10 Most Influential Hard Rock Albums
8. Highway to Hell - AC/DC
Some bands tend to get too caught up in breaking new ground that they forget to write good songs. No matter how much you may like to push the boundaries of your respective genre, it's not going to mean anything if it doesn't have a solid foundation to build off of. It's sometimes best to keep things simple, and AC/DC knew this trick all too well.
Make no mistake, nothing that AC/DC plays necessarily reinvents the wheel of rock, with most of their tunes being based around the same chord progressions that Elvis and Chuck Berry had been working with for years. However, the real magic came with what they did with them, incorporating mountains of attitude and the sexual abandon brought out through Bon Scott's lyrics. Whereas some people single out Back in Black as the real crowning achievement, Highway to Hell is where everything really congealed.
After years of letter-perfect rock and roll, this record has a certain amount of magic in it that no one has been able to equal, from the hellish landscape of the title track to the punkish edge of Beating Around the Bush to the final dirge of Night Prowler. Even though these guys were far from the greatest rock band, they quickly became a favorite amongst all of your favorite bands, from Alice in Chains to the founding members of hair metal all worshipping at this dark altar. These aren't complicated guys, and these aren't complicated songs...but it just might be the closest thing to perfect hard rock that we've ever seen.