It’s good to be in the AC/DC business. This week, the band released AC/DC: Iron Man 2,  a tie-in with next month’s blockbuster popcorn flick that’s really just a greatest hits package. There isn’t a single new song, or even a new recording of an old song, on the thing. It’s just some of the band’s most famous tunes with Iron Man and War Machine on the cover.

And it’s apparently on track to sell somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 copies in its first week of release. That seems like an insane number for an album with nothing new to offer. Are all of the people who bought this album kids who are just getting into AC/DC and found purchasing the collection to be cheaper than delving into the band’s discography? I might have believed this to be the case ten years ago, but today’s kids are way too savvy for that, aren’t they? They don’t really seem to care about album art, let alone a promo pic that’s readily available all over the internet; they’d just illegally download the tracks (AC/DC have yet to make their catalog available via iTunes) and make their own comp. So I have to think that the band’s older fans are the people buying this album in droves. To repeat: old people are running out and buying a bunch of songs they already own. WHY? Are they too lazy to rip all the songs and just make a mix? Do they not understand how to burn a CD (if people are still buying CDs I’m going to assume that they’re still burning them)? Or are they such loyal completists that they’ll sink money into anything with the AC/DC logo on it ? I’m not knocking AC/DC – I love their music, and good for them for once again being the richest dudes on the planet – but I really do find this to be a mystery.

While you ponder that, watch the below mash-up of AC/DC, Iron Man, and Dirty Dancing. The editing is kinda sloppy and obviously the special effects aren’t theatrical-release grade, but it’s still kinda funny.

The Iron Man 2 video game, which comes out May 4, which feature a lot more metal, with songs by Meshuggah, Soilwork, and a new Lamb of God track, “Hit the Wall.” You can watch a clip about the making of “Hit the Wall” after the jump.

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Nowadays, classic metal seems all the rage — some cool kid told me this while walking to the market — and with MetalSucks doing the whole “Ten Great Bands That Inadvertently Helped Ruin Heavy Metal” thing, I got to thinking: how did metal become metal? We all know the Sabbath/Priest/Zeppelin “who started heavy metal” debate, but what about the in-betweeners that were probably “heavy metal” to my dad’s mom when Pops was just growing that ridiculous mustache and finding out that drinking beer was pretty cool once you got past that taste?

(Okay, full disclosure: I was drinking a beer and cranking UFO while reading the Van Halen story, so there.)

We’ve all known 3 Inches Of Blood for more than a few years at this point, but with the rise of bands like White Wizzard, Holy Grail, the criminally underrated Wolf, Gypsyhawk, RAM, and Cauldron waving the flag for the classic metal sound, I got to thinking about the bands that inspired them. These are groups where you could look back at them and say that they aren’t even definable as “metal” anymore.

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I didn’t watch the Grammys last night, and judging by Metal Injection’s report on the event, it doesn’t sound like I missed anything. For one thing, the award Best Metal Performance wasn’t even televised, because, well, metal heads know better than to watch this stupid show and the t.v. people want ratings, not goodwill. (Judas Priest won, in case you care; AC/DC won Best Hard Rock Performance.)

Worse, though, was a butchering of the legendary solo from “November Rain” by Slash (real name: Saul Hudson), Jaime Foxx (real name: Eric Marlon Bishop), T-Pain (real name: Faheem Rasheed Najm) and Doug E. Fresh (real name: Douglas E. Davis). Not just because the song needs hip-hop shenanigans like I need nut cancer; not just because some thought they had better put Slash’s name in big letters on the screen behind him when he came on stage, in case anyone was confused by the top hat, Les Paul, curly hair, and people yelling “SLASH!”; but really because Slash only sounds marginally better than Dj Ashba.

The funniest part? If Axl Rose is to be believed, getting Slash to even agree to record “November Rain” was like pulling teeth. I can’t wait to see what kind of shit I’ll do someday in the name of making my mortgage payments.

-AR

Iron Man was a fun movie. It wasn’t great, but I had a nice time watching it, and I will see Iron Man 2. But if you’re one of those people who thought that Iron Man was the greatest goddamn thing ever and get even think about Iron Man 2 without pissing yourself with excitement, well, then do I have a treat for you: some Iron Man 2 footage appears in a new AC/DC video for an old song, “Shoot to Thrill.” According to Nikki Finke, this is just the tip of the iceberg for the band and the armored hero, as “Columbia Records will release the album AC/DC: Iron Man 2 on Monday, April 19th, featuring 15 classic AC/DC songs selected from 1976 to 2008.”

This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why start promoting an album that doesn’t come out ’til April and a movie that doesn’t come out ’til May now? Will people really remember this in four to five months? Also, since every AC/DC song basically sounds the same, would it really have been so hard for Angus Young to at least whip up a new single for this thing, rather than just offer another rehash of the band’s back catalog?

In any case, here’s the video. Watch it, don’t watch it, whatever. There’ll be plenty of more opportunities to see Iron Man 2 footage between now and its release date, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, the dude who just got hired to direct the new Spider-Man movie has directed videos for Hatebreed and Disturbed. So maybe Marvel is really metal after all.

-AR

So the nominations for the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards have been announced. The nominees for “Best Metal Performance” are slightly less embarrassing than usual – I’m assuming because the popularity of metal is on the rise, so some bands with actual talent are enjoying the spotlight. Here they are:

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From time to time in the past we’ve exchanged e-mails with The Austerity Program‘s Justin Foley, and the dude’s e-mails were so goddamn funny (not to mention smart) that we finally asked him to write for us. Hopefully Justin’s contributions to MetalSucks will become a regular, or at least semi-regular, occurrence. Enjoy!

MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THAT BAD VILLAGE VOICE THING. I KNOW, IT’S BEST TO IGNORE THESE THINGS BUT I JUST CAN’T THIS TIME.

“O Confusion! Cruel mistress – thou who would lead thine servants to slaughter like a lamb also gets led (Ed – to slaughter). Cruel! Innocent lambs, gently editing metal blogs, knowing not of your unkind plans nor the wicked scroll of fate.” Henry VI, Act 4

Like many of you jokers, I was struck with a growing sadness as I read the nonsense that that nice Wingerschmidt boy posted the other day. Sadness because it really missed the main point about the Voice’s article –a refreshingly pure distillation of concentrated bullshit. Fortunately, I didn’t miss it and neither did many of those who commented. But just in case there’s any doubt, let me tell you why that Voice writer has it so, so wrong.

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Vince really likes Buckcherry, but I’ve never gotten into any of their songs that aren’t the big hits – namely, “Lit Up” (a.k.a. “the one about cocaine”) and “Crazy Bitch” (a.k.a. “the one about fucking”). Like so many bands that hoped to be the Appetite-era Guns N’ Roses of the late 20th/early 21st century, Buckcherry always just felt like they were trying way too hard to prove what a bunch of bad-asses they are. GN’R never actually used the words “cocaine” or “heroin” in a song – Buckcherry’s biggest hit finds them shouting “I LOVE THE COCAINE! I LOVE THE COCAINE!” In case anyone doubted that they were the real deal. Puh-lease.

So. Former Buckcherry bassist JB Brightman has a new band, Black Robot, and – no shock here – it’s readily apparent that they want to be AC/DC. If you’re one of those people who unironically loves retro-hard rawk that has no sense of originality whatsoever, then you will probably dig this band. And whatever you do, stay away from Loudermilk and Manmade God – bands that actually make excellent, original hard rock.

And, hey, guess what? Black Robot covered Clapton’s “Cocaine!” How original! How shocking! What a bunch of bad-asses! Now I can finally burn my copy of Appetite for Destruction!

Barf.

-AR

This morning MetalSucks uber-Maniac Josh Kidd sent me this link to the website for AC/DC’s upcoming Backtracks box set. The music is all the usual bullshit you see on these box sets – studio rarities, live rarities, your mom’s rarities, whatever. Only really hardcore fans ever buy this shit and as much as I love AC/DC, I’m not a hardcore fan. So go here if you actually wanna see what’s on this thing, music-wise.

No, what captured my attention was the packaging, pictured above. Yes, it just looked like the umpteenth box set made to look like an amp, but check out the description:

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If I had a biological clock, I’d worry that’s it’s ticking. Because this is my second story about little kids today.

Reign in Blonde has made the awesome discovery of Jonah Rocks, who is a) the only four year old I’ve ever seen that can play the drums, and b) the only four year old I’m aware of that already has a stage name. He also seems to have an endorsement deal with Vic Firth. Holy poop.

For reasons that are totally beyond me, the videos of this lil’ tyke rockin’ out are not embeddable, but if you go here, you can watch Jonah play “Harvester of Sorrow” with more skill and passion than Lars Ulrich has displayed in years.

After the jump are some more links to Jonah playing. Some of these videos were made when he was only three years old!!!

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I don’t actually know anything about Six Feet Under’s record sales. For all I know, the actual economics render everything I’m about to type moot.

But to me, Six Feet Under recording another one of their Graveyard Classics albums – e.g., covers of non-metal songs that were fine the way they were turned into death metal songs that no one I know will ever actually listen to – seems like Eddie Murphy announcing Pluto Nash 2 or Van Halen announcing a new album with Gary Cherone. What a waste of time, energy, and money.

Also, by all appearances Six Feet Under songs aren’t all that hard to write, so you wonder why the band doesn’t just make a new album instead. At least then they wouldn’t be butchering anyone’s music but their own.

In case you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing a SFU Graveyard Classics album, here’s the band doing AC/DC’s “TNT” for a shitload of people who are apparently way more into it than I am.

-AR

As a part of goth metal OGs Type O Negative, drummer Johnny Kelley’s talents are often overshadowed by the low end sultriness and antics of bassist/frontman/nude model Peter Steele. But his graceful stickwork has been holding the band together since 1995′s October Rust, and the string of Type O albums that have come out since have stood shoulder to shoulder with the band’s prior material. Along with being Danzig’s drummer, Kelly plays in Seventh Void, a stoner/trad metal outfit with Type O Negative guitarist Kenny Hickey. The latter band released their debut on Vinnie Paul’s Big Vin Records in April. In an interview with MetalSucks, Kelly discusses Type O Negative’s future, working with Glenn Danzig, and his thoughts on modern drummers.

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This, MetalSucks Maniacs and Maniacettes, is the very definition of metal. I was SO this kid when I was 10, except it was Van Halen instead of AC/DC, and minus 100 pounds, give or take.

-VN

The infamous Now That’s What They Call Music comp, now it’s thirtieth iteration (!), will never stop selling. Nor will Hannah Montana. Given, it’s tough for any true metal band to crack the Billboard 200, but Mastodon did just once again that by notching a #11 debut with Crack the Skye, beat out metal-wise only by Papa Roach (ugh). Elsewhere, we got some surprises from Chris Cornell, Twiztid (!?) and others. Sales figures for those and other notable hard rock and metal releases after the jump.

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You’ve got big balls!

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That’s the realization I had on Tuesday night at the Mercury Lounge watching Northern Ireland’s The Answer rock the house. The kind of music The Answer peddle — retrofried, bluesy, Southern hard rock reminiscent of AC/DC, Led Zep, and even early ’00s rocksters Silvertide — gets my blood pumping and gives me a giant stiffy instantly. There’s just something about lots of D, A, C and G chords that sounds fucking great together, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before and in how many different permutations. Especially when played on a Les Paul through a Marshall amp — ya know, the kind with actual real overdriven tubes, not the fake, washy digital kind. Makes me feel like I can stay out all night long drinking, doing lines and fucking bitches because it’s rock and fucking roll, dude!!! Indeed, The Answer are a tight package that rock you just the way you want to be rocked, with plenty of bravado but little pretense.

Check out the band’s brand new video for “On and On” below, which comes from their new full-length Everyday Demons (The End). I haven’t heard the full record yet, but if their recent EP Never Too Late is any indication, it’ll be as slammin’ as the band’s live set.

-VN

When we were younger, Vince and I used to argue about whether not Billy Joel was any good. For the record: I did not like the musical stylings of Mr. Joel, and Vince did. It wasn’t until Billy boy, as drunk as any member of any metal band has ever been, challenged to me to a fight on the street because I was “lookin’ at his pizza funny” that I began to see just what a bad ass the piano man is. I’ve never thought of the song “Pressure” the same way since.

ANYWAY, Blabbermouth posted this footage of Joel (on rhythm guitar) and a roadie (on vocals) playing “Highway to Hell” this past Friday night in Hollywood, Florida, a town that has the unique distinction of being the second most famous Hollywood in America. The thought of a drunk driver playing “Highway to Hell” is just too funny not to post.

-AR

My first Fuck Rolling Stone post on metal singers was such a hit I thought I’d dig back into the RS archives and stir up some more shit. So, I decided to re-read their summertime list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time (also here).

Thankfully, there are a few metallic (but mostly rockish) noteworthy icons; however, extreme metal is woefully ignored. Nonetheless, the list did include Jimi Hendrix (#1), Jimmy Page (#9), Kirk Hammett (#11), Kurt Cobain (#12), Johnny Ramone (#16), Tom Morello (#26), Thurston Moore/Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) (#33/#34), Joe Perry (#48), Ritchie Blackmore (#55), Vernon Reid (#66), Eddie Van Halen (#70), Adam Jones (Tool) (#75), D. Boon (The Minutemen) (#89), Glen Buxton (Alice Cooper) (#90), Wayne Kramer/Fred “Sonic” Smith (MC5) (#92/#93), Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) (#95), Angus Young (#96), Leigh Stephens (Blue Cheer) (#98), Greg Ginn (Black Flag) (#99), and Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) (#100).

And, yet another reason why we here at the MetalSucks Mansion like to say “Fuck Rolling Stone!” — coming in at #86, TOMMY Iommi…yes, “TOMMY.” How the fuck do you not know the first name of one of the true legends of not only metal, but of rock guitars? Hmmmmmmmm….Please, clue me in.

IT’S TONY, YOU FUCKS!!!

Anyway, here is my stab at the best Metal Guitarists of All Time — and for a point of reference, my Old Fartness will be shining through here, as will my love for rhythm guitarists:

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2008 was a pretty big year for so-called “legacy” rock and metal releases. Metallica, AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses — arguably three of the biggest rock/metal acts of all time — all released new albums to varying fanfare. So now that you’ve had some time to brew on how these records stack up against the bands’ older material and against each other… which is your favorite? Vote, then weigh in with your thoughts in the comments.

n

Dr. Pepper’s website is still not working, but that hasn’t stopped the world from participating in Chinese Democracy mania. I stopped by the Best Buy on 23rd St. (where door signs read “The Most Anticipated Album Release Ever!”) to buy my copy yesterday, and rumors from an unconfirmed source have it that one Axl Rosenberg was there at 9am to watch the doors open. At the moment I’m writing this sentence, Blabbermouth’s most recent 5 headlines are all GNR-centric (see screen cap, above) and TV news outlets in countries around the world are covering GNR mania.

Will the truncated, two-day first week be enough to snag the top spot on the chart? Will it outsell the other two big rock releases of late 2008, Metallica’s Death Magnetic and AC/DC’s Black Ice? Will its second week top its first week, boosted by Black Friday and a full week, and will it sustain enough steam to beat Kanye West and The Killers? Will there ever be democracy in China???

-VN

All is not lost in the world of metal; in fact, this past week brought some nice surprises, along with the usual mish-mash of shitty radio rock bands. Last week’s sales numbers, with our usual sardonic commentary, after the jump. (Hint: look at the tags below, and click “read more” if any of those bands interest you!).

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