AC/DCAC/DC’s riff-breaking Thunderstruck, first released in 1990, continues to impact on multiple charts.
This week on the ARIA Top 50 Australian Artists On Replay Singles, the track climbs up to #2 from #3, enjoying its 44th week on that list.
On ARIA’s Top 50 On Replay Singles Chart, the track re-entered at #48, after earlier reaching the prime post of #11.
It’s also causing quite a guitarmageddon in the United States. Thunderstruck has returned to the Billboard Global 200 at #190, 143 weeks after its original release.
It’s also in a number of other Billboard charts, including Rock Digital Song Sales, Hard Rock Streaming Songs and the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart.
Earlier this year, the 4-minute, 52-second cut was at #1 on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart, where it logged in at the top spot for an astounding 65 weeks.
In comparison, Back In Black and Shot In The Dark spent two weeks at #1 on the chart, while Play Ball hung in for one week.
Through the years, Thunderstruck has sold 14 million copies around the world, fuelled by one of Malcolm and Angus Young’s most striking riffs.
It is literally a case of lightning striking many times. Angus wrote the song after his plane was hit by lightning mid-flight.
“It started off from a little trick that I had on guitar,” he recalled in the liner notes for the 2003 re-release of the track’s parent album The Razors Edge.
“I played it to Mal, and he said, ‘Oh I’ve got a good rhythm idea that will sit well in the back.’ We built the song up from that. We fiddled about with it for a few months before everything fell into place.”
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“Lyrically, it was really just a case of finding a good title, something along the lines of Powerage or Highway To Hell. We came up with this thunder thing based on our favourite childhood toy, ThunderStreak, and it seemed to have a good ring to it. AC/DC = Power. That’s the basic idea.”
Initially the riff was just to be the opener. Producer Bruce Fairbairn recollected how Angus thought the song needed a starting hook. The guitarist lit up a cigarette and powered his way through. He continued riding that riff throughout the whole song.
“It was all done in one take. At the end, with this long bit of ash on the cigarette, he said, ‘How about that Bruce?’ It was so awesome, we just left it like that.”
The shredadelic sound of the track harks back to the Young brothers’ love for ‘50s rock pioneers as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. They put a stress on lead and rhythm guitar on their tracks, which the Youngs adopted and utilised to gain 200 million record sales altogether.
The lineup on Thunderstruck also included Brian Johnson (lead vocals), Cliff Williams (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Chris Slade (drums, percussion).
In 1990, the track reached #4 on the Top 100 ARIA chart, certified 10 x platinum for sales of 700,000. It sold 10 million copies in the United States, and charted in 22 countries.
By last October it had turned over 2.27 billion streams. The official video has generated 1.7 billion YouTube views, the band’s most popular on the platform. In January 2018, it ranked #8 “most Australian song of all time” in radio network Triple M's "Ozzest 100".
It is used in sporting matches, fashion parades, and athletes like WWE champion Drew McIntyre as part of his workout routine. It’s in demand for use by film makers as well. But they are expensive: its use in the hungover football game sequence in Varsity Blues cost $500,000 for just two minutes, said Parade.
This week’s ARIA Top 50 Replay Single also has You Shook Me All Night Long hanging in at #10 (total of 44 weeks), Highway To Hell moving to #11 from #12, Back In Black at #19 while TNT is at the lower end of the Top 50, at #46 from last week’s #49.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
