AC/DC’s greatest flop: Why ‘Shake Your Foundations’ should have been a hit
There are two different types of AC/DC fans. There are those who have been there since day one, who have had the chance to listen to all their music as and when it was released and have grown with the band as a result. They have heard the band’s evolution as they transitioned from Bon Scott to Brian Johnson, and they have mourned the loss of various members as they have passed.
Then you have fans like me, fans all the same but who don’t have as close a connection with the band because they weren’t around for those early albums. I regret not being able to grow with AC/DC, and during the few occasions when I’ve seen them live, I’ve been jealous seeing people with tour T-shirts from the 1980s. However, I will say that as one of the latter fans, becoming obsessed with AC/DC in the past couple of decades also has its advantages.
When Angus Young was asked what he thought the definitive AC/DC album was, he said Let There Be Rock. It’s not just because it’s a great album but also because this saw AC/DC make hard rock during a time when hard rock wasn’t the coolest genre anymore. In doing so, they cemented the band’s ethos, good guitar music, face-melting solos, and hard riffs, all paired with one of the best rhythm sections that the genre has ever heard.
“Let There Be Rock, for me, is the album,” said Young, “I thought it was great because everyone else in the world was into whole other genres – there was punk music, there was new wave; it was all this other stuff coming out […] I just thought, ‘This is pure magic’. And that album defined AC/DC in my eyes. That’s when I went, ‘This is a great band’.”
That decision to make a hard rock album when not many other bands were gave AC/DC a sense of identity that they didn’t have before. They knew what music they wanted to make, and despite slight variations in the decades since Let There Be Rock, it has to be said that they have predominantly stuck to this plan.
When you’re a fan like me, and you’re joining the AC/DC bandwagon when most of their work has already been released, you listen to independent albums, sure, but because there is so much similarity in sound, you consider the band’s whole discography as one big record. You appreciate it as a whole rather than as ten segments that make a whole.
When I made my way through the band’s catalogue as a teenager, the hit songs stood out as hit songs. Even during an AC/DC marathon, it’s hard to hear songs like ‘Highway To Hell’, ‘Thunderstruck’, and ‘Back In Black’ and not recognise them as game-changers. However, I also picked up on a few songs which seem to fall unfairly under the band’s radar. One of these is a song that, to this day, I am adamant should be a bigger hit, ‘Shake Your Foundations’.
The track was released in 1985 as part of AC/DC’s Fly on the Wall album. It came as part of a long home video that showed five songs, each of which were taken from the record. ‘Shake Your Foundations’ stood out as quintessential AC/DC. The riff is fantastic, Young’s guitar solo is next level, and the chorus is one of the catchiest that the band have ever written. I played that song on repeat the moment I heard it. It’s easy to headbang to, as AC/DC fans would expect, but it’s also easy to dance to. It feels like the perfect combination for a hard rock song that could be projected into the mainstream.
The song never had the chance to take off for the band. Critics hated the entire album, so any songs contained were equally chastised. Fly On The Wall also only sold one million copies, which might sound good, but when compared to the numbers done by their predecessors, Back In Black and For Those About to Rock We Salute You, it was a poor result. The album was chalked off as one of AC/DC’s bad ones, and people never spoke of it again.
This seems unfair to me, as not only does the song ‘Shake Your Foundations’ meet all the criteria of a classic AC/DC number, but the grainy production and innovative music video that accompanied it seemed like good ideas. It will remain an AC/DC song that fell through the cracks and deserves more credit.
