Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (1976)
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is a 1976 arena rock album by AC/DC.
Bon Scott sings the title like a hired thug with a sense of humour, and AC/DC back him with the swagger of a band that has finally worked out exactly what it is. The Australian group's third album, from 1976, is hard rock built on blues and plain rock and roll: guitars loud and unfussy, rhythm section locked, nothing decorative in the way.
It was also the first AC/DC record cut end to end by one settled lineup. Earlier albums carried tracks played by a different bassist or drummer, so this one is the first where the same players start and finish the job, and the tightness shows.
Its release history split the world in two. Europe, Australia and New Zealand got the album in 1976. American listeners waited until 1981, more than a year after Bon Scott's death, which meant the record reached the United States out of sequence, arriving from a band that had already moved on without him. For anyone working through the Bon Scott era, it sits near the front of the list.
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A few thoughts on Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
For the band at full volume, AC/DC: Live at River Plate catches AC/DC in front of a stadium crowd, about as close as film gets to standing in the room while these riffs land. The Dirt moves sideways into the culture this music built, Motley Crue telling their own story with the same absence of shame that runs through Bon Scott's lyrics, funny and grubby in roughly equal measure. If you would rather know how records like this get made, Classic Albums puts musicians and engineers in front of the multitrack tape and pulls a famous album apart piece by piece, which is the surest way to hear why hard rock this plain sounding is so difficult to copy.