(Credits: Far Out / Oleg Ivanov)
It’s no secret that the unsung heroes in music are often the producers. And while it’s easy to list off some of the best and most influential records in classic rock history, it’s more difficult to distinguish the producer behind the scenes, the orchestrators who linger behind the scenes, anchoring the sound and direction of entire masterpieces.
In rock and music, in a broader sense, a good producer is often all it takes to decipher a good album from a great one. In rare circumstances, they can derail the ship entirely, diminishing everything magical about an album and its full potential. However, when done right, a good producer can enhance a musician’s artistic vision more than they even anticipated, bringing a certain refinement they couldn’t have done by themselves.
In rock, especially, musicians are often after producers who possess an intimate understanding of their vision and how they work, especially for bands whose dynamics are unique but integral to their broader identity. While some learn too late the pitfalls of choosing wrong, like Metallica or Black Sabbath and Rick Rubin, others, like Nirvana and Steve Albini, form the ultimate match made in heaven.
However, while countless names altered the landscape of rock forever, from Bob Rock and Brendan O’Brien to George Martin and Butch Vig, the one figure whose credentials reach higher than the rest is rock virtuoso and all-around juggernaut Mutt Lange. Not only has Lange produced some of the most important rock albums of all time, he also produced the best-selling rock album and second best-selling album of all time after Michael Jackson’s Thriller; AC/DC’s Back in Black.
So, what is the best-selling rock album of all time?
Selling approximately 50 million copies worldwide, Back in Black was a major reset of sorts, not just for the rock world at large but for AC/DC, who were suddenly navigating a lineup change following the death of Bon Scott earlier in the year. With Brian Johnson standing in, the stakes were high, and the conditions were far less conventional than they perhaps expected, with recordings taking place at Compass Point in the Bahamas.
According to Johnson, Lange’s approach centred around mostly pulling out the most perfect performance possible from him, knowing that anything less would be far from good enough. As he recalled: “He wouldn’t let anything go past him. He had this thing where he didn’t want people to listen to the album down the road and say there’s no way someone could sing that, they’ve dropped that in, even the breaths had to be in the right place.”
Adding: “You cannot knock a man for that, but he drove me nuts. I’d be sitting there going, ‘Arrggghh!’”
However, despite Lange’s militant approach, the record was produced flawlessly, enabling the entire project to set an entirely new standard for rock and rock production that defied all odds. On top of this, it also remained immensely accessible, allowing AC/DC’s specific flavour of rock to transcend generations and genres in a way that felt entirely effortless and unforced.
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