Highway to Hell＜完全生産限定盤/Gold Vinyl＞

AC/DC 活動50周年記念アナログ盤(ゴールド・ヴァイナル)
1979年発売 AC/DCの存在を全世界に知らしめた出世作『Highway To Hell』(邦題:地獄のハイウェイ)

1979年作品。AC/DCの存在を全世界に知らしめた出世作であり、ボン・スコット在籍最後のアルバム。色気と野性味を兼ね備えた類稀なるヴォーカリストは、本アルバム発売後悲劇的な死を遂げた。アルバム・タイトルチューン「地獄のハイウェイ」をはじめ、「女たちのリズム」「ショット・ダウン」などロックの名曲を収録。音楽はもちろんアートワークも含め、今尚ロック好きを魅了する名作の一つとして挙げられる。全米17位、全英8位を獲得。
バンドの活動50周年を記念したアナログ盤(ゴールド・ヴァイナル)で発売。

Of course, Highway to Hell is the final album AC/DC recorded with Bon Scott, the lead singer who provided the group with a fair share of its signature sleaze. Just months after its release, Scott literally partied himself to death (the official cause cited as acute alcohol poisoning) after a night of drinking, a rock & roll fatality that took no imagination to predict. In light of his passing, it's hard not to see Highway to Hell as a last testament of sorts, being that it was his last work and all, and if Scott was going to go out in a blaze of glory, this certainly was the way to do it. This is a veritable rogue's gallery of deviance, from cheerfully clumsy sex talk and drinking anthems to general outlandish behavior. It's tempting to say that Scott might have been prescient about his end -- or to see the title track as ominous in the wake of his death -- trying to spill it all out on paper, but it's more accurate to say that the ride had just gotten very fast and very wild for AC/DC, and he was simply flying high. After all, it wasn't just Scott who reached a new peak on Highway to Hell; so did the Young brothers, crafting their monster riffs into full-fledged, undeniable songs. This is their best set of songs yet, from the incessant, intoxicating boogie of "Girls Got Rhythm" to "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)." Some of the credit should also go to Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who gives the album a precision and magnitude that the Vanda & Young LPs lacked in their grimy charm. Filtered through Mutt's mixing board, AC/DC has never sounded so enormous, and they've never had such great songs, and they had never delivered an album as singularly bone-crunching or classic as this until now. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine