‘Back in Black’: the AC/DC album that became the gold standard for “how a hard rock record should sound”
If you’re making a hard rock album, the main objective of both the artist and the producer is surely to make the record sound as massive as possible. You want every instrument to feel explosive and to pack a serious punch, and taking a no-nonsense approach is possibly the best way to ensure that the record’s sound is as meaty as possible. AC/DC were arguably masters of their craft when it came to this, and there’s one album in their catalogue that not only epitomises how a hard rock album should sound, but one that all producers in any genre should look at as a gold standard.
Released in 1980, Back in Black was the first album that the band released following the death of their frontman and lyricist, Bon Scott. While many questioned whether the band would want to continue after losing such a vital member or whether they’d be able to match their earlier work without Scott’s presence, they chose to recruit Geordie frontman Brian Johnson to fill his boots, and it’s safe to say that the first effort with their new vocalist was a storming success.
With songs such as the title track, ‘Hells Bells’ and ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ being present on its tracklist, Back in Black represents a benchmark for rock music that arguably few have surpassed in the years since. While all members are on top form, especially their new recruit in Johnson, it could be argued that the album wouldn’t sound so brutal and barbed without the assistance they received from producer Mutt Lange.
You instantly know what you’re in for the second you put the record on – an all-out assault of crunching riffs mixed in with all of the band’s trademark playfulness. AC/DC aren’t known for taking themselves too seriously, and yet Back in Black begs the listener to take note from the second you press play. With a sound so monstrous it almost seems capable of filling several stadiums at once, it’s one of the hardest records to ignore, and that’s precisely what Lange intended to create.
Considering it arrived at a point in time where heavy metal and hard rock were declining in popularity, AC/DC managed to inject plenty of life and then some into the ailing genre, and virtually every album within the genre that came after it was influenced by it to some degree. Other earlier records in the late ‘60s and ‘70s might have helped define the boundaries of the genre, such as Paranoid or Led Zeppelin II, but Back in Black arguably created a blueprint for ‘80s rock and metal that all bands worshipped – the Holy Bible of hard rock, if you will.
Rock journalist Joe S Harrington noted that “to this day, producers still use it as the de facto paint-by-numbers guidebook for how a hard-rock record should sound,” and it’s virtually impossible to argue that. Even 45 years on, it still captures the essence of the genre and packs so much energy and enthusiasm, while other records of a similar age sound stuck in time.
As a yardstick for how good it sounds, it’s worth noting that it has become an industry standard in many ways other than helping to define genre terminology. Studio engineers regularly use it to test the acoustics of a room, while fellow metal outfit Motörhead played the record on tour to check the quality of their sound system. Most would argue that hard rock is supposed to sound nasty and have a bit of grit to it, but when the genre’s flagship record is so pristine and has a crispness and clarity to every note, it’s probably fair to dismiss that notion.
