Back In Black Turns 40 – Ringside Report Takes a Look Back at a Time Tested Absolute Classic

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By Marc “Kid Huevos” Livitz

We’ll never know just how big AC/DC would have become on the world stage with their original frontman Ronald “Bon” Scott, whose vocals helped catapult the band to superstardom with the release of the 1979 epic Highway to Hell. The band, of course still is and has been one of the biggest and most loved rock groups on the planet for a number of decades. Fairly so, there are still those who prefer the body of work with Bon Scott on vocals, even though he died in his sleep after a night of heavy drinking in London in February of 1980.

AC/DC decided to continue in his wake with a new singer, Brian Johnson, who himself knew all too well of the public’s love for Bon Scott. The story is somewhat hazy, but it basically goes as such. When Johnson, brothers Angus and Malcolm Young (guitarists), Phil Rudd (drums) and Cliff Williams (bass) completed the recording of the follow-up album to Highway to Hell, the story persists that Johnson sat on the curb outside of the studio, his head in his hands. He’s said to have had thoughts that his career as a singer in a rock band was done (he’d left a British glam rock band, Geordie earlier that year) and that no one was going to like the new version of AC/DC, much less the album they’d just completed.

Yes, he thought in May of 1980 after having just completed Back in Black at a studio in the Bahamas that the public-at-large would look to toss it into the trash. At least we can say that he didn’t have an unrealistic imagination with suggestions that perhaps the album would go on to become one of the biggest sellers of all time. On July 25, 1980, Back in Black was released in the United States and in my experience, an AC/DC concert may be one of the few where I see fans aged 8 to 80, males and females and just about every color of the crayon box. Without exception, the arena is sold out, all the way to the top row and fans wearing their blinking light ‘devil horns’ headdresses is a cool sight to behold.

Regardless of our respective ages, we may remember the first time we heard the title track on the radio, along with the experience of “Hell’s Bells” or “Shoot to Thrill” blasting out our ears. For those of us who are a bit longer in the tooth, we may have first experienced it from an LP turntable or even an 8-track player. One of the few nuisances about the album, in my opinion is that one of its most popular tunes, “You Shook Me All Night Long” is one of the most overplayed songs in rock history and I’m okay if I never hear it again. In any case, the album is iconic. Its all-black cover was meant as an homage in the memory of Bon Scott. As far as worldwide reach, Back in Black trails only Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on the all-time best seller list with purported sales of around 50 million copies, though with over 25 million certifiable ones.

The album has survived the test of time, still rocks to no end and doesn’t sound dated. It’s also an example of how much popular music has changed over the years. Many of us miss a time when artists wrote their own music and to a greater degree, actually performed it in a live setting. Songwriting is one thing because as we know, there are several well-known hits performed by artists who didn’t write them. One of the biggest examples is “Livin’ on a Prayer”, as Jon Bon Jovi contributed little to its composition, which is fine.

What is intolerable and should never be accepted is lip syncing, excessive backing tracks or even having a laptop belt out the tunes while some bands pretend to play even though the stacks and amplifiers for their guitars are switched to off. All of this is neither here nor there because one thing is clear. Back in Black will never go away and future generations will continue to crank it to no end. It turns 40 on Saturday, but in no way is it ‘over the hill’. Into the vault it goes and onto the Martians it flies.

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