On the radio: New AC/DC sounds a lot like...the old AC?DC

So have you heard AC/DC's latest single, "Rock and Roll Train"?

Yes, you have. No, trust me, even if you haven't heard it, you have. Assuming you've been around for the last 20 years, you've heard this song over and over again on classic rock radio, commercials, stadium loudspeakers...

What I'm saying here, folks, with all the subtlety of "Highway to Hell," is that "Rock and Roll Train" sounds an awful lot like an awful lot of the band's back catalogue. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I am interested, though, by the positive commercial and critical reaction to both the song in particular and the new album (Wal-Mart exclusive "Black Ice") in general.

AC/DC earns praise for "returning to form" and "going back to basics" with this new set. I won't dispute the familiarity of the music, but since when did AC/DC go away? I thought that ever since "Thunderstruck," this group has pretty much been cranking out what its fans want every few years or so with little variation. Yet now this is heralded as some kind of comeback.

The whole thing also intrigues me because I wonder why some bands are "allowed" to do basically the same thing over and over again, while some are castigated as soon as a single album sounds too much like its predecessor. Are there different levels of expectations for different artists? Are they perceived a certain way once they achieve a certain level of longevity?

Again, I'm not complaining about AC/DC; I just don't quite get it. But I'd sure rather come across "Rock and Roll Train" on the radio than something off the guy's country album or Brian Johnson doing a collection of standards.