Black Ice (album) - Composition

Composition

"The AC/DC music that I remember most is Highway to Hell and Back in Black, which I view as pop songs done in a very heavy ferocious way. Angus and Malcolm were writing songs that had a lot of hooks and my only job was to make a record that made people say, ‘I've missed AC/DC, and I’m glad they’re back.’"

With Black Ice, Brendan O'Brien tried to recapture the rock sound of AC/DC's early work on albums such as Highway to Hell and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. He thought the two previous studio albums, Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip, were blues-influenced. O'Brien tried to focus on the choruses, which he felt were the best part of the AC/DC songs, and encouraged the band to emphasise the "hooky, melodic side" of its song-writing, which Angus complimented, since he had "never been great with harmonies". Mike Fraser said the band aimed "towards The Razors Edge era, a little bit more up-tempo stuff." O'Brien made suggestions about the band's performance, got Angus to play slide guitar on "Stormy May Day", and told Johnson to swap some screaming for "soul crooning" as Johnson was a soul singer. Johnson was worried that the rest of the band would think this did not suit the band's style of hard rock and roll, but the band was quite receptive. Because of the highly demanding singing style, Johnson only recorded his vocals for one hour a day. The rhythm section continues the basic structure from other AC/DC records; Cliff Williams played bass lines of eighth notes, and Phil Rudd's drumming was a consistent 4/4 time, mostly on his snare, kick drum and hi-hat cymbal. Both musicians expressed contentment with their roles in the band; Rudd said, "I'm not repressing skills. Most drummers are scared to try this", and Williams admitted he plays "the same thing in every song, for the most part", but added "n AC/DC's music, the song is more important than any individual's bit in it".

Angus said that when composing with Malcolm they share ideas to make each track "work together" to form a complete album, and Johnson added "these songs belong together. It's about five boys having a damn good time in a studio."

With 15 songs and a running time of over 55 minutes, Black Ice has the longest running time of any AC/DC studio record. Malcolm said that "about 60 or 70 song ideas" were developed, but Angus stated that most were discarded because they were not "representative of how we are". Angus also said that the first attempt to sequence the album resulted in a track list comprising eleven songs, "but as the days went by each band member voted for a new track, and then another, and other one" so they decided to include all the recorded tracks. Most of the album's tracks are about rock and roll itself–Angus stated, "Certain songs just seem to come to life when you add that phrase". However, other themes served as inspiration. "Money Made" is a criticism on how, according to Angus, in the US "everything is money these days". "War Machine" was based on a documentary on Hannibal, which led to the conclusion that the military has not changed since Ancient Rome. "Wheels" tells about Johnson's passion for motorcars. He described the album's release as the "best one we've done", he felt that while Back in Black was great for its time, Black Ice shows the band's versatility. Angus also said he admired the album's diversity, saying "It is sufficiently varied to please people in varied moods".