AC/DC make Australian chart history as Power Up explodes all over Europe

(Image credit: Columbia)

AC/DC have become the first band ever to score number one albums in five successive decades in their native Australia.

Power Up, the seventeenth album from Angus Young’s band, debuted atop the ARIA chart last week, becoming AC/DC’s sixth number one album on home turf. From Back In Black in 1980, to Live (1992), Ballbreaker (1995), Black Ice (2008), Rock Or Bust (2014) and now Power Up, the group have now topped the Australian charts in five consecutive decades.

In the US, Power Up became AC/DC’s third Billboard chart-topping album, following on from 1981’s For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) and 2008’s Black Ice. The album sold 117,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release, with 111,000 of those being physical sales.

Hailed as “a fucking great record” by Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, and featuring the singles Shot In The Dark and Realize, on Friday (November 20), Power Up became AC/DC’s fourth number one album in the UK, following on from Back In Black (1980), Black Ice (2008) and the Iron Man 2 – OST album (2010). Selling 62,000 copies in week one, it also became the UK’s fastest-selling album of the year.

The album has also now topped the album charts in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

“We want to lift this gloom,” Brian Johnson told a UK tabloid at the weekend. “We hope this is the album to do it because it’s just so carefree and non-political, nothing to do with anything except having a good time.”

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.