AC/DC's Back In Black reaches one billion YouTube streams

1 February 2024, 17:04

AC/DC's Brian Johnson in 1980
AC/DC's Brian Johnson in 1980. Picture: Natkin/Getty Images

By Jenny Mensah

The iconic 1980 single has reached the impressive milestone on on the video streaming platform.

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AC/DC's Back In Black has reached one billion views on YouTube.

The official music video for the band's 1980 single was only uploaded to YouTube on 7th November 2012-a whopping 31 years after it was first released.

However, after just over 11 years, the classic track has reached the impressive billion mark, currently sitting on the streaming platform with a tally of 1,000,250,975 views (at the time of writing this article) and counting.

The hit, which is taken from the band's 1980 album of the same name, joins one other AC/DC song in reaching the mileston Thunderstruck, which has achieved an impressive 1.4 billion views to date.

AC/DC - Back In Black (Official Video)

Known for its instantly recognisable guitar riff, Back In Black was AC/DC's tribute to their former singer Bon Scott, who had tragically died earlier the same year.

Replacement singer Brian Johnson has previously talked about being tasked with writing lyrics for the song, which they didn't want to sad or "morbid".

He told MOJO magazine: "They said: 'It can't be morbid – it has to be for Bon and it has to be a celebration.'

"I thought, 'Well no pressure there, then' (laughs). I just wrote what came into my head, which at the time seemed like mumbo, jumbo. 'Nine lives. Cats eyes. Abusing every one of them and running wild.'

"The boys got it though. They saw Bon's life in that lyric."

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