Powerage wasn’t just an album title. It was also a fitting description of Malcolm Young’s life’s work. He was a diminutive man with an intimidating demeanor, like his doppelgänger Jackie Earle Haley in Breaking Away. (You have to figure the “Cutters” listened to a lot of AC/DC.) When the band chants “Oi! Oi!” on “T.N.T,” it sounds like they’re saying “Fight! Fight!” They may as well have, as Malcolm’s riffs were as pugilistic as his presence.
He and his younger brother teamed up for sheer brutal guitar carnage, with Angus combining the sophisticated, melodic blues of Free’s Paul Kossoff and the avant-garde maximum voltage of Lou Reed. After the guitar solo for “Whole Lotta Rosie,” Angus and Malcolm go back and forth, the former continuing to play lead, while the latter answers him with the hammering stop-start riff (a metallic spin on Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man”) that begins the song. It’s as if the guitars are having a volatile argument with each other. And if it sounds like the amp was smoking and eventually melted during the recording of the frenzied “Let There Be Rock,” that’s because it actually happened.
As rhythm guitarist, Malcolm was the Keith Richards of AC/DC, creating a foundation of hard-hitting riffs and hooks that grooved, so Angus could be Mick Taylor and Mick Jagger. The persistent mesmerizing riff in “Down Payment Blues” epitomizes Malcolm’s intense minimalism, generating an ominous atmosphere suitable for a song dealing with financial hardship. Eddie Van Halen has cited it as one of his favorites. The album where “Down Payment Blues” is from, 1978’s Powerage, clearly made an impact, as the following year’s Van Halen II features “Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” which has a similar larger than life, “Release the Kraken” opening as “Sin City.”
When you think of AC/DC, guitar violence and lecherous screaming come to mind. However, off-beat backing vocals, usually done by Malcolm, are also a vital part of their sound. The melodious grunts at the beginning of “Thunderstruck” (“UH-AH-AH-AH-AH!”) could be cavemen attempting Doo-wop. For “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” the creepy, percussive way “Dirty deeds and they’re done dirt cheap” is croaked at the end of each chorus, is pure sleaze splendor. During live performances, whenever Malcolm would go to the microphone and sing, it appeared as if he were in a constant state of electric shock. This helped make him stand out in a band that wasn’t exactly lacking in iconic characters.
But it all comes back to the riffs. The Cult loved the one in “Rock’n’Roll Singer” so much, Billy Duffy played it on “Wildflower.” It led off their 1987 classic Electric, an album unthinkable without the influence of Malcolm Young. And it’s unlikely Def Leppard would exist without him. “Let It Go,” “High’n’Dry (Saturday Night),” “Photograph,” and many other stellar songs that made them an indelible part of 80’s suburban Americana, are all built on Malcolm’s riffs. Most importantly, so were AC/DC.
“Let there be guitar. There was guitar.”
Matt Leinwohl