1. Highway To Hell

2. Girls Got Rhythm

3. Walk All Over You

4. Touch Too Much

5. Beating Around The Bush

6. Shot Down In Flames

7. Get It Hot

8. If You Want Blood (You've Got It)

9. Love Hungry Man

10. Night Prowler

Rolling Stone

When Bon Scott leered, "Lock up your daughter, lock up your wife, lock up your back door," on AC/DC's North American debut album, High Voltage (1976), he wasn't so much issuing a threat as celebrating his inalienable right to be crass. AC/DC showed how much fun true tastelessness could be and how liberating it could sound. These Australian delinquents played their bloodshot blues rock with the venom of punk rockers and the swagger of drunken lechers. The first batch of remastered reissues from AC/DC's catalog captures the band at its politically incorrect peak.

High Voltage and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976) find the quintet already sure of its strengths: The guitars of brothers Angus and Malcolm Young bark at each other, Phil Rudd swings the beat even as he's pulverizing his kick drum, and Scott brings the raunch 'n' wail. The subject matter is standard-issue rock rebellion; Scott pauses only once to briefly contemplate the consequences of his night stalking in "Ride On."

The boys graduate from the back of the bar to the front of the arena on Highway to Hell (1979), with a cleaner sound courtesy of Shania Twain's future husband, producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. The songs are more compact, the choruses fattened by rugby-team harmonies. The prize moment: Scott closes the hip-grinding "Shot Down in Flames" with a cackle worthy of the Wicked Witch of the West.

A year later, Scott drank himself to death. Yet the band went on to make its 1980 landmark album, Back in Black, in which his iron-lunged replacement, Brian Johnson, bellows, "Have a drink on me" without a shred of shame. From the ominous "Hell's Bells" to the bawdy "You Shook Me All Night Long," AC/DC flipped off the Reaper and gave Scott and his fans the best tribute they ever could have desired.

All Music

Given that Bon Scott's hard-partying, sex-booze-and-brawls lifestyle tragically caught up with him some six months after Highway to Hell was released, the album-opening title track — one of hard rock's all-time classics — now takes on an eerie resonance. It's not just a snotty, nihilistic party anthem, but a moment of unrepentant self-recognition from a rowdy ruffian who, for better or worse, exulted in what he was. The rest of the songs on Highway to Hell don't lend themselves to any deep readings, but of course, that's not the point. Highway to Hell distilled all the virtues of AC/DC's signature minimalism — loud, simple, pounding riffs and grooving backbeats — into the tightest batch of songs the group had written to that point, barreling along at a take-no-prisoners rate and producing a handful of gems ("Girl's Got Rhythm," "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)") along the way. Highway to Hell is not only a fitting epitaph for Bon Scott, it's also a classic rock & roll album.

Adrian’s Album Reviews

A question arrives half way through the opening track. How can anyone NOT like AC/DC? But, then again, I didn't. Yes, once upon a time, I thought they were dumb, stupid, silly screeching, uncreative...... One day I woke up in a strange place, transformed! The previous day i'd been wandering around in my local HMV and an AC/DC song came on and they suddenly sounded like the greatest thing on earth. All of this is just an aside, by the way. I'm presented with 'Highway To Hell' to review, so i'd better get on with it, hadn't I? Er, yeah. Well, we open with the title song, always a sign. "Highway To Hell" is impossible not to love, it's simple good time Rock music, maybe. Maybe the singer does have a voice that screetches a little too much but he also has a voice packed with good old Rock n Roll fury. He has a very effective Rock voice, you can't argue with it. Well, you probably can, but I don't care. "Girls Got Rhythm"? Well, what can you say? When the chorus comes in - you just feel alive! Any thoughts of classical art, work, dinner parties, taking the dog out for a walk, completely disappear! "Girls Got Rhythm" and you've just got to sing along, can't help yourself, 'Backseat Rhythm' indeed. And, a guitar solo! A pretty damn fantastic one too. "Walk All Over You" doesn't quite present the sheer giddy thrill and excitement of the opening two songs, "Touch Too Much" is fairly entertaining, but again, not upto the quality of the opening songs. The next real high point arrives with "Shot Down In Flames" which works as classic AC/DC with both the music and vocal sending chills up and down your spine. "Get It Hot", "If You Want Blood" - the fantastic songs keep on rolling, at least as far as the opening to the second side is concerned. The closing "Night Prowler" is rescued by pretty darn great guitar, "Love Hungry Man" is obvious filler.

So, what to say? This isn't a perfect album, although it is pretty darn great overall. Pretty darn great, and good enough to warm anyone's festivities wherever they may happen to be.