AC/DC are an
Australian
rock band formed in 1973 by brothers
Malcolm and
Angus Young. Although the band are commonly
classified as
hard rock and are considered
a pioneer of
heavy metal, they
have always classified their music as
rock
and roll.
AC/DC underwent several line-up changes before releasing their
first album,
High
Voltage, in 1975. Membership remained stable until bassist
Mark Evans was replaced by
Cliff Williams in 1977. The band
recorded their highly successful album
Highway to Hell in 1979. Lead singer
and co-songwriter
Bon Scott died on 19
February 1980, after a night of heavy alcohol consumption. The
group briefly considered disbanding, but soon ex-
Geordie singer
Brian
Johnson was selected to replace Scott. Later that year, the
band released their best-selling album,
Back in Black.
The band's next album,
For Those About to Rock We
Salute You, was their first album to reach number one in
the United States. AC/DC declined in popularity soon after drummer
Phil Rudd was fired in 1983 and was
replaced by future
Dio drummer
Simon Wright, though the band resurged in the
early 1990s with the release of
The Razor's Edge. Phil Rudd
returned in 1994 (after
Chris Slade was
asked to leave in favour of him) and contributed to the band's 1995
album
Ballbreaker.
Stiff Upper Lip was released in 2000
and was well received by critics. The band's most recent album,
Black Ice, was released
on 20 October 2008.
As of 2008, AC/DC have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide,
including 71 million albums in the United States.
Back in
Black has sold an estimated 45 million units worldwide, making
it the
highest-selling album by
any band and the 2nd highest-selling album in history, only
behind
Michael Jackson's
Thriller. The album has
sold 22 million in the US alone, where it is the
fifth-highest-selling album. AC/DC ranked fourth on
VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock"
and was named the seventh "Greatest Heavy Metal Band of All Time"
by
MTV. In 2004, the band was ranked number 72
in the
Rolling Stone list of
the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".
History
Background and name
Brothers
Malcolm, Angus and George
Young were born in Glasgow
, Scotland,
and moved to Sydney with most of their family in 1963.
George was the first to learn to play the guitar. He became a
member of
the Easybeats, one of
Australia's most successful bands of the 1960s. In 1966, they
became the first local rock act to have an international hit, with
the song "
Friday on My Mind".
Malcolm
followed in George's footsteps by playing with a Newcastle, New
South Wales
, band called the Velvet Underground (not to be
confused with the New York–based Velvet Underground).
The band's official logo
Malcolm and Angus Young developed the idea for the band's name
after their older sister saw the initials "
AC/DC" on a sewing machine. "AC/DC" is
an abbreviation for "
alternating
current/
direct current". The
brothers felt that this name symbolised the band's raw energy,
power-driven performances, and a love for their music. "AC/DC" is
pronounced one letter at a time, though the band is popularly known
as "Acca Dacca" in Australia and New Zealand.
Early years (the Dave Evans era, 1973-1974)
In November 1973 Malcolm and Angus Young formed AC/DC and recruited
bassist Larry
Van Kriedt,
vocalist Dave Evans, and
Colin Burgess, ex-
Masters Apprentices drummer. The
band played their first gig at a club named Chequers in Sydney on
New Year's Eve, 1973. They were later signed to the EMI-distributed
Albert Productions label for
Australia and New Zealand. The early line-up of the band changed
often;
Colin Burgess was
the first member fired, and several bassists and drummers passed
through the band during the next year.
By this time, Angus Young had adopted his characteristic
school-uniform stage outfit. The idea was his sister Margaret's.
Angus had tried other costumes, such as
Spider-Man,
Zorro, a
gorilla, and a parody of
Superman, named
Super-Ang. In fact in its early days, most members of the band
dressed in some form of glam or satin outfit but this approach was
abandoned when it was discovered Melbourne band
Skyhooks had already adopted this approach to their
stage presentation.
The Young brothers decided that Evans was not a suitable frontman
for the group, because they felt he was more of a
glam rocker like
Gary
Glitter. On stage, Evans was occasionally replaced by the
band's first
manager, Dennis
Laughlin, who was the original lead singer with
Sherbet prior to
Daryl Braithwaite joining the band. Evans
did not get along with Laughlin, which also contributed to the
band's ill feeling toward Evans.
The Bon Scott era (1974–80)
The journey begins (1974–77)
In September 1974
Ronald Belford "Bon"
Scott, an experienced vocalist and friend of George Young,
replaced Dave Evans. Like the Young brothers, Scott had been born
in Scotland before emigrating to Australia in his childhood. The
band had recorded only one single with Evans, "Can I Sit Next to
You, Girl" / "Rockin' in the Parlour"; eventually, the song was
re-recorded with Bon Scott as "
Can I Sit Next to You Girl"
(Track 7 on the Australian album
T.N.T., and Track 6 on the international
release of
High
Voltage).
By January 1975, the Australia-only album
High Voltage had been
recorded. It took only ten days and was based on instrumental songs
written by the Young brothers, with lyrics added by Scott. Within a
few months, the band's line-up had stabilised, featuring Scott, the
Young brothers, bassist
Mark
Evans and drummer
Phil Rudd. Later
that year they released the single "
It's a
Long Way to the Top ", which became their perennial rock
anthem. It was included on their second album,
T.N.T., which was also released only in
Australia and New Zealand. The album featured another classic song,
"
High Voltage".
Between
1974 and 1977, aided by regular appearances on Molly Meldrum's Countdown, the
ABC
’s nationally broadcast pop-music television show,
AC/DC became one of the most popular and successful acts in
Australia. Their performance on 3 April 1977 was their last
live TV appearance for more than 20 years.
International success (1977–80)
In 1976, the band signed an international deal with Atlantic
Records and toured extensively throughout Europe. They gained
invaluable experience of the stadium circuit, supporting leading
hard rock acts such as
Black
Sabbath,
Aerosmith,
Kiss,
Styx and
Blue Öyster Cult, and
co-headlined with
Cheap Trick.
The first AC/DC album to gain worldwide distribution was a 1976
compilation of tracks taken from the
High Voltage and
T.N.T. LP. Also titled
High Voltage, and
released on the Atlantic Records label, the album sold three
million copies worldwide, partly because of its popularity with a
British punk audience. The track selection was heavily weighted
toward the more recent
T.N.T., and included only two songs
from their first LP. The band's next album,
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt
Cheap, was released in the same year in both Australian
and international versions, like its predecessor. Track listings
varied worldwide, and the international version of the album also
featured "Rocker" from
T.N.T. The original Australian
version included "
Jailbreak"
(now more readily available on the 1984 compilation
EP '74
Jailbreak or as a live version on the 1992
Live album).
Dirty Deeds
was not released in the US until 1981, by which time the band were
at the peak of their popularity.
Following the 1977 recording
Let There Be Rock, bassist
Mark Evans was sacked because of personal differences with Angus
Young. He was replaced by
Cliff
Williams, who also provided backing vocals alongside
Malcolm Young. Neither of the Young brothers
has elaborated on the departure of Evans, though Richard Griffiths,
the CEO of
Epic Records and a booking
agent for AC/DC in the mid-1970s, later commented, "You knew Mark
wasn't going to last, he was just too much of a nice guy."
AC/DC were a formative influence on
New Wave of British Heavy
Metal bands who emerged in the late 1970s, such as
Saxon and
Iron
Maiden, in part as a reaction to the decline of traditional
early 1970s heavy metal bands. In 2007, critics noted that AC/DC,
along with
Thin Lizzy,
UFO,
Scorpions
and
Judas Priest, were among "the
second generation of rising stars ready to step into the breach as
the old guard waned."
AC/DC's
first American exposure was through the Michigan
radio
station AM 600 WTAC
in
1977. The station's manager, Peter C.
Cavanaugh, booked the
band to play at Flint
's Capitol
Theater. The supporting act was
MC5, who
had just briefly reunited and agreed to play at the event. The band
opened with their popular song "
Live Wire" and closed with "It's a
Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)".
AC/DC came to be identified with the
punk
rock movement by the British press. Their reputation, however,
managed to survive the punk upheavals of the late 1970s, and they
maintained a cult following in the UK throughout this time. Angus
Young gained notoriety for
mooning the
audience during live performances.
The 1978 release of
Powerage
marked the debut of bassist Cliff Williams, and with its harder
riffs, followed the blueprint set by
Let
There Be Rock. Only one single was released for
Powerage, "
Rock 'n'
Roll Damnation" and gave AC/DC the highest mark at the time,
reaching #24.
An appearance at the Apollo
Theatre
in Glasgow during the
Powerage tour was recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got
It, featuring such songs as "Whole Lotta Rosie", "Problem Child", and
"Let There Be Rock", as
well as lesser-known album tracks like "Riff Raff". The album was the last
produced by
Harry Vanda and George Young
with Bon Scott on vocals and is claimed to be AC/DC's most
under-rated album.
The major breakthrough in the band's career came in their
collaboration with producer
"Mutt"
Lange on a sixth album
Highway
to Hell, released in 1979. It became the first AC/DC LP to
break into the US top 100, eventually reaching #17, and it
propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts.
Highway
to Hell had lyrics that shifted away from flippant and comical
toward more central rock themes, putting increased emphasis on
backing vocals but still featured AC/DC's signature sound: loud,
simple, pounding riffs and grooving backbeats. The final track,
"
Night Prowler", has two breaths in
quick succession at the start of the song, intended to create a
tone of fear and loathing.
Scott's death (1980)
On 19 February 1980, Bon Scott passed out after a night of heavy
drinking in London and was left in a car owned by an acquaintance
named Alistair Kinnear.
The following morning, Kinnear rushed him to
King's College
Hospital
in Camberwell, where Scott was pronounced dead on
arrival. Pulmonary
aspiration of vomit was the cause of Scott's death, and the
official cause was listed as "
acute
alcohol poisoning" and "death by misadventure".
Scott's family buried
him in Fremantle, Western Australia
, the area to which they had emigrated when he was a
boy.
Inconsistencies in the official accounts of Scott's death have been
cited in conspiracy theories, which suggest that Scott died of a
heroin overdose, or was killed by exhaust fumes redirected into the
car, or that Kinnear did not exist. Additionally, Scott was
asthmatic, and the temperature was below
freezing on the morning of his death.
The Brian Johnson era (1980–present)
The rebirth (1980–83)
Following Scott's death, the band briefly considered quitting; they
eventually concluded, however, that Scott would have wanted AC/DC
to continue, and various candidates were considered for his
replacement, including Buzz Shearman, ex-
Moxy member, who was not able to join because of
voice problems, and ex-
Back
Street Crawler vocalist
Terry
Slesser, who turned down this opportunity when he decided not
to join an established band and instead started a solo career. The
remaining AC/DC members finally decided on ex-
Geordie singer
Brian Johnson.
Angus Young later recalled, "I remember Bon playing me
Little Richard, and then telling me the story
of when he saw Brian singing." He says about that night, "There's
this guy up there screaming at the top of his lungs and then the
next thing you know he hits the deck. He's on the floor, rolling
around and screaming. I thought it was great, and then to top it
off—you couldn't get a better encore—they came in and wheeled the
guy off!" Later that night, Johnson would be diagnosed with
appendicitis, which was the cause of
his writhing around on stage.
For the audition, Johnson sang "
Whole
Lotta Rosie" from
Let There Be
Rock and
Ike & Tina
Turner's "
Nutbush City
Limits". He was hired a few days after the audition.
With Brian Johnson the band completed the songwriting that they had
begun with Bon Scott for the album
Back in Black.
Recording took place
at Compass Point Studios in
the Bahamas
a few months
after Scott's death. Back in Black, produced by
Mutt Lange and recorded by
Tony Platt, became their biggest-selling album
and a hard-rock landmark; hits include "
Hells Bells", "
You Shook Me All Night Long",
and
the title track. The album
was certified platinum three months after its release, and by 2007
it had sold more than 22 million copies in the United States,
making it the fourth-highest-selling album ever in the US. The
album reached #1 in the UK and #4 in the US, where it spent 131
weeks on the
Billboard 200 album
chart.
The follow-up album, 1981's
For Those About to Rock We
Salute You, also sold well and was positively received by
critics. The album featured two of the band's most popular singles:
"Let's Get It Up" and the title track, "
For Those About to
Rock", which reached #13 and #15 in the UK, respectively. The
band split with Lange for their self-produced 1983 album,
Flick of the Switch, in
an effort to recover the rawness and simplicity of their early
albums.
Departure of Rudd and commercial decline (1983–87)
Amid rumours of alcoholism and drug-induced paranoia, drummer
Phil Rudd's friendship with Malcolm Young
deteriorated and, after a long period of unfriendliness, the men's
dislike for each other grew so strong that they fought. Rudd was
fired two hours after the fight. Session drummer B.J. Wilson was
drafted in to help complete the recordings, but his drum parts were
eventually not used. Although Rudd had finished the drum tracks for
their next album, he was replaced by
Simon
Wright in the summer of 1983 after the band held an anonymous
audition.
Later in the year, AC/DC released the self-produced album
Flick of the Switch,
which was less successful than their previous albums, and was
considered underdeveloped and unmemorable. One critic stated that
the band "had made the same album nine times". AC/DC was voted the
eighth-biggest disappointment of the year in the 1984
Kerrang! readers' poll. However,
Flick of
the Switch eventually reached #4 on the UK charts, and AC/DC
had minor success with the singles "
Nervous Shakedown" and "
Flick of the Switch".
Fly on the Wall,
produced by the Young brothers in 1985, was also regarded as
uninspired and directionless. A music concept video of
the same name featured the band at a
bar, playing five of the album's ten songs.
In 1986, the group returned to the charts with the made-for-radio
"
Who Made Who". The album
Who Made Who was the
soundtrack to
Stephen King's film
Maximum Overdrive, and is
the closest the band has come to releasing a "greatest hits"
collection, which AC/DC have always refused to do. It brought
together older hits, such as "
You Shook Me All Night Long" and
"Ride On", with newer songs such as title track "Who Made Who", and
two new instrumentals, "D.T." and "Chase the Ace".
In February 1988, AC/DC were inducted into the
Australian Recording
Industry Association's
Hall of
Fame.
Back to commercial success (1987–90)
AC/DC's
1988 album, Blow Up Your
Video, was recorded at Studio
Miraval in Le
Val
, France, and reunited the band with their original
producers, Harry Vanda and George Young. The group
recorded nineteen songs, choosing ten for the final release; though
the album was later criticised for containing excessive "
filler", it was a commercial success.
Blow Up Your Video sold more copies than the previous two
studio releases combined, reaching #2 on the UK charts—AC/DC's
highest position since "Back in Black" in 1980. The album featured
the UK top-twenty single "
Heatseeker" and popular songs such as
"That's the Way I Wanna Rock and Roll".
The Blow Up Your
Video World Tour began in February 1988, in Perth
, Australia. That April, following live
appearances across Europe,
Malcolm
Young announced that he was taking time off from touring,
principally to begin recovery from his alcoholism. Another member
of the Young family,
Stevie Young,
temporarily took Malcolm's place.
Following the tour, Wright left the group to work on the upcoming
Dio album
Lock Up the Wolves, and was replaced
by session veteran
Chris Slade. Johnson
was unavailable for several months while finalising his divorce, so
the Young brothers wrote all the songs for the next album, a
practice they continued for all subsequent releases through
Black Ice in 2008.
Popularity regained (1990–94)
The new album,
The Razors
Edge, was recorded in Vancouver, Canada, and produced by
Bruce Fairbairn, who had previously
worked with
Aerosmith and
Bon Jovi. Released in 1990, it was a major comeback
for the band, and included the hits "
Thunderstruck" and "
Are You Ready", which reached #5
and #16 respectively on
Billboard's
Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart,
and "
Moneytalks", which peaked at #23 on
the
Billboard Hot 100. The album
went
multi-platinum and reached the
US top ten. Several shows on the Razors Edge tour were recorded for
the 1992 live album, titled
Live.
Live was produced by
Fairbairn, and is considered one of the best live albums of the
1990s. A year later, AC/DC recorded "
Big
Gun" for the soundtrack of the
Arnold Schwarzenegger movie
Last Action Hero, and was
released as a single, reaching #1 on the US
Mainstream Rock chart, the band's
first #1 single on that chart.
Popularity confirmed (1994–2008)
In 1994, Angus and Malcolm invited Rudd to several
jam sessions. He was eventually rehired to
replace Slade, whose amicable departure arose in part because of
the band's strong desire to again work with Rudd.
In 1995, with the
1980–83 line-up back together, the group released Ballbreaker, recorded at the Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles,
California
, and produced by Rick
Rubin. The first single from the album was "
Hard as a Rock". Two more singles were
released from the album: "
Hail
Caesar" and "
Cover You in
Oil".
In 1997, a box set named
Bonfire was released. It contained four
albums; a
remastered version of
Back in
Black;
Volts (a disc
with alternate takes, outtakes, and stray live cuts) and two live
albums,
Live from the
Atlantic Studios and
Let There Be Rock: The
Movie.
Live from the Atlantic Studios was
recorded on 7 December 1977 at the Atlantic Studios in New York.
Let There Be Rock: The Movie was a
double album recorded in 1979 at the
Pavillon de Paris and was the soundtrack
of a motion picture,
AC/DC:
Let There Be Rock. The US version of the box set included
a colour booklet, a two-sided poster, a sticker, a temporary
tattoo, a keychain bottle opener, and a guitar pick.
In 2000, the band released
Stiff
Upper Lip, produced by brother
George Young at the Warehouse
Studio, again in Vancouver. The album was better received by
critics than
Ballbreaker but was considered lacking in new
ideas. The Australian release included a bonus disc with three
promotional videos and several live performances recorded in
Madrid, Spain in 1996.
Stiff Upper Lip reached #1 in five
countries, including Argentina and Germany; #2 in three countries,
Spain, France and Switzerland; #3 in Australia; #5 in Canada and
Portugal; and #7 in Norway, the US and Hungary. The first single,
"
Stiff Upper Lip", remained
at #1 on the US Mainstream Rock charts for four weeks. The other
singles released also did very well; "
Satellite Blues" and "
Safe in New York City" reached #7 and
#31 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks, respectively.
In 2002, AC/DC signed a long-term, multi-album deal with
Sony Music, who went on to release a series of
remastered albums as part of their
AC/DC remasters series. Each release
contained an expanded booklet featuring rare photographs,
memorabilia, and notes. In 2003, the entire back-catalogue (except
Ballbreaker and
Stiff Upper
Lip) was remastered and re-released.
Ballbreaker was
eventually re-released in October 2005;
Stiff Upper Lip
was later re-released in April 2007.
On 30 July 2003, the band performed with
the Rolling Stones and
Rush at
Molson Canadian Rocks for
Toronto. The concert, held before an audience of half a
million, was intended to help the city overcome the negative
publicity stemming from the effects of a 2003
SARS epidemic. The concert holds the record for the
largest paid
music event in North American
history. The band came second in a list of Australia's
highest-earning entertainers for 2005, and sixth for 2006, despite
having neither toured since 2003 nor released an album since 2000.
Verizon Wireless has gained the
rights to release AC/DC's full albums and the entire
Live at Donington concert to
download in 2008.
On 16 October 2007,
Columbia
Records released a double and triple DVD titled
Plug Me In. The set consists of five and
seven hours of rare footage, and even a recording of AC/DC at a
high school performing "
School
Days", "
T.N.T.", "She's Got
Balls", and "
It's a
Long Way to the Top ". As with
Family Jewels, disc one contains rare
shows of the band with Bon Scott, and disc two is about the Brian
Johnson era. The collector's edition contains an extra DVD with 21
more rare performances of both Scott and Johnson and more
interviews.
AC/DC made their video game debut on
Rock Band 2, with "
Let There Be Rock" included as a
playable track.
The setlist from their Live at
Donington live album was released as playable songs for the
Rock Band series by
means of a Wal-Mart
-exclusive retail disc titled AC/DC
Live: Rock Band Track Pack.
No
Bull: The Directors Cut, a newly edited, comprehensive Blu-Ray
and DVD of the band's July 1996 Plaza De Toros de las Ventas
concert in Madrid
, Spain, was
released on 9 September 2008.
Black Ice (2008–present)
On 18 August 2008,
Columbia Records
announced the 18 October Australian release, and 20 October
worldwide release, of the studio album
Black Ice. The 15-track album was the
band's first studio release in eight years, and was produced by
Brendan O'Brien.
Like
Stiff Upper Lip, it was recorded at
The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver,
British Columbia.
Black Ice was sold in the US
exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club and the
band's official website.
"Rock 'n' Roll Train", the album's first single, was released to
radio on 28 August. On 15 August, AC/DC recorded a video for a song
from the new album in London with a special selection of fans
getting the chance to be in the video.Black Ice made history
debuting at #1 on album charts in 29 countries and alsohas the
distinction of being Columbia Records' biggest debut album
(sinceNielsen SoundScan began tracking sales data for Billboard in
March of 1991).Black Ice has been certified Multi Platinum in eight
countries, including theUS, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden,
Norway, Germany and the CzechRepublic. Additionally Black Ice has
achieved Platinum status in twelvecountries (Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland,Italy, UK, Argentina,
Singapore and New Zealand) and Gold status in fourcountries
(Netherland, Spain, Poland and Brazil). With over 6.5 millioncopies
of Black Ice shipped worldwide, combined with over 5.5 million
incatalog sold, AC/DC have surpassed The Beatles as the #1
sellingcatalog artist in the US for 2008.
The 18-month Black Ice World Tour supporting the new
album was announced on September 11 and began on 28 October in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
. They band played 42 dates in North America,
ending in Nashville
, Tennessee on 31 January 2009. The Answer was the opening act during the
North American portion of the tour.
On 15 September 2008, AC/DC Radio debuted on
Sirius Channel 19 and
XM channel 53. The channel plays AC/DC music
along with interviews with the band members.
With the North American release of
Black Ice on 20 October
2008, Columbia Records and Walmart created "Rock Again AC/DC
Stores" to promote the album. In October 2008, MTV, Walmart, and
Columbia created "AC/DC Rock Band Stores" in New York City, at
Times Square, and in Los Angeles.
"Black Ice" trucks were also dispatched on the streets of these two
cities after the release, playing AC/DC music aloud and making
various stops each day to sell merchandise.
In late September 2009, the band rescheduled six shows when Brian
Johnson underwent an operation for ulcers. On September 29, the
band announced a collection of studio and live rarities,
Backtracks, which
was released on November 10, 2009 as a 3-CD/2-DVD/1-LP
box-set.
On the 4th November AC/DC were announced as the
Business Review Weekly top Australian
earner (entertainment) for 2009 with earnings of $105 million. This
displaced
The Wiggles from the number
one spot for the first time in four years.
Recognition
AC/DC
were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in March 2003. During the ceremony the band
performed "
Highway to Hell"
and "
You Shook Me All Night
Long", with guest vocals provided by host
Steven Tyler of
Aerosmith. He described the band's
power chords as "the thunder from down under
that gives you the second-most-powerful surge that can flow through
your body." During the acceptance speech,
Brian Johnson quoted their 1977 song "Let
There Be Rock".
In May 2003, Malcolm Young accepted a
Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Service
to Australian Music at the 2003 Music Winners Awards, during which
he paid special tribute to Bon Scott.
On 1
October 2004, a central Melbourne
thoroughfare, Corporation Lane, was renamed
ACDC
Lane
in honour of the band. However, the City of
Melbourne
forbade the use of the slash character in street names, so the
four letters were combined. The lane is near
Swanston Street where, on the
back of a truck, the band recorded their video for the 1975 hit
"
It's a
Long Way to the Top ".
Additionally, a street in Leganés
(Comunidad de Madrid – Spain) was named "Calle de
AC/DC" on 2 March 2000.
Since
Nielsen SoundScan began to
track music sales in 1991, AC/DC have sold over $26.4? million
worth of albums, making their sales figures second only to
The Beatles, outselling both
The Rolling Stones and
The Who. Over the last five years, as
CD sales have declined in general, AC/DC albums
have sold just as well or better. They sold over 1.3 million CDs in
the US during 2007 despite not having released a new album since
2001 at that point.
In 2009 the
Recording Industry
Association of America upgraded the group's US sales figures
from 69 million to 71 million, making AC/DC the fifth-best-selling
band in US history and the ninth-best-selling artist, selling more
albums than
Madonna,
Mariah Carey and
Michael Jackson. The RIAA also certified
Back in Black as double Diamond (20 million) in US sales,
and by 2007 the album had sold 22 million copies, which moved it
into fifth place.
Band members
- Current Members
- Former members
Discography
Awards and nominations
See also
References
Further reading
External links
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