Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is the third studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, originally released only in Europe, Australia and New Zealand in 1976.
AC/DC began recording Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in December 1975 at Albert Studios with Harry Vanda and George Young (elder brother of guitarists Malcolm and Angus) producing.
According to the book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, Vanda and Young travelled to the UK to record several songs with the band at Vineland Studios for a scheduled EP, which was eventually scrapped.
Situations in which he offers assistance include those involving lewd high school headmasters, and significant others who either are adulterous or persistently find fault with their partners.
One of the cartoon's characters was named Dishonest John, and carried a business card that read, "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
Atypically for an AC/DC song, it has a sad, slow blues feel and features Bon Scott's reflective lyrics and restrained, soulful delivery.
Songs like 'Ain't No Fun,' 'RIP,' 'Jailbreak,' and particularly the lonely resignation of 'Ride On,' were almost character studies of Bon and had a sense of impatience...breaking free and just plain loneliness."
In an interview with Anthony O'Grady of RAM in August 1976, Scott stated that "Ride On" was "about a guy who gets pissed around by chicks...can't find what he wants."
"Ain't No Fun (Waiting 'Round to be a Millionaire)" is one of the few AC/DC songs that has cursing, with Scott shouting on the fade, "Hey Howard, how ya doin' friend, my next door neighbour?
"'We're not gonna put it out and we're dropping the band'… So I went to [Atlantic executive] Nesuhi (Ertegun) and showed him the sales figures that we'd got for High Voltage.
AC/DC hadn't had the opportunity to marshal troops through touring the U.S., and at the time there was no way something as raw and gritty as Dirty Deeds was going to make it onto American radio playlists by itself.
Strong demand for both versions (in the wake of the huge success of Back in Black) led the US division of Atlantic to finally authorize an official US release in March 1981.
"Love at First Feel" is one of only two tracks from international AC/DC albums not to be available on the band's Australian albums (the other is "Cold Hearted Man", released on European pressings of Powerage); however, "Love at First Feel" was released in Australia as a single in January 1977, with "Problem Child" as its B-side, which peaked in the Kent Music Report Singles Chart Top 100.
[12] The international release of Dirty Deeds also contains "Big Balls", one of the band's most infamous compositions, that finds Scott, a deceptively clever lyricist, using double entendres by using ballroom and costume parties to obviously reference his own testicles.
This means they trim off the Chuck Berry licks and title chanting to the end; however, both these full-length versions were restored on the 1994 Atco Records remastered CD of the international album.
Conversely, all international editions of the Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album have a slightly shorter version where the song fades out at 2:50 before the cut.
"Squealer" appears to be longer by thirteen seconds on the international version; this is due to it having a bumper of silence at the end, as it is the final track on the record.
AllMusic gives the album five out of five stars and proclaims "it captured the seething malevolence of Bon Scott...encouraged by the maniacal riffs of Angus and Malcolm Young" and that there was a "real sense of danger to this record.
"[23] Greg Kot of Rolling Stone gives the album a generally positive three out of five stars, commenting; "The guitars of brothers Angus and Malcolm Young bark at each other, Phil Rudd swings the beat even as he's pulverizing his kick drum, and Scott brings the raunch 'n' wail.