Back in Black is the seventh studio album by Australian rock band AC/DC, released on 25 July 1980, by Albert Productions and Atlantic Records.

After the commercial breakthrough of their 1979 album Highway to Hell, AC/DC was planning to record a follow-up, but in February 1980, Scott died from alcohol poisoning after a drinking binge.

The remaining members of the group considered disbanding, but ultimately chose to continue on and recruited Johnson, who had previously been the vocalist for Geordie.

[8] As the new decade approached, the group set off for the UK and France for the final leg of the Highway to Hell Tour,[9] planning to begin recording their next album shortly after playing those dates.

On 19 February 1980, vocalist Bon Scott went on a drinking binge in a London pub that caused him to lose consciousness, so a friend let him rest in the back of his Renault 5 overnight.

The next morning, Scott was found unresponsive and rushed to King's College Hospital, where medical personnel pronounced him dead on arrival.

[14] As AC/DC commenced writing new material for the followup to Highway to Hell, vocalist Bon Scott, who began his career as a drummer with The Spektors, played the drums on demo recordings of "Let Me Put My Love into You" and "Have a Drink on Me".

"[18] Around the time of the band's arrival in the Bahamas, the area was hit by several tropical storms, which wreaked havoc on the electricity at Compass Point.

'The general attitude during recording was optimistic, though engineer Tony Platt was dismayed to find the rooms at Compass Point were not sonically complementary to the group's sound, which was designed to be very dry and compact.

The foundry brought forward production on the bell, which turned out perfectly tuned, and it was recorded with Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio.

[29] To promote the album, music videos were filmed for "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Hells Bells", the title track, "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution", "Let Me Put My Love into You", and "What Do You Do for Money Honey", though only the first four of those songs were released as singles.

"[44] Red Starr of Smash Hits was more critical, saying he found the songs indistinguishable from one another and marred by hypermasculine fantasies, rock music stock phrases, garish guitar, and dull rhythms, on "yet another triumph for lowest common denominator headbanging—the new thoroughly predictable, thoroughly dreadful AC/DC album", and gave Back in Black a score of 3 out of 10.

[45] In a retrospective review, Rolling Stone critic Christian Hoard praised the album as the band's greatest work, possibly "the leanest and meanest record of all time—balls-out arena rock that punks could love.

"[41] Barry Walters from Rolling Stone said Back in Black "still sounds thoroughly timeless, the essence of unrepentantly simple but savagely crafted hard rock" and called the album "a celebration of thrashing, animal sex", though he observed "mean-spirited sexism" on songs such as "What Do You Do for Money Honey" and "Given the Dog a Bone".

[46] Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990) that he found the band somewhat too "primitive" and their sexual imagery "unimaginative", and that, on the album, "Angus Young does come up with killer riffs, though not as consistently as a refined person like myself might hope, and lead singer Brian Johnson sings like there's a cattle prod at his scrotum, just the thing for fans who can't decide whether their newfound testosterone is agony or ecstasy.

"[36] Writing in 2011, Kitty Empire of The Observer admitted the album is "a preposterous, drongoid record [...] built on casual sexism, eye-rolling double entendres, a highly questionable attitude to sexual consent ('Don't you struggle/ Don't you fight/ Don't you worry/ Cos it's your turn tonight') a penchant for firearms, and a crass celebration of the unthinking macho hedonism that killed the band's original singer", but, nonetheless, concurred with Fricke's original view of the album as a heavy metal masterpiece and named it her favourite album ever, "the obsessive soundtrack of my adolescence, the racy middle-brow thriller that spoke to me both as a tomboy who wanted to be one of the guys, and the increasingly female ingenue who needed to work out the world of men.

[58] Five months after Bon Scott's death, AC/DC finished the work they had begun with him; they released Back in Black as a tribute to him, but his name did not appear in the writing credits.

'"[59]: 321 Fink also produced quotes from Vince Lovegrove, who stated that Scott's family receives royalties for Back in Black.

magazine, Young was asked by journalist Paul Elliott, "Who wrote the lyrics on [‘Given The Dog A Bone’] and the others on Back in Black?

He stated, "The conspiracy theories are legion – usually started by people who think they know but weren't there... it was me at the end of the pen, writing every night and every morning, with only the title to work with.

"[60]: 307–308  Johnson made particular reference to writing the lyrics to "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Have a Drink on Me", "Hells Bells" and "Back in Black", and stated that he was given nothing more than a riff and a title to work with.

[60]: 308–315  He also said that the title of the song "Rock 'n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" had come directly from a story Scott had told the rest of the band.

[66] According to rock journalist Joe S. Harrington, Back in Black was released at a time when heavy metal stood at a turning point between a decline and a revival, as most bands in the genre were playing slower tempos and longer guitar solos, while AC/DC and Van Halen adopted punk rock's "high-energy implications" and "constricted their songs into more pop-oriented blasts".

Harrington credited producer Lange for drawing AC/DC further away from the blues-oriented rock of their previous albums, and toward a more dynamic attack that concentrated and harmonized each element of the band: "the guitars were compacted into a singular statement of rhythmic efficiency, the rhythm section provided the thunderhorse overdrive, and vocalist Johnson belowed and brayed like the most unhinged practitioner of bluesy top-man dynamics since vintage Robert Plant."

"[67] In 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die (2008), Tom Moon said Back in Black's "lean mean arena rock" and the production's "delicate balance of power and finesse [...] defined the commercial side of heavy music for years after its release.