Hear Me Out: ‘Fly On The Wall’ is AC/DC’s most underrated album
One thing that AC/DC have always maintained throughout their career is consistency. The band is the personification of how to pull off the three-chord rock song, as what their music lacks in complexity, it undoubtedly makes up for in energy and addictiveness.
To say that they follow a formula takes away from their innovative nature as a band; however, there are similarities in past and present albums. Their big tracks usually start with an isolated riff that dances around three or four chords before a simple and headbanging drum beat comes through. Vocal melodies come in various rhythms but remain steady in tone, choruses are full and exciting, and guitar solos are outstanding. The consistent sound throughout AC/DC’s discography means that few albums are considered bad, but some are more overlooked than they deserve.
Fly On The Wall was the tenth studio album released by the Australian band. It came out in June of 1985 but received mixed reviews and struggled massively to take off in the same way that AC/DC albums both before and after have managed to. Granted, it came during a slight lull for the group, as while their live show was still packing out stadiums (they took a break recording to play in front of 250,000 fans at the Rock in Rio festival), their studio albums didn’t quite reciprocate the live hype.
Critics tore into the record, saying that Brian Johnson’s vocals were poor, barely audible, and what could be heard was misogynistic. It seemed to confirm that AC/DC was descending further into mediocrity and was producing duplicates of their older albums in that mediocrity. However, that simply wasn’t the case. Under a new lens, the record remains underrated, and its negative reception ultimately results from poor timing, stubbornness, and whatever the opposite of serendipity is.
AC/DC have never failed to be successful live. Despite the reception of whatever album they are touring, they have packed out stadiums worldwide. This is because of the energy they instil in their music, those three-chord wonder tunes that still get speakers blurring and heads banging no matter who is listening. As a result, the band has always been hamstrung in the music they can put out, given that it needs to play into the live feeling they embody so well.
A year before the album was put out, during the recording process, the band re-released their 1974 EP, Jailbreak. Originally, the record was only released in Australia, so the decision was made to make it available to people worldwide. That release clearly inspired Fly On The Wall, as the band decided to try to replicate their older sound in how raw and authentic the tracks on the LP were. Angus and Malcolm Young insisted they acted as sole producers to achieve that sound even more. The result was something that fans believed to be outdated compared to more modern and exciting albums such as Back in Black, alongside a poor execution by both Angus and Malcolm, as producing is not one of their main talents.
The tour also came at the wrong time, as people were more ready than usual to criticise AC/DC, what with their music being linked to serial killer Richard Ramirez. Ramirez had confessed their song ‘Night Prowler’ from the 1979 Highway to Hell album had inspired him to kill. He was also arrested wearing an AC/DC T-shirt. It fed further into the narrative that rock music was evil and bands like AC/DC were proprietors of that evil, so any slight faults on the new album were met with complete disdain instead of being seen as just a little off pace.
With that in mind, the hostile reception can be understood, but now, with 40 years behind it and AC/DC’s entire discography available to be heard, Fly On The Wall was very hard done by.
This album feeds into the band’s live show better than almost anything else they have released, with the music being easy to nod and dance to. The riffs are catchy, the music is heavy, every word is packed with energy, and the choruses can be learned after one listen. It’s an album immediately identifiable as AC/DC, with Young’s fun vibrato-heavy licks in full force and Johnson’s (although questionable) high-intensity vocals both taking centre stage.
AC/DC also embraced the future with this album more than other bands at the time, leaning into the music video and creating a 20-minute short film to accompany the release. It saw them playing to what started as an empty bar and slowly filling up. Each song welcomes new characters, and a slight narrative feeds into the whole thing.
Despite the band being hamstrung by their established sound, the album represented a want to be innovative and a look towards the future, which other guaranteed headliners and stadium fillers wouldn’t have been bothered about. AC/DC tried to borrow from the likes of Jailbreak to create something raw sounding, but that worked with Johnson’s vocals, and they achieved that. It is a misunderstood album that should be considered again without the stigma of serial killers and a washed-out sound attached to it. Fly On The Wall is far from the dud it was credited as and is arguably one of their most ambitious ever.
