A SOUND THAT SHOOK THE WORLD

Created by a band in mourning, Back In Black was the album that resurrected AC/DC. And as Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash said: “It saved rock’n’roll!” From tragedy to triumph, this is the story of AC/DC’s greatest victory...

Back In Black is many things. With more than 50 million units shifted, it is the biggest selling rock album of all time. For many, it is also the greatest hard rock record ever made. It was the album that turned AC/DC into superstars, and it has been inspiration to countless rock bands for 40 years, from Def Leppard to Metallica, Guns N’ Roses to The Darkness.

Most remarkable of all is what Back In Black represents on a human level, for AC/DC’s greatest success followed their darkest hour: the death of their singer Bon Scott. Most bands would have been broken by such a loss. But with Back In Black – “our tribute to Bon,” as lead guitarist Angus Young called it – AC/DC pulled off the greatest comeback in rock history. It is, in the words of Slash, “One of the huge Cinderella stories of rock’n’roll.”

In January 1980, when Angus and his elder brother Malcolm, the band’s rhythm guitarist, first began work on the album with Bon Scott in London, they knew they were on to something big. In the seven years since AC/DC had formed in Sydney, Australia – with Angus, dressed for the stage in his old schoolboy uniform, an unlikely looking guitar hero – they had built up a strong international following via relentless touring and a series of brilliant, balls-out albums, including Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock and Powerage, the latter a favourite of Keith Richards. But it was with 1979’s Highway To Hell that they had a major breakthrough, their first million-seller. And in the new songs they demoed in London, with Bon playing drums, as he had done as a young man in his first groups back in Australia, there was such potential that Bon had told his mother Isa in a phone call: “This one is going to be it!”