Ballbreaker

Brand new sealed 180 gram vinyl. Made in EU

Ballbreaker is an album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC. It was the band's twelfth internationally released studio album and the thirteenth to be released in Australia. It was re-released in 2005 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series. All songs are written by Malcolm Young (guitar) and Angus Young (guitar)

Ballbreaker marked the return of drummer Phil Rudd, who had played on all AC/DC albums from their Australian album T.N.T. (1975) to Flick of the Switch (1983). Rudd had left during the Flick of the Switch sessions due to drug problems and his incompatability with Malcolm Young.^[1] According to Arnaud Durieux's book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, Rudd attended AC/DC's show in Auckland in November 1991 and, after a friendly meeting with the band backstage, made an "open-ended pitch" to rejoin if anything changed with the band's current drummer Chris Slade. Durieux reports that the band eventually invited Rudd to rejoin and he accepted in August 1994, much to the chagrin of Slade, who told Rock Hard France in June 2001 that he was so disappointed and disgusted that he didn't touch his drum kit for three years.

Ballbreaker is also significant for being the only AC/DC album produced by Rick Rubin. Rubin had been a long-time fan of the band; former AC/DC engineer Tony Platt recalls overhearing the producer working with the Cult on their 1987 LP Electric:

Rick Rubin was recording the Cult in Studio A and we [Platt and the studio engineers] stood in the airlock just outside the studio. A snatch of Highway to Hell would get played and then a snatch from Back in Black and then a snatch of Led Zeppelin, and we thought, "What the hell's going on there?' [A studio assistant] said, 'Well, he's getting the guitar sounds from Back in Black, the drum sound from Highway to Hell and the voice sound from Led Zeppelin!' Literally, as he was mixing he was getting a guitar sound on the Cult and then comparing it directly with the guitar sound that he wanted to get from Back in Black. The same with all the other instruments.^[2]

Rubin's first assignment with AC/DC had been "Big Gun," which appeared on the soundtrack for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Last Action Hero. The song was a hit, becoming Billboard's #1 rock track and hit #5 on the Canadian charts.

A1		Hard As A Rock	4:31
A2		Cover You In Oil	4:33
A3		The Furor	4:11
A4		Boogie Man	4:07
A5		The Honey Roll	5:35
A6		Burnin' Alive	5:05
B1		Hail Caesar	5:14
B2		Love Bomb	3:14
B3		Caught With Your Pants Down	4:15
B4		Whiskey On The Rocks	4:35
B5		Ballbreaker	4:31