Back in Black by AC/DC

Back in Black, AC/DC's seventh album, came out on 25 July 1980 on Albert Productions and Atlantic, and it's a comeback made in the shadow of a funeral. In February 1980 singer Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning after a night out in London, just as the band was riding the breakthrough of Highway to Hell. They thought about calling it quits, then hired Brian Johnson, formerly of Geordie, and went back to work.

Johnson and the brothers Angus and Malcolm Young wrote the songs, and the band spent seven weeks in the Bahamas that April and May recording at Compass Point Studios with Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who had produced Highway to Hell, before mixing at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Lange buffs the sound to a hard, clean gleam, but nothing gets softened: the guitars chop like cleavers, the rhythm section doesn't budge an inch, and Johnson screams like a man with gravel in his throat and something to prove. "Hells Bells" tolls with slow dread, and "Shoot to Thrill", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Have a Drink On Me" and the title track pile on the riffs. The all-black cover was designed as a sign of mourning for Scott.

A yearlong world tour made them one of the biggest draws of the early 1980s, and the record never stopped selling: an estimated 50 million copies worldwide, second only to one album in history. In August 2024 the RIAA certified it 27 times platinum, the best-selling album in America that never reached the top of the charts there.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.