I had a Rolling Stone Record Guide, put out by the magazine. My edition must have been issued not too long before Back in Black came out. A huge book, it supposedly listed every rock album ever issued, A to Z by band. They had a blurb about every band and every album, sometimes just a sentence or two, sometimes paragraphs. They had a 1 to 5 star ranking but if the album was horrible, they'd give it a tiny black box instead of a star. You guys probably remember this, it was fairly popular in the pre-internet era.
Anyway, to this day I remember what my edition said about AC/DC. First, they gave every album a black box. Part of their description of the band was - and I quote - ''they appear to be trying to offend anyone within eyesight or earshot, and they've managed to succeed''. Lol.
There were two bands everyone at my HS hated, if the subject came up - AC/DC and Kiss. I think all our little brothers loved Kiss, which didn't help. Quite the dividing factor. Not to mention a fantastic lesson in groupthink. I personally had never heard any AC/DC tunes, and very little of Kiss. Where would I hear it in that environment?
Then came Back in Black, and everything changed, overnight. Massive popularity. Suddenly their earlier records improved greatly, Rolling Stone updated their guidance in the next edition, and they were on their way.
I bought the Back in Black album, and it's still one of my very favorites. It had to be the most popular record at our college. It was also the last one of theirs I liked, but I have picked up most of the earlier records over the years.
Still hate Kiss though, with a few exceptions.
