Stiff Upper Lip is the 14th studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC. It was the band's thirteenth internationally released studio album and the fourteenth to be released in Australia. It was released on February 28, 2000. The album was produced by George Young, older brother of Malcolm and Angus Young and this was the last AC/DC album that George produced before his death in 2017. The album was re-released in the US on 2007 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series. It was re-released in the UK in 2005.
Background
The Young brothers began writing songs for what would become Stiff Upper Lipin the summer of 1997 in London and the Netherlands with Malcolm on guitar and Angus on drums, and by February 1998 the songs were completed. The band had planned on recording a new album with CanadianBruce Fairbairn, who had produced the enormously successful The Razors Edge and AC/DC Live, but Fairbairn died in May 1999. The Youngs turned to their older brother George, who had produced 1988's Blow Up Your Video as well as the band's early albums with Harry Vanda, and Mike Fraser, who had co-produced 1995's Ballbreaker, to complete Stiff Upper Lip.
Recording
The album was recorded and mixed at Bryan Adams' Warehouse Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada between September and November 1999 with a total of 18 songs recorded in all. In 2000, bassist Cliff Williams remarked to VH1's Behind the Music: "It's a killer album. It was a very easy-to-record album in as much as Malcolm and Angus had everything ready to go, so we basically just had to come along and perform as best we could." According to Arnaud Durieux's memoir AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, Malcolm takes a rare guitar solo on "Can't Stand Still" while Angus does the backing vocals on "Hold Me Back". The album delves even deeper into the band's blues roots than its predecessor Ballbreaker and features a remarkably clean sound. In an interview with Alan Di Perna of Guitar World, singer Brian Johnson commented on working with George Young:
Composition
Angus Young explained in interviews that the album title occurred to him when he was stuck in traffic and began ruminating on how vital lips were in rock and roll culture, citing icons Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger, and carried a certain sneering defiance. He noted that he had contributed to this tradition himself: The video for the title track – directed by Andy Morahan, – starts with the band driving down the street in a red 1997 Hummer H1 and being caught in a traffic jam. They pull into a back alley, get out, and begin to play the song on the street. The song that the band listens to before the car jam is "It's a Long Way to the Top ", released when the late Bon Scott was a member. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the song "Safe in New York City" was included in the 2001 Clear Channel memorandum, a list of "lyrically questionable" songs. In a May 2000 interview with Alan Di Perna for Guitar World – just over a year prior to the tragedy – Angus Young was asked if he really felt safe in New York City: "That song is a little tongue in cheek. Last time I was in New York, that's all people were talking about: how safe it was, how it was gonna be such a great place to live. For me, New York has always been a city of unpredictability. You can never guess what's going to happen next." The album cover features a bronze statue of Angus; mimicked on tour in the form of a prop – bearing his demonic likeness – that was several storeys high. The three singles from it were the title track "Stiff Upper Lip", "Safe in New York City", and "Satellite Blues". These three plus "Meltdown" were played live on the subsequent world tour. In Australia, New Zealand and Europe, a two-disc tour edition of Stiff Upper Lip was released by Albert Productions in January 2001. This includes Stiff Upper Lip plus a disc comprising: a non-album track, five tracks from a concert at Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, Madrid, Spain in 1996, as well as three videos. Songs reportedly recorded for the album that went unreleased were: "Let It Go", "R.I.P. It Up", "Whistle Blower", "Rave On" and "The Cock Crows".
Reception
Stiff Upper Lip rose to #7 on the U.S. Billboard chart and peaked at #12 in the United Kingdom. It hit #1 in Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Austria. It was better received by critics than Ballbreaker but was considered lacking in new ideas.
Track listing
Deluxe Edition Disc 2
Video
Stiff Upper Lip Live is the name of the live video released in 2001 by AC/DC, recorded on 14 June 2001 at the Olympiastadion in Munich, Germany, on their Stiff Upper Lip Tour. The track listing is as follows:
