Album of the Day — June 22
AC/DC — Back in Black
AC/DC — Back in Black
22.June.2020
AC/DC
Back in Black
1980
I would bet that there are few people in the modern western world who don’t know at least one of the songs on this album.
Think about that.
There are only a few artists who can make such a claim (Michael Jackson, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Aretha Franklin … and some more I’m forgetting).
There is a reason Back in Black is one of the highest selling albums in recorded history.
AC/DC’s Back in Black is about as perfect as a rock and roll record you’re likely to hear.
1979’s breakthrough album Highway to Hell introduced the band to producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange.
By that time Lange had produced a couple dozen albums with varying degrees of success, but across all genres (The Boomtown Rats, Clover — Huey Lewis & the News, basically — , Outlaws, and Graham Parker, et al). In the process, he’d developed a reputation for being a perfectionist.
It’s that perfectionism that would make “Mutt” Lange one of the most successful producers in the industry … and history.
The band had just broken through with Highway to Hell when their lead singer, Bon Scott died of “acute alcoholic poisoning” and “death by misadventure” while in London in February of 1980.
Faced with the brutal decision of whether to continue the band or break up, they were encouraged to keep going. So they did.
After a round of auditions, the band hired Brian Johnson (at the suggestion of “Mutt” Lange) and began a three-week rehearsal. Then they grabbed “Mutt” Lange and flew to the Bahamas for seven weeks to record basic tracks for Back in Black.
During the recording, the area was being hit by several tropical storms, making the recording a little more tense and challenging. But they emerged with their album and flew to New York City to mix the album at Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland Studio.
Back in Black is less about the lyrics and music and all about the production.
Lyrics
The lyrics are typical light misogyny & objectification stuff that you’d expect from the band who sang “Whole Lotta Rosie”, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, and “Girls Got Rhythm” — in other words, the band maintains the lyrical content and structure that they’d build their career on.
You Shook Me All Night Long
Working double time
On the seduction line
She was one of a kind, she’s just mine all mine
Wanted no applause
Just another course
Made a meal out of me and came back for more
Had to cool me down
To take another round
What Do You Do For Money Honey?
Wanna guess?
Giving the Dog a Bone
Seriously? This isn’t Shakespeare.
Let Me Put My Love Into You
No lyrics required
Like many bands, the lead singer writes the lyrics and someone else writes the music. For AC/DC this was true. For this new album, the band made a conscious decision to not use any of Scott’s existing lyrics, putting added pressure on the band’s new hire, Brian Johnson.
It could be argued that Scott had a sharper tongue and a little more cheek in him, but that isn’t to discount Johnson’s skills. Neither lyricist was better nor worse than the other … they were different.
Music
Musically, AC/DC is your basic three chords, maybe four, blues based rock.
The maestro’s of the band, rhythm and lead guitarist brothers Malcom and Angus Young, used the same formula on Back in Black that the band had perfected over the course of their previous six albums.
I’ve often joked that AC/DC has been making the same album lyrically and musically their entire career.
And there is NO shame in that.
AC/DC has had the exact same up and down career arc as their more “artistic” brethren like David Bowie. They’ve just made the same album … and sold 200+ million albums worldwide doing it.
That’s not a slag on either Bowie (who has sold +/- 140 million albums worldwide) or AC/DC.
You wouldn’t expect the worlds best plastic surgeon to hop around and do heart transplants one year and then brain surgery the next would you?
No, you wouldn’t … well, you shouldn’t. You’d want that doctor to practice only plastic surgery, or transplants, or brain surgery exclusively and be the best surgeon on the planet.
Well, AC/DC are the best hard rock surgeons on the planet and it’s Back in Black that blew the doors to their practice wide open.
Back in Black is about the sound.
Lange’s perfectionism was, well, perfected on this album.
An old friend of mine who ran a swanky recording studio in Pawling, New York. On my first visit, he sat me down in the middle of the couch in the control room and without telling me what he was going to play he dropped the needle on Back in Black and played it VERY LOUDLY.
It was sublime.
According to writer Joe Harrington: “to this day, producers still use it [Back in Black] as the de facto paint-by-numbers guidebook for how a hard-rock record should sound”. So perfect is the sound of Back In Black that many studios in Nashville still use it to check the acoustics of a room.
If you’ve never listened to Back in Black VERY LOUDLY, you’re missing a world of absolute sonic perfection.
The bells on “Hells Bells” that open the album are a testament to that perfection. After a number of attempts, the band had their own two-ton bell created: “The two-ton bell turned up perfectly tuned, and became a fixture of the band’s live shows.”
Since the four other band members (the brothers young, Cliff Williams on bass, and Phil Rudd on drums) had their parts down after having worked with Lange on Highway to Hell, they knew what to expect … and delivered accordingly.
New guy Brian Johnson happened to end up in Lange’s crosshairs— much to the singers consternation:
“It was like, ‘Again, Brian, again — hold on, you sang that note too long so there’s no room for a breath’. He [Lange] had this thing where he didn’t want people to listen to the album down the road and say there’s no way someone could sing that, even the breaths had to be in the right place. And you cannot knock a man for that, but he drove me nuts.”
No question that the perfectionism benefited Johnson, the band … and ultimately, the world.
Forty years ago, Back in Black was immediately recognized as a high-caliber rock and roll masterpiece.
Today, AC/DC’s Back in Black is universally considered the benchmark for rock and roll albums. Some try to stratify it by calling “heavy metal” or some other nonsensical genre, but the fact is, Back in Black is a rock and roll record. Full stop.
It has consistently ranked in the top tier of best of lists:
VH1 ranked Back in Black №82 on its list of the Top 100 Albums.
The album was ranked №77 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
Back in Black was included by Time in its list of the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2006.
Also in 2006, Q Magazine placed the album at №9 on its list of the 40 Best Albums of the ‘80s.
Christian Hoard in Rolling Stone said: “If AC/DC were beset by sadness or uncertainty about how to proceed, they kept it to themselves. Indeed, Back in Black might be the leanest and meanest record of all time — balls-out arena rock that punks could love.”
One of the few dissenters is the self-proclaimed “Dean of American Rock Critics”, Robert Christgau: “These Aussies are a little too archetypal for my tastes. Angus Young does come up with killer riffs, though not as consistently as a refined person like myself might hope, and fresh recruit Brian Johnson sings like there’s a cattle prod at his scrotum…” With the use of the first-person, he at least acknowledges the total subjectivity that is music criticism.
A list of albums and artists that have benefited from the perfection of Robert John “Mutt” Lange cover the musical spectrum:
Def Leppard — High ‘N’ Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria
The Cars — Heartbeat City
Foreigner — 4
Billy Ocean — Tear Down These Walls
Bryan Adams — Waking Up the Neighbours, 18 ’til I Die
Muse — Drones
Shania Twain (ex-wife) —The Woman in Me, Come On Over — the best-selling country music album, the best-selling studio album by a female act, and the 7th best-selling album in the U.S. … Back in Black is the 4th best-selling album in the U.S. — two of the best-selling albums in the top ten.
Tina Turner — What’s Love Got to Do with It (at least one track)
Britney Spears — Oops! … I Did It Again (at least one track)
Backstreet Boys — Millennium (at least one track)
Anne Murray — Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends
Lady Gaga — Born this Way (at least one track)
Getting the picture?
But as good as “Mutt” Lange is (and he is very good) it all starts with the band. And in this case the band is AC/DC and the album is Back in Black.
Unfortunately, the success of the album came at a high cost, the death of Bon Scott. But it did align the stars for the band. And you can call the success of the album whatever you want, serendipity, luck, talent, timing, whatever … but Back in Black is, to be blunt, a perfect record.