderground, the band practically abandoned punk altogether and opted for electro-dance-pop. Think Panic! At the Disco (with the !), except A.F.I. had years of street cred at stake.

Bottom line, Sing the Sorrow was a historic album for the boys from Ukiah. For most of the punk faithful, it was the first bad (read: corporate) album by a previously great (read: indie) band. For me, however, it is still my favorite record by the group, and one of the most balanced punk albums I've ever heard.

All awful puns with their name aside (A.F.I. is short for "A Fire Inside"), I hope the band can put a fire under their collective asses and produce another album like this one.

The Plan

I think I've fallen out of love with music. Blame it on digitization, Napster, auto-tune, the 1,000 songs I've never heard (or only heard once) on my iTunes, file sharing, downloading or the general musical rut I've been in lately. But like an alcoholic going through the 12 steps, I'll start by admitting I have a problem.

I've become disconnected from my personal music collection. It's lost and forgotten in a jungle of bits and bytes, and instead of searching in the dark corners of my iPod's hard disk, I stick close to the beaten path and same old albums. Out of the nearly 4,000 individual songs on my pod, I only regularly listen to about 400 of them. But not anymore.

To aide my musical memory, I'll approach this journey like the animal it is. I plan to go through every individual artist on my iPod, in alphabetical order, and listen to at least one or two albums from each--start to finish, no skipping the filler songs.

To make things easier on myself, I won't count collaborations as their own separate thing, but group them with a primary artist (I don't have much rap, but it would take forever to get through every song "featuring" someone).

From there, I hope to uncover some dusty sonic soundscapes that have slipped my memory, or maybe even a few that never made it in there to begin with.

But more than that, I hope to explore some of the bygone bands from my past and open the door to a more varied, enriched musical future. As an alum of the early to mid-2000s Denver hardcore/metalcore scene, my musical tastes tend to fall in line with that same genre.

However, there are more than a few curveballs in my collection (Frank Sinatra and Ashley Simpson come to mind) and, after all, isn't this whole thing about getting away from the familiar?

Of course, since I'm writing for the entire world to see, my process is democratic. All music is created equal; it just takes time and attention to decide what stays or goes, but on an objective level there is no inherently "bad" music. It's one of the basic tenets of this experiment. I want to inform others as much as myself about how I listen to and appreciate music, and vice versa. Any suggestions, questions, insights, rantings and insults are welcome--and probably well-deserved.

But more importantly, I would love to ignite the spark of discovery in someone else. If you feel as I do and want to reacquaint yourself with your entire music library, take my experiment and make it your own. The only thing I ask is to share with me your personal experience using the "iPod A to Z" technique. If you're down, then so am I.

Let's go hunting.