When did AC/DC become so huge?

I barely remember hearing them on the radio back in the day. Now, they're on classic rock radio 95% of the time! BTW, I do love their music.

 

You didn't grow up near me because I couldn't turn the radio on without hearing You Shook Me All Night Long or Back in Black in the 80s or Thunderstruck in the 90s.

 

Over the top huge was Back in Black. Bon Scott led group was big alright, but BIB really did it.

 

I too agree (though these types of things are eternally arguable) that them switching from "good popular hard rock/metal band" to gigantic cultural icons snuck up on me; personally for me when they were booked to headline Coachella (as a longtime worker and watcher at the festival, it was the first time a headlining booking caught me TOTALLY by surprise) that I realized they had reached the level of iconicity of a Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd or Who for the 70s classic rock generation. I like them well enough and am amused by their consistency, and I guess it's a combination of a good simplicity that has been surprisingly un-directly-imitated plus longevity did it. The thing they do SEEMS so simple and imitable, but I have rarely heard anyone successfully do it.

 

Back in Black opened the gates for them. So around 1980 onward.

 

Decades of being pummeled by classic rock radio, sports culture sound bites, t-shirts from target, etc.

I love the Bon Scott era.

 

Never?

 

1978, in the UK. Live album. Other territories caught on later, I believe.

 

Agree with others here, Back in Black was the tipping point here in the U.S.

 

By late 70's they were playing stadiums like The World Series of Rock in Cleveland. Momentum was growing with Highway to Hell and then death and resurgence with Back in Black took them to rock deity level. As played out as BiB is, it's an amazing accomplishment in the history of rock music. Rare does a band successfully replace an iconic singer and end up bigger in the process.

 

In Europe Let There Be Rock and Highway kicked off but agree they went stratospheric with Back In Black. For Those About To Rock had its moments but I don’t think they topped those three but that’s my opinion.

 

In Canada they started becoming big when they were the warm-up act for Aerosmith. Aerosmith at that time were having a lot of substance abuse problems. While I wasn't there myself in 1978, friends that were there had told me about how AC/DC stole the show.

 

I never heard AC/DC on AOR or the early 'classic rock' format stations in the 1980s in NYC, even when new albums would come out. I only knew their music through tape trading with friends and then buying the LPs. Back in Black sold a lot of copies but the band was still basically underground after that, most people I knew never heard of them. I remember when Razor's Edge came out there was some radio play of songs from that album, and MTV would play some AC/DC videos old and new (I remember seeing the Jailbreak promo with Bon Scott), mostly during the Headbanger's Ball Saturday night program. At some point in the early 1990s I started hearing a few select tracks on 'classic rock' radio - a couple from Back in Black and a few from the Bon Scott era - Highway to Hell and a couple of other tracks. Haven't listened to radio in years so I didn't know they had become so mainstream.

 

Sure BiB made them a big hard rock band, but my own memories of being in high school in mid 80s in Jacksonville Fla they were about as big/iconic as other tough metaly bands, like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. Not that they sounded the same but seemed to have same heft, same type of fans. They have absolutely soared enormously above that level in rep now for whatever reason. Playing stadiums, headlining hipster festivals etc.

 

I would say that Highway to Hell (Jul 79) was their first album to achieve significant chart action in all major territories. Back in Black blew things WIDE open all over the place.

 

The journey for me started here in 1977........

 

They started getting big in the mid to later 70s. It was pretty gradual. By the time of Highway to Hell, they were pretty successful and they were getting a lot of radio play. Bon dying just as they were reaching that level was a major story, as was the band forging ahead with a new singer. Then when Back in Black came out in 1980, their popularity exploded--they were as famous as anyone at the time, which is reflected in the fact that they're one of the top 20 selling artists of all time.

 

I love AC/DC Bon Scott era up to BIB. You lose me after that. I know that leaves a lot I haven’t heard from them but the stuff I heard after BIB just wasn’t for me. I remember being so disappointed as a 7th grader on Christmas morning listening to For Those About to Rock while playing pong on my Atari.. it was hard to follow up BIB and I have always liked the Bon stuff more.

 

IMO Back In Black would not have been as huge if not set up by Highway To Hell. So HtH imo.

 

1980 with Back In Black. All of a sudden they went from Pretty Cool Underground Rock Band to The New Big Thing almost instantly. And then Dirty Deeds got its belated US release and that was gas on the fire. During '80 and '81 there was no more eagerly appreciated band in my high school. I have this vague memory that Bon's death had something to do with it - Highway To Hell was pretty well known and got a lot of play on the radio, and there was this sort of hushed anticipation of what they would be like without Bon, and then BIB was just a monster album, exceeding expectations mightily. And the cool thing was that the whole Bon era got new appreciation as well because of the release of Dirty Deeds. It wasn't like, "Oh, they used to be dreadful but now they've got this much better singer", it was like, "Look what we've been missing."

I was never a big fan though. Not really my thing, but their popularity was phenomenal.

 

On a sad day.

 

Or something else that rhymes with wit.

 

or Powerage.......

 

Having sold something like 40 milion copies would probably do that, yes.

 

I can think of at least four