MOJO 374 magazine cover, featuring Neil Young and The Best Albums Of 2024

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MOJO 374 – January 2025: Neil Young

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MOJO 373 – December 2024: David Bowie

David Gilmour, on the cover of MOJO magazine, number 372

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MOJO 372 – November 2024: David Gilmour

MOJO 371 magazine cover, featuring Bob Dylan

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MOJO 371 – October 2024: Bob Dylan

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MOJO 370 – September 2024: Nick Cave

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MOJO 369 – August 2024: Stevie Nicks

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MOJO 368 – July 2024: Paul Weller

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MOJO 367 – June 2024: Kate Bush

MOJO 366 magazine cover, featuring Pearl Jam and Pearl Jam CD

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MOJO 366 – May 2024: Pearl Jam

MOJO 365 cover, featuring Liam Gallagher and John Squire

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MOJO 365 – April 2024: Liam Gallagher & John Squire

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MOJO 364 – March 2024: Paul McCartney

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Stevie Wonder Stars In The New Issue Of MOJO Magazine!

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The Beatles On Now And Then, The Best Albums Of 2023, U2, Blur And More In The Latest Issue Of MOJO!

MOJO 361 cover featuring The Rolling Stones

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MOJO 361 – December 2023: The Rolling Stones

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Dylan, Beatles, Zeppelin, Kate Bush Star In MOJO’s 30th Anniversary Issue

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MOJO 359 – October 2023: The Smiths

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Rush’s Greatest Albums Ranked!

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AC/DC: Every Album Ranked

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Paul Weller Remembers Ian McLagan: “He always had a great spirit about him…”

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Get Six Issues Of MOJO For £19.99!

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Black Sabbath’s Best Albums Ranked

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Shane MacGowan: “What I’m interested in doing is having a great time and living as long as I possibly can.”

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U2 How To Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb Review: Live-wire offcuts from 2004 LP

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The Best Albums Of 2024

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Tina Turner: Her Ten Greatest Songs

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Beatles ‘64 Reviewed: Uneven take on Fabs’ first visit to the US

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George Harrison Remembered

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Oasis And The Gallaghers: Every Album Ranked!

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Michael Kiwanuka Small Changes Review: Hypnotic beats, empathic emotions and first-rate songwriting

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Kim Deal Nobody Loves You More Review: Breeder’s solo debut turns grief into life-affirming pop

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Father John Misty Mahashmashana Review: A bleak but joyfully delivered vision of the apocalypse

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The Beatles 1964 U.S. Albums In Mono Reviewed: Track selection not withstanding, Beatlemania’s stateside iteration still sounds thrilling

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Neil Young’s 50 Greatest Songs Ranked

Formed in Toronto, Canada in 1968 and active until 2015, Rush began as :a[Led Zeppelin]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/led-zeppelin-50-greatest-songs/' } wannabes and ended up being the geeks who inherited the earth. Their long road to critical and cultural rehabilitation took in grandiose prog and UK new-wave influences, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart wearing their virtuosity increasingly lightly until 2012’s chops-laden last hurrah, _:a[Clockwork Angels]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/744i0LypfMwHHrKhzsqAx0?si=cdCioeHmTxSm31xpV1u0QQ' }._

Banger Films’ intimate 2010 profile _Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage_ was an important milestone that further-widened their audience. Capturing the loveable, beating-heart of Rush and their enduring three-way bromance, its rich archive footage - and a memorable scene in which Lee, Lifeson and Peart share an increasingly drunken dinner - underlined what fans already knew: this was a goofball group of astonishing talents; a band who sounded and interacted like no other.

Famously self-sufficient - “It was hard to believe only three guys were making all that sound”, :a[Thin Lizzy]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/new-music/thin-lizzy-reviewed/' }’s Brian Roberston once told this writer - Rush were unusual amongst bands who’d began as hard-rock acts. Like :a[David Bowie]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/david-bowies-50-greatest-songs/' }, say, their sound was always shape-shifting, and unlike, Aerosmith, say, they quickly abandoned the more hackneyed terrain of hard-rock lyrics to explore philosophy, ethics and the human condition.  Sure, _:a[Caress Of Steel]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/3U3iBmoTag1wxENqHq2ZqF?si=oNlN_iL-S7SKczM1_wwvtA' }_’s 1975 song I Think I’m Going Bald was fun, but antidote to all drummer jokes Neil Peart would grow to become a highly-acute wordsmith, hence 1993’s Cold Fire, a brilliant portrayal of a relationship in trouble.

There was no happy ending. Geddy Lee’s 2023 memoir _My Effin’ Life_ revealed that, prior to Peart’s heartbreaking passing to brain cancer in January 2020, he and Lifeson had kept the drummer’s illness a secret for three years, as per his wishes. Earlier, Rush had bowed-out with 2015’s final, acclaimed US tour _R40_, which celebrated Peart’s 40 years in the band. The _R40_ set cherry-picked songs from Rush’s 19 studio albums in reverse chronological order, and the best of those LPs (or one Rush fan’s idea of the best!) are discussed below.

The second of two Rush LP’s produced by Rupert Hine, _Roll The Bones’_ obvious stand-out is Bravado. Similar in sentiment to Rudyard Kipling’s _If_, and built around Lifeson’s hypnotic guitar arpeggios, the song’s music is measured and restrained. The rap bit on _Roll The Bones_’ title track sounds even more iffy 35 years on, it’s true, but the record’s meditations on fate, probability and luck pay further dividends on Ghost Of A Chance. “Somehow we found each other / Somehow we have stayed”, runs one couplet. Though actually about Peart and his then-wife Jacqueline, it could have been describing the magical happenstance of Rush.

Rivendell is quaint, Tolkien-influenced juvenilia, but with Neil Peart now anchoring-the band post John Rutsey’s departure, Rush became a power-trio of astonishing facility. They never sounded heavier than on adrenalised, super-tight opener Anthem, while By-Tor And The Snow Dog (1976 live album _:a[All The World’s A Stage]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/6nch6yenaGbktm4Ldbpa4U?si=fa0UNciKSU67sjeQYU9xoA' }_ packs the definitive version) was their first proper epic. Though some of the Led Zeppelin-isms which characterised their :a[self-titled debut]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/57ystaP7WpAOxvCxKFxByS?si=uziNKA9jQne_LkfpKFxzqg' } remained, Peart’s arrival on lyrics as well as drums ensured no more dumb pick-up songs á la _Rush_’s In The Mood. All this, plus In The End’s immense power-chords.

Sequencers, triggered drum-samples and massive synth pads were go, but Lifeson’s power chords and some decidedly funky Lee bass were essential to _Power Windows_ too. Teeming with layered detail, it’s aged far better than 1987’s less-focused _:a[Hold Your Fire]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/3OSQvwW2BElGZfjhsHJEru?si=fWCNEBilQPmK60PMvNAiIQ' }._ With its brilliantly bonkers Lifeson riff from 1.19, Territories made an acute critique of jingoism / isolationism which still resonates. Elsewhere, Rush explored financial politics on gung-ho opener The Big Money. Together with new producer Peter Collins, they also utilised a 30-piece orchestra and 25-piece choir while working across five different recording studios. Excessive? Definitely. Strong results? For sure.

Mid-period Rush’s most emotionally-charged LP, _Grace Under Pressure_ got the balance between synths and guitars about right. It took its name from a Hemingway quote and its own gestation process, which saw sometime Supertramp producer Peter Henderson co-helm proceedings at the 11th hour. Afterimage mourned tape-op Robbie Whelan, who had died in a car crash, while the astonishing Red Sector A was Peart’s heartfelt, anonymised account of Lee’s Holocaust-survivor mother Malka’s interment at Auschwitz. An agitated, humane and passionate record, _Grace_ also explored tensions between world superpowers on Distant Early Warning.

With hindsight, _Hemispheres_’ Apollonian and Dionysian-concept embroiled Side One outstays its welcome. Despite some fine moments (witness Lifeson’s barnstorming solo at 6.24 and the song-suite’s acoustic coda), it’s also stymied by a key too high for even Geddy Lee to sing, as he later acknowledged. Turn instead to concise, powerhouse Circumstances and Rush’s greatest instrumental, La Villa Strangiato. Part inspired by a nightmare Lifeson had, the latter was subtitled “an exercise in self-indulgence”, but wasn’t, really. Initially, Rush thought its many virtuosic sections would preclude live performance. Not so. They nailed ‘em.

New decade, new-ish Rush. UK Number 13 single :a[The Spirit Of Radio proved a challenging dance for Legs & Co. on Top of the Pops]{href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSz-qgGsBjg' }, while Entre Nous, about the limits of empathy, reflected Peart’s growing acuity re the minutiae of human relationships. Deep-cut ballad Different Strings was also masterful, guest pianist Hugh Syme - also Rush’s cover art mastermind from 1975 onwards - bringing colour before Lifeson’s feral, slow-evolving solo. Like Peart’s lyrical focus, Lee’s voice was also changing. Fan favourite Freewill was the last Rush song he would sing at the very top of his range.

_Signals_ was the final Rush album produced by Terry Brown, who’d also helmed their previous eight. Its quality-controlled songwriting embraced nascent digital tech on synth-driven study of suburban ennui Subdivisions, while Lifeson’s guitar sound became more processed, a little more abstract.  Electric violinist Ben Mink guests on avowed classic Losing It, wherein Peart’s lyric sketches the slow, painful fade of artistry due to ageing or ill-heath. Poignantly, this would be the drummer’s own fate prior to his 2020 passing. The Analog Kid and Chemistry are ace too; thoughtful, arresting songs which see Rush embrace new-wave tropes.

1975’s commercial nadir _Caress Of Steel_ necessitated _2112_, the high-energy mother of all comebacks. Partly a futurist concept LP set in the dystopian city of Megadon, where music has been banned, Side 1 borrowed from Tchaikovsky’s _1812 Overture_ and Ayn Rand’s novella _Anthem_ as Rush battled those killjoy Luddite priests of The Temples Of Syrinx. Non-conceptual Side 2 packed weed connoisseur’s travelogue A Passage To Bangkok, early gem Something For Nothing, and Lifeson’s classy, pinch-harmonic-laden solo on The Twilight Zone. Resplendent in white silk kimonos on _2112_’s back-sleeve, Rush were hot property again, wilder instincts vindicated.

Featuring tubular bells and Lee and Lifeson on double-necks, 11-minute, Samuel Taylor Coleridge-inspired epic Xanadu was Rush at the peak of their pomp. But _Kings_ also featured succinct, altruistic anthem Closer To The Heart, a singalong fave at gigs thereafter. If Lee’s increasing use of Minimoog and he and Lifeson’s Taurus bass pedals spoke of a band in stylistic transition, recording the LP at Rockfield studios in Wales spoke of Rush’s growing international appeal. Bookended by Lifeson’s courtly classical guitar, _Kings_’ title track remains a true classic, Lee’s powerful tenor operating at altitude.

Propelled by air-drummer fave Tom Sawyer (don your Zildjian finger-less gloves at 2.31), _Moving Pictures_ took Rush out of theatres and into stadia. “Our immediate financial worries disappeared”, recalled Lifeson of this UK and US Number 3. Vital Signs’ nodded at :a[The Police]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/the-police-interviewed/' }. Limelight was Peart’s lucid debunking of fame; Witch Hunt his ever-pertinent take-down of prejudice. Image-wise, Rush’s stack-heels and waist-length hair had long-since ceded to mullets and skinny ties, but their metamorphosis wasn’t quite complete. The Camera Eye’s nod to New York City and London’s vibrancy had old-school élan, time-signature changes and all.

From playing bars in Sydney to selling out stadia around the world, AC/DC’s story is a 50-plus-year maelstrom of riffs, booze, school uniforms, double entendres, tragedy and triumph. That the group, co-founded by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, have sold over 200 million records worldwide is hardly a surprise given their prodigious work ethic: between 1975 and 1980 alone they released a staggering eight albums. Somehow, within that time frame, they would weather the death of livewire frontman Bon Scott and yet rebound in the same year with new singer Brian Johnson and the classic album _:a[Back In Black]{href='https://open.spotify.com/album/6mUdeDZCsExyJLMdAfDuwh?si=a6ACd5Q2SPuGCUml7VBUUQ' }_.

Armed with a catalogue of songs – a disproportionate amount of them featuring the word ‘rock’ in their title – AC/DC’s discography has served as an essential blueprint for the successive generations of bands that followed in their wake. Contained within their 18-album run so far (inclusive of their Australia-only releases, but excluding live outings and compilations) there are exhilarating highs and perplexing lows. Above all else, though, there is a band who have admirably refused to give up or conform to prevailing trends. Enjoy, as MOJO duck-walks back in time to rank their catalogue…

Almost guaranteed to be no-one’s favourite AC/DC album, and despite being a notable commercial success, by and large _Blow Up Your Video_ captures them in a creative lull. It’s all brought into sharp focus by the gulf in quality between the opening track and much of what follows. Heatseaker offers a glimpse of them at their best, a rollicking outlier that could hold its own on any AC/DC album. From there – and with the exception of the surprisingly moody Two’s Up – it promptly nosedives. Nick Of Time, Go Zone and Some Sin For Nuthin’ stick to their tried and tested formula but where this band once excelled at making simplicity feel mesmerising, they now only sounded plain. Still, even that was preferable to the calamitous detour into funk on Meanstreak here.

_Fly On The Wall_ was more accurately the sound of a band hitting a wall in the mid-’80s. Single Danger plods along to nowhere of particular interest while, unusually for them, Playing With Girls has a chorus that barely declares itself. FOTW has its moments, First Blood and Sink The Pink proved they still knew how to deliver a massive groove when called upon, but far too many songs miss the mark by the time closer Send For The Man finishes fading out into silence. It’s hard to believe the same band had released the world-beating _Back In Black_ just five years prior.

After the twin blockbuster successes of _Back In Black_ and _For Those About Rock (We Salute You),_ _Flick Of The Switch_was the first sign of a wobble for the Brian Johnson-assisted AC/DC MK II. This all hinged on their decision to part ways with Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, the producer who had made all the necessary studio tweaks to help them go stratospheric. The decision to self-produce _FOTS_ in pursuit of a rawer sound was decidedly punk in spirit and, courtesy of Bedlam In Belgium and Guns For Hire, the songs had no shortage of bristling energy. If this is all compelling in concept, it is less convincing in execution; sonically, the band’s exquisite crunch never quite connects in the way the songs deserve.

One of AC/DC’s most maligned releases, and to that end somewhat unfairly. Maybe this was because _Ballbreaker_sounded so anachronistic in a post-grunge world, perhaps its overtly sexed-up lyrics just seemed that bit more wince-inducing from a group of men who should have been decades past such juvenilia. Still, whatever these songs lacked in poetic elegance (Sample lyric: ‘Guess I’m harder, harder, harder, harder than a rock’), they made up for musically speaking. Ballbreaker sounds colossal – the title-track, Hard As A Rock and Hail Caesar are all electrifying. Oddly, this belies just how at odds the group were with producer Rick Rubin’s meditative studio sessions, replete with endless re-takes. There was growth on display, too, with a dabble in socio-political commentary via Burnin’ Alive – a song inspired by the US government’s 1993 siege of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. _Ballbreaker_ fails to conjure a truly iconic song akin to a Thunderstruck or Highway To Hell, but it deserves more credit than it is typically afforded.

The intervening years between 2008’s _Black Ice_ and 2014’s _Rock Or Bust_ were transformative for AC/DC, and not in a good way. Their shortest album to date, it was also their first to be completed without talismanic rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young whose dementia diagnosis prohibited him from participating in recording and touring, though he does have writing credits. Abandoning the original title Man Down in favour of the less negative-sounding _Rock Or Bust_, it still proved to be a similarly downbeat, if not outright prophetic name regarding what was to come. Following its release, Brian Johnson would lose his hearing and leave mid-tour with Axl Rose having to deputise for him, while drummer Phil Rudd stepped aside due to legal trouble and bassist Cliff Williams declared he would be retiring at the end of the dates due to vertigo. This tumultuous wider narrative has detracted from what is actually one of their most upbeat, unapologetically fun albums. Uncomplicated but exuberant, the title-track, Play Ball and Sweet Candy are a blast.

AC/DC’s debut – one of two initial Australia only releases issued in 1975, alongside _TNT_ – offered glorious proof of musical concept. Critics would say the concept in question has remained problematically unaltered over the years since this point of inception, of course, but AC/DC have always worn that as a badge of honour. The songs came together fast. “Within three weeks of Bon being in the band we had written all this new material and we were ready to record the first album,” Malcolm Young told MOJO’s Sylvie Simmons in 2004. While only She’s Got Balls and Little Lover would eventually migrate to their much better international debut of the same name, other tracks here deserve attention, including the trippy Soul Stripper and the souped-up cover of Big Joe Williams’ Baby, Please Don’t Go which kick-started their recorded career.

In the first year of the new millennium, rock alternative music was possessed with a spirit of futurism. :a[Radiohead]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/radiohead-the-ten-best-albums/' } were pushing evermore into avant garde territory with _Kid A_, big-haired Texans At The Drive-In were rewiring hardcore, and every nu-metal band came equipped with a hip-hop DJ as standard. AC/DC, however? “The only thing that changes with us is the cover,” quipped Angus Young when MTV asked if they had tried anything new on _Stiff Upper Lip_. If this was true in one regard, it’s not to say there wasn’t a subtle difference this time around. With the Young brothers’ older sibling George reinstated on production duties, they leaned more heavily into their formative influences than on 1995’s _Ballbreaker_. The outcome was a more stripped back offering, with highlights being Satellite Blues, Meltdown, House Of Jazz and Safe In New York. It was a change of pace, but a refreshing one.

Nestled within the liner notes of AC/DC’s most recent outing are five words freighted with huge emotional weight: “This one is for Mal.” Rock Or Bust may have been the first album not to feature AC/DC’s rhythm guitarist, but Power Up was the one that actually arrived after his death in November 2017. Conceived as a tribute to their fallen bandmate in the same way that _Black In Black_ was a homage to Bon Scott, it surprised on every level. Arriving at a time when many suspected that AC/DC’s spark was finally flickering out, suddenly Brian Johnson was back on vocals and Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd were in the ranks again on bass and drums. Most significantly of all, Malcolm’s fingerprints were everywhere. Forming the spine of _Power Up_ were musical ideas the Young brothers had worked on together during the _Black Ice_ recording sessions – riffs they loved yet never developed into finished songs. What could have been a Frankenstein’s monster is, in fact, a gem. Soulful and hallucinatory in its treatment of memory and loss, one of AC/DC’s finest moments arrived over 45 years into their career.

Especially when you factor in its sessions’ role in making _Power Up_ a possibility, it’s hard to overstate just how important _Black Ice_ is to AC/DC’s legacy. Their legend had long been secured by this point, but its release constituted a perfect storm of the right songs landing at the right time. A ratcheting up in volume compared to 2000’s Stiff Upper Lip, and with Brendan O’Brien (:a[Bruce Springsteen]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/bruce-springsteens-greatest-songs-ranked/' }, :a[Pearl Jam]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/pearl-jam-all-the-albums-ranked/' }) handling production, AC/DC sounded revivified on Rock’N’Roll Train, Big Jack and War Machine. Thanks to its songs subsequently soundtracking everything from Marvel’s Iron Man film to WWE, _Black Ice_ indoctrinated a new generation like no AC/DC album since _Back In Black_. It debuted at No.1 all over the world, while its accompanying global tour even saw them have their own separate headline stage erected for one-time use when they played Download Festival in 2010. Some might insist the record, their longest at 55 minutes, overstays its welcome, but when observed with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight there is poignance to this. As the final album to feature Malcolm Young on record, 15 tracks almost doesn’t seem enough.

One year before rock was assailed and transformed by Nirvana’s _Nevermind_ and the unfolding grunge revolution, AC/DC entered the ’90s with no intention whatsoever to shake up their particular brand of guitar noise. What they did do, however, is take their enduring formula (rock x rock = rock) and deliver one of their definitive hits in Thunderstruck. Today, Angus Young’s guitar finger-tapping exercise stands on over 1.7 billion streams on Spotify alone. With a new calling card bolstered by the title-track, Moneytalks and more, _The Razors Edge_ is remembered fondly enough for many to gloss over its occasional missteps. The nicest thing that can be said about Mistress For Christmas? Well, it certainly rhymes. Still, in light of their mid-to-late-’80s nadir, this album marked an important correction in quality control.

**For Those About To Rock (We Salute You )**

For most bands, the prospect of following up something as monumentally successful as _Back In Black_ would have proven to be a creatively paralysing affair. Not so for AC/DC. Just one year later, they delivered their first US No.1 album with _For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)._ Such is the all-eclipsing appeal and power of the title-track – accented with recordings of real canons – many of the other songs tend to be neglected. Lurking in the middle of the album is the potent trinity of Inject The Venom, Snowballed and Evil Walks, each of them deserving more recognition. While _FTATR(WSY)_ fell short of _Back In Black_’s quota of anthems, their final outing with Mutt Lange stands as one of their most muscular and accomplished.

As far as opening statements on albums go, It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’N’Roll) can hold its own with the best of them. Testament to the enduring quality of this early years record is that key tracks from _T.N.T._ have remained staples of AC/DC live sets in the intervening decades, including the title-track, Rocker, The Jack and High Voltage. Infused with a similar raucous spirit but altogether more accomplished than their Australia-only debut in its songwriting, it’s the product of a band who mythologised themselves long before the world would take up that particular baton for them.

The international version of _High Voltage_’s classification as a standalone album may be cause for debate, but what isn’t is that record is the one most fans around the world recognise as AC/DC’s debut. Essentially _T.N.T._ redux, it is composed of choice picks from their two previous Australian-only releases and, as such, it’s little wonder that it’s such a slick affair. Not that it was necessarily received as such at the time, with Rolling Stone’s reviewer Billy Altman delivering a barbed review declaring that the “Australian gross-out champions” had helped rock “hit its all-time low.” With over five million sales to date, rhe passage of time has seen the wider world be much kinder than Altman to these songs.

With its title-track, AC/DC delivered one of their most iconic songs: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is an essential, wild-eyed track whether in its studio or live incarnation. Its parent album was so rough around the edges, in fact, that AC/DC’s US label, Atlantic, refused to release it at the time. It was the US’ temporary loss. If Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is the standout song, the album as a whole is chasing its coattails in terms of riotous quality. The imaginatively-named Rocker (reprised here from the previous year’s _T.N.T._) and There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’ both waste precious little time delivering on their promises. What stands out in particular, however, is the personality infused into the lyrics. On one end of the spectrum is Big Balls, which combines hoity-toity accents and chants of ‘Bollocks! Knackers!’ At the other end is Ride On: set against a dazed blues soundtrack, Bon Scott ponders the questions a rock star asks when they’re at the bottom of a bottle, with nowhere to go, and no-one to be with.

Sandwiched between the furious discharge of 1977’S _Let There Be Rock_ and commercial breakthrough of _Highway To Hell_ in 1979, _Powerage_ captures AC/DC in incendiary form. With new bassist Cliff Williams in tow, Rock’N’Roll Damnation, Gone Shootin’, Sin City and Riff Raff all broadcast a band in full control of their craft. Riff Riff in particular dazzles not just with its jittery guitar lines, but also Bon Scott’s vocal delivery perfectly inhabiting the lyrics. As he shrieks ‘I never shot nobody, don’t even carry a gun / I ain’t done nothin’ wrong, I’m just having fun’, he sounds like he’s actually being arrested in the studio. Elsewhere, on Down Payment Blues, he extols his blue collar credentials. ‘Can’t even feed my cat on social security’, he sings, on a track detailing life as a ‘fifty cent millionaire’. It offered a reminder that for all their rock’n’roll escapism, AC/DC were often at their best when they delved into grim reality.

And so to the album that served as both an ending and a new beginning. Principally, _Highway To Hell_ is remembered as the final studio outing of Bon Scott, who would die less than a year after its release. Writ large here is what a loss it was: the title-track, Shot Down In Flames, Girls Got Rhythm, If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) and Touch Too Much are hard rock masterclasses elevated by the frontman’s throaty delivery. It wasn’t just the quality of the songs that made it so impressive, but their presentation. With the target of breaking America firmly in their sights, out were Harry Vanda and Malcolm and Angus’ brother George behind the controls, and in was Boomtown Rats producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange. The missing piece of the puzzle, he unlocked the sound that would help dominate airwaves around the world: bigger, louder and cleaner but without sacrificing their elemental crunch. _Highway To Hell_ was an unintended swansong for their late singer, but a brilliant one.

**Ian ‘Mac’ McLagan was the keyboardist who made the :a[Small Faces]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/stories/why-the-small-faces-split-up/' }, and then :a[Faces]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/rod-stewart-and-the-faces-best-albums-ranked/' } soar; bringing colour and depth to some of the greatest music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Following Mac’s passing in 2014, friend and disciple :a[Paul Weller]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/paul-weller-all-his-albums-ranked/' } remembered a musician whose influence will live on for generations…**

“He always had a great spirit about him, a really vibrant person. Obviously, the Small Faces had a big impact on me… He’d been the missing component in that group, and for Kenney Jones, :a[Steve Marriott]{href='https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/the-mojo-list/steve-marriotts-ten-greatest-albums/' } and Plonk \[Ronnie Lane\] to meet him – he looked the same and had the same musical influences – it was obviously meant to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vWTtx\_PxPo

"I was lucky enough to play with him a few times. The first time I met him was in the early ’90s when he was living in LA with \[_McLagan's wife_\] Kim. He was playing some bar in Pasadena, and I phoned up and managed to meet him at this little pub, and I got up and did a song. Then we invited him a few days later to play some Wurlitzer with us at the Greek Theatre.

"I saw him whenever I had a chance after that, and he played with us live. Like any great musician, he had a very unique sound to him. From all his influences, like Booker T. and Jimmy Smith, whoever they may be, it’s a lovely thing that it goes into your system but it comes out as something special to that person. He’s a massive influence on a lot of musicians, young and old; thank God generations to come will be able to discover his music, his music in the Small Faces and Faces, and beyond that. You hear something and you know immediately it’s Mac.”

_As told to Mark Paytress. This article originally appeared in MOJO 255_

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No band sounded the death knell of hippy-dom as gloriously as **Black Sabbath**. If the prevalent mood of the mid-’60s was one of peace, love and optimism no one told the four-piece of frontman Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. “I tried beads and a kaftan but they looked shit on me,” remarked Osbourne several decades after the band’s inception in Aston, Birmingham, in 1968. Growing from blues roots, Black Sabbath forged a sound around Iommi’s blackened riffs, Osbourne’s post-Lennon wail, and the tightly-locked interplay of Ward and Butler, the bassist penning lyrics that drew on reality as much as on his initial interest in spirituality and the band’s developing fright-night aesthetic. “We rehearsed across the road from a movie theatre which used to show horror films,” recalled Ozzy. “Tony said, ‘Isn’t it weird – people pay money to see horror films and get scared. Why don’t we make scary music?’”

This decision – and their use of a Boris Karloff 1930s movie title as their moniker – would help forge Sabbath’s fearsome reputation, while their sound would define the metal genre. Resolutely anti-pop, reviled by the critics, and prone to endless bouts of self-destruction, the original line-up lasted until late 1978 when Ozzy was unceremoniously fired and replaced by Ronnie James Dio. Iommi kept the Sabs flag flying with various line-ups, until a 2011 reformation of the original quartet (at least, ‘original’ until Ward opted out) and the 2013 release of a gnarly comeback album, _13,_ put a cap on one of the most influential catalogues in heavy music. Here, then, are MOJO’s pick of Black Sabbath’s greatest albums…

Sabbath have been compiled countless times and often against their wishes. It’s a pattern that goes back to this first collection - an album Tony Iommi claimed to have no knowledge of until a fan turned up with a copy for him to sign. Despite the band’s initial hostility to this release, it is still the best classic Sabbath compilation, collecting 17 tracks that span the band’s first six albums. The omission of Supernaut from _Vol. 4_ is a huge oversight but, for all the controversy generated at the time, it remains a fine introduction for Sabbath novices.

Remarkably for a band who forged their reputation onstage, the classic Sabbath line-up never made an officially endorsed live album until they reformed in 1997 and played two home-town shows at Birmingham's NEC. Before that, there was 1980's lacklustre _Live At Last,_ featuring material from March 1973 released, naturally, against the band's wishes. _Reunion_ is therefore the place to hear the original group in legitimate form. "You really know when you've got the bull by the horns and we had it that night. The show was monumental," said Ozzy of the December 5 concert, included here alongside two then-new studio recordings.

The second set recorded with Ronnie James Dio, this falls just short of its predecessor, _Heaven And Hell._ The first Sabs album not to feature Ward (replaced by Vinnie Appice), it is nevertheless a quality affair, tunes like The Sign Of The Southern Cross and Falling Off The Edge Of The World suggesting the Dio-led line-up still had much to offer. Ego clashes soon put paid to that when, during the mixing of the subsequent live album, _Live Evil_, in 1982, band members accused each other of sneaking into the studio after hours to turn up the levels on their own parts.

A snapshot of the band's live set at the time, this seven-song debut was recorded at Regent Sound Studio in London in one day. Taped on two 4-track machines, the sound is raw and unkempt. The self-titled opener begins with black sheets of rain, a tolling bell and Iommi's ominous use of the 'devil's' tri-tone. Meanwhile, Butler's lyrics - sung with convincing horror - are based on a supernatural visitation the bassist claimed to have witnessed. N.I.B. (aka Nativity In Black) is less spooky. "I wrote that one about Bill Ward's beard," explained Butler. "It was shaped like a pen nib."

Arguably the last great album by the original line-up, 1975’s _Sabotage_ saw them embroiled in managerial litigation. “We had nearly 10 months of legal cases where we couldn’t do anything,” explained Geezer Butler. Unsurprisingly, Ozzy penned a song about the situation (The Writ) and Sabbath vented their frustration in Am I Going Insane (Radio). The anthemic thrust of Hole In The Sky and Symptom Of The Universe proved Sabbath’s musical invective remained intact, while a moment of levity came via the album sleeve, thanks mostly to Bill Ward, who wore his wife’s tights over a pair of underpants borrowed from Ozzy.

“I didn’t have a single idea about what to write,” said Tony Iommi of the writers’ block that dogged him on Sabbath’s fifth studio LP. Used to relying on the guitarist’s fresh riffs to kickstart the creative process, the band scrapped their initial LA sessions. “We thought, This is how bands split up,” admitted Butler. But a writing session in the armoury of Clearwell Castle, Gloucestershire, spawned the riff to the LP’s title track and created the momentum for one of their most adventurous LPs while Killing Yourself To Live stands as perhaps Ozzy’s most autobiographical track.

Fired after 1978's unfortunately titled _Never Say Die! ,_ Ozzy was replaced by ex-Rainbow/Elf singer Ronnie James Dio. With remaining Sabbath trio Iommi, Butler and Ward, he replaced the earth-shovelling sound with a classy, hard-rock approach enhanced by Martin Birch's production and typified by the fast-driving opener Neon Knights. Mini-epic Children Of The Sea along with Die Young and Lonely Is The Word echoed Dio's time in Rainbow, but despite uncertainties (Butler vacillated over his future, Ward succumbed to alcoholism), _Heaven And Hell_ is the sound of a band reborn.

“What the fuck has a bloke dressed as a pig with a sword in his hand got to do with being paranoid?” remarked Ozzy. “They \[the record company\] decided to change the album title without changing the artwork.” The reason for this change was Paranoid, the final track written “in five minutes” at the end of the second album session. Added to material like the funereal War Pigs (the original album title), the Ted Hughes-inspired Iron Man and Fairies Wear Boots (about an altercation with some skinheads), Paranoid remains Sabbath’s only hit single, a UK Top 5 in summer ‘70.

Sabbath’s third saw their sound expanded. “We were a really tight live band; now we knew what we were doing in the studio,” said Bill Ward. Sabbath’s growing scope is revealed in Iommi’s neo-classical interludes (Orchid, Embryo) and his unlikely flute burst on the melancholic ballad, Solitude. Add phlegm-coughing opener Sweet Leaf (inspired by Sweet Afton rolling tobacco rather than marijuana), nihilistic anti-war anthem Children Of The Grave and the intergalactic fatalism of Into The Void (original working title: Spanish Sid) and what you have is a stone-cold classic.

After 18 months of touring, Sabbath recorded their fourth LP at LA's record plant in summer '72. Renting a mansion in Bel Air, and with no label interference, the four-piece gave free rein to increasingly wanton appetites. "The album cost $65,000 to make and we spent $75,000 on coke," admits Geezer Butler. Olympian excess aside, _Vol. 4_ is Sabbath's most satisfying set. An opening brace of Wheels Of Confusion/The Straightener evoke their frenetic state of mind; Snowblind is an ode to their drug of choice; the ballad Changes is a paean to innocence lost; but walloping Supernaut is the album highlight. _Vol. 4_ became Sabbath's fourth US million-seller in a row.

**Shane MacGowan, singer-songwriter and leader of The Pogues sadly passed away in 2023, aged 65. In tribute to MacGowan, MOJO revisits our 2010 encounter with the legendary songwriter. After a wild goose chase around London, Liverpool and Dublin, MOJO’s Will Hodgkinson finally sat down in the wee small hours at MacGowan’s home in Tipperary. On the agenda: Irish nationalism, faith, the meaning of life, MacGowan’s unique cure for baldness and a 6am trip the “fairy fort” at the bottom of the singer's garden...**

While you wouldn’t expect an interview with Shane MacGowan to be straightforward, nothing quite prepares you for the actual experience — when it finally happens. Various attempts to meet up with MacGowan in London come to nothing. When Paul McGuinness, the muscle-bound, ex-jailbird, thoroughly charming leader of MacGowan’s second band The Popes gets on board, things look more hopeful. A time is set —11pm, the night before MacGowan is performing with The Pogues in London — and a failsafe venue found: the bar of the hotel he is staying in. But half an hour before we’re due to start a call comes from McGuinness. MacGowan is in Liverpool. He hasn’t quite managed to get into the tour bus yet.

If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, there’s only one thing for it: to meet MacGowan in Dublin, where he shares a house in the smart residential neighbourhood of Donnybrook with his girlfriend, the writer Victoria Mary Clarke. But on arrival in Dublin on a Monday afternoon, the ever-patient McGuinness announces that MacGowan wants to meet at Philly Ryan’s, his favourite pub — in Nenagh, Tipperary, which is four hours’ drive away.

We enter the door of Philly O’ Ryans, a womb-like living room of a pub, at 8pm. MacGowan is at the bar, pale, bloated and smiling, pulling out fistfuls of crumpled notes from his pockets and buying rounds. He has a shock of upright hair and a permanently surprised expression, as if amazed at the mind-altering effects alcohol can have. An unending flow of regulars crowd around MacGowan, variously wishing to sing with him, sing for him, tell him a story and buy him a drink. “He’s certainly a gentleman, whatever that is,” says an old man by the bar, as a biker with an accordion squeezes out a rendition of Fairytale Of New York. MacGowan leans into his spot at the bar, a cider and ice, a triple vodka, a whisky and Canadian Club and a mug of an unidentified but probably alcoholic liquid before him.

MacGowan is nothing less than a living saint in County Tipperary, where he grew up when his family wasn’t undergoing one of its periodic moves to southeast England. It seems only a matter of time before he’s honoured with a statue in Nenagh’s town square, which will serve as a resting place and occasional convenience for visiting toucans. It’s impossible to get him alone. Finally, at 2pm, the bar shuts. Paul McGuinness suggests we do the interview back at MacGowan’s stone cottage, deep in the Tipperary countryside, which has been in the family for 200 years. MacGowan seems obliging. The only problem is that he insists whoever is left in the pub join us. And it takes him half an hour to get from the door of Philly O’Ryans into the taxi waiting outside, which is exactly two and a half feet away. “Time slows down around Shane,” explains McGuinness.

The cottage is a traditional Irish byre dwelling, featuring a main room with an open hearth, an outside toilet, and two smaller rooms that were once used for housing animals. Today humans and animals in Tipperary live separately. This will come as a huge relief for any nearby pigs and cows. Bottles and glasses, many of them broken, cover the long table at the centre of the room alongside ashtrays, teabags and scraps of food. A television hums in the background. A wooden cross hangs on the uneven wall over the hearth. The cottage is cosy, but phenomenally chaotic.

MacGowan is a genial host and a reluctant interview. He loves to talk — just not about himself. His laugh sounds like a lawnmower running over a stone. We get the tape rolling at around four in the morning, with McGuinness doing everything in his power to encourage MacGowan to answer questions and to stop the two other drunken Irishmen in the room from singing and shouting. And there’s another problem. In May 2009 Shane MacGowan travelled to Spain to have a set of false teeth fitted. Tonight, he appears to have forgotten to put them in.

**I’d like to start by asking how you’re feeling about your place in music today. You’re getting back with The Pogues, you’re working occasionally with The Popes… are you ready to play an active role in being in bands and writing songs once more?**

\[Interrupting as he watches a television debate about Ireland’s economic situation\] Can we watch this for a minute, yeah? This is the political background, yeah? Yes, this is serious. There are a lot of property developers that have gone bust. But we’re not getting surveillance all the time in Ireland like you do in England. There are about 60 cameras on the main roads over there, yeah?

**Are you living here in County Tipperary now?**

Yes, I’m spending most of my time here, and it’s only a short spell up to Dublin. Donnybrook used to be a really pukka area — you’ve heard of Dublin 4, haven’t you?

**How are you feeling about writing songs at the moment?**

\[Getting agitated\] Look, tonight was a Monday night in the lounge of Philly’s and there was an accordion player, right? He wasn’t on his best form but that was just a typical Monday night. Tipperary was never a cut off place. That’s my sister’s Jesus And Mary Chain album right there, which she bought in the fucking town when it came out in nineteen eighty whatever it is.

Paul McGuinness \[after MacGowan falls into silence and watches television\]: As long as I’ve known Shane, most of his inspiration comes back to his roots. A lot of people don’t want to take the music out of Tipperary. Shane sucks it all up and gets it out there.

**Would you be listening to The Jesus And Mary Chain concurrently with, say, a traditional singer like Joe Heaney? Would these be the things that fed into your own vision?**

Of course! And there was John Coltrane, and what they call heavy blues. These are young bands, a lot of American bands and some European, and it’s what I call 1970 rock. It’s psychedelic, it’s heavy, it’s mad, it’s crazy, and it has an acoustic side to it too. There were no clear lines. We were skinheads for a while, and then we became freaks and listened to Hawkwind. It was a natural progression. Ireland goes round and round. It’s a circular tree. It’s one big acid house.

**Wouldn’t you have to go to Dublin to discover the counterculture?**

Out here in the country, right, people have been wise to drugs and stuff for hundreds of years. They take magic mushrooms. Marijuana grows wild here. People have been cultivating it for as long as forever. We were an alternative society. The whole community was an alternative society!

**Was your family part of this alternative society?**

Fuck, yeah! If you think I’m… you should meet my mum and dad. My mum’s 80 but she don’t look or act it. My dad’s getting… what’s the word? Odd. And there’s my uncle Sean. He was a rocker, into motorbikes and all that. When rock’n’roll was dying everywhere in the early 60s we were rocking on in Ireland. There was a lot of immigration over to England and people were bringing the records back. Actually, we were ahead of the game in the Swinging Sixties. The farmers would play the latest records to milk the cows to. You get a bigger yield that way.

**Did you feel much connection with England?**

We never followed England. Our influences were American. We didn’t get Top Of The Pops over here. We weren’t connected to England at all.

**But you have grew up in England intermittently. You were even at London’s Westminster School for a brief period**.

Yeah, but what it really came down to was hip music. If it was English or American or Irish it didn’t matter. Hip is not the same as cool. Hip is always hip, you know what I mean? We had show bands over here in the 50s that picked up hot American R&B records and learnt to play them. The Irish charts were a mixture of every kind of style. Then \[folk rock pioneers\] Sweeney’s Men came along in 1965 and sounded like The Pogues. Their second album in late 66 was bloomin’ psychedelic. Amazing band… There was a massive influence from Sweeney’s Men on us. People forget that Phil Lynott, Rory Gallagher and Taste were doing things here way before anywhere else, yeah? They were all from the same area. Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? And by the 70s, let’s face it, music was getting pretty uncool everywhere. The show bands were kind of creaking a bit by then.

**Did you have a clear idea for what you wanted with The Pogues, and later The Popes?**

When The Pogues started the only philosophy was: anything goes. But Irish music is world music. You can hear it in Jamaica. Reggae and all that. You know what I mean? It’s not a generalisation to say that when the West Indies broke free from England the West Indians said: ‘what the fuck are we doing, working for the English, slaving for these people, yeah?’ They’re into dancing and drinking and partying and the whole thing, so they’ve got more in common with the Irish than they have with the English. West Indians have got the similar culture to us, the positive and negative things – the guns and the Rastafarianism and all that.

**How did The Pogues go down in Ireland? Your raucous take on traditional music must have ruffled a few feathers.**

\[Irish language poet\] Seán O’Riordáin started it, slinging out all these rules in a column in The Irish Times that had been decided on by the musical mind police people. The folk music was destroyed all over Ireland as a result.

**There does seem to be a looser, more rebellious tradition that you are a part of. Alongside The Dubliners there was Eddie and Finbar Furey…**

The mind police set up rules for music and the Fureys broke all that down. They broke every bloody rule. Finbar Furey was the first born to an old travelling family. His father, Ted Furey, was a famous fiddle player. There were loads of travelling musicians and bards and all that all over Ireland. The real point is that we’re all in this shit together, yeah? Unless you’re a landowner or a particularly spineless bastard you’re a part of this stream of thought that includes people like Yates and Joyce and Finbar Furey and fucking, you know… they all agreed on one thing: that we should decide what went on here, that the Irish people should decide.

**When did you first make an impact in Ireland? The Pogues came over here and appeared on The Late Late Show…**

That goes to a cross-section of the community. Everybody stayed in on Saturday night to watch it. It was the highest show in the land.

**What did you perform? The Sick Bed Of Cúchulainn?**

People around here saw it and they knew what we were doing.

**Didn’t the concertina player Noel Hill call The Pogues “an abortion of Irish music?”**

Noel Hill had a radio show and all kinds of stuff. In the 60s he worked for Zeppelin, the Stones, The Beatles. The summer of love happened in Ireland, yeah? It happened earlier, probably, at fairs all over the country. And we were smart. Everybody in Ireland, even if they’re dumb, is smart. You know what I mean? In the 60s it was the civil rights thing all over the world and we were connected with that. We weren’t hiding in bushes or anything, but the point was that there was terrorism coming in at the early 60s and things changed very quickly. Not in a bad way, yeah? We weren’t an African tribe, yeah? Our peacekeeping forces have been out in the Congo and that’s just one example. It was the people that are fitting up surveillance all over England at the moment that exploited the situation. There was a lot of Orange Lodges that started making lots of noise. Nobody was expecting or wanting what happened at the end of the 60s, but it wasn’t much fun for anyone at the end of the 60s. It went to fuck everywhere.

**I think what you’re saying is that Ireland in the 60s was a more sophisticated place than is generally perceived.**

There was constant free speech and dialogue. The citizens of Derry, backed up by everyone in Ireland, refused to allow the Royal Ulster Constabulary to quash their right to protest. (This led to the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by British Paratroopers in 1972 called Bloody Sunday). From then on the RUC told the people in England one thing (about the Troubles), but they couldn’t tell the people in Ireland that what was going on wasn’t going on. And because we were all over the world the word got out.

\[_Tom Creagh sings more rebel songs. An argument breaks out when he sings a song about taking his place in Heaven next to Bobby Sands and Shane Macgowan, understandably so given that MacGowan is still very much on Earth._\]

MacGowan: The greatest comrades of the Irish republican movement were the English working people, the miners and so on. And of course all that goes into what we did with The Pogues. It goes into what anyone anywhere does. We’re entertainers first and foremost, yeah? And we’ll sing rebel songs, love songs, and the songs of Finbar Furey, who broke the mould at 17 years of age when he won a piping competition. The English people as a general rule, yeah? They were the ones that had the wool pulled over their eyes by the Unionists in England. The Unionists were holding onto an England that had crumbled all around them.

**Do you see yourself as part of the tradition of Irish genius madmen, like Brendan Behan and WB Yeats?**

\[Ignoring the question\] When we came over here as a band Noel Hill just happened to be a guy that disagreed violently with what we did. We didn’t mind. Noel Hill has every right to his opinions, yeah? We’d already had all this bollocks from the BBC who thought we were rubbish.

**What happened with the BBC? Pogue Mahone (Gaelic slang for “kiss my arse”) is a very soft insult, the sort of thing your mother teaches you.**

The BBC found out because an Irish lorry driver rang up John Peel when we were doing a session and asked him if he knew what Pogue Mahone means. When Peel found out, he announced it on the radio. And when the old guard got wind of this, they felt that one lot had just had a massive hit, and that’s Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and they couldn’t let it happen again. They tried to ban Relax but it was too late, so they thought they’d better ban us. But people were calling us The Pogues anyway by then so the BBC said: “we won’t ban you. We’ll just pretend you don’t exist.” They actually did ban The Dubliners years before.

**In other words, there was an attempt at censorship that failed.**

Well, they tried. But it’s always been like that, with these people that put surveillance cameras everywhere. They tried to get The Rolling Stones out of the way, but they couldn’t. It was all too much, too late. That reminds me. I’m meant to be doing a lottery. A fairy said I have to do it.

**Is this all material for songwriting?**

**Is there a time that’s good for songwriting? Before you go to bed, for example?**

Maybe if I went to bed! \[laughs\] I generally stay awake for about a week. I get catnaps, and then when I’m really exhausted I crash out for a good long while and carry on, you know what I mean?

**Do you think it’s still in you to create new material? Do you still want to write?**

\[Looking depressed\] You should ask Paul a few more things.

**I’m just interested in what inspires your greatest songs. Fairytale Of New York for example, is already a standard.**

It will be with us forever. I’m wasting a lot of breath here. You know what I mean? I’ve done so much bellyaching over the years about this, right? I don’t really have anything to say, more than anybody else. What I’m interested in doing is having a great time, and the audience having a great time, and living as long as I possibly can, and I’m as much in the dark about what happens after that as everybody else. Except I have a faith, which is, which is, which is, you know… it isn’t anything to do with any particular… like people who… I mean, what’s it all about? Why don’t you tell me? What do you believe? What do you think happens?

Yeah! I do believe in freedom for living things, and in free speech, but that’s got absolutely bugger all to do with you being English and me being Irish. These days we get on fine. We always did. Take the piss out of each other, whatever. It’s the same as the animals and the trees. I’m into hugging trees and stuff. There’s nothing stupid about hugging trees, especially if they surround you like they do out here.

**Do you believe in the spirits of the land alongside the Catholic faith?**

There’s a fairy fort near here. There are a couple of fairies down there at the moment. Actually, you’ve just given me an idea for a song. We don’t know what it is really, but it’s to do with Irish… actually it’s all over the place, but we’re custodians of this country, yeah? And I believe in what the older people believe around here. Call me a hippy, call me a whatever, you know… do you want to see The Fairy Fort?

\[Getting excited\] You want to see The Fairy Fort? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?

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