Following Back In Black was always going to be a massive challenge for AC/DC. By the time they began recording For Those About to Rock in Paris in the summer of 1981, their previous album had sold 10 million copies, and if AC/DC themselves hadn't changed, then certainly the climate around the Australian quintet had, in terms of expectations and demands.
It certainly didn't help that, before they arrived in Paris to begin their third album with producer 'Mutt' Lange, the band were royally fucked over by their own record label. In an astonishingly short-sighted move, in March 1981 Atlantic Records in America decided to cash in on the phenomenal success of Back In Black by releasing, for the first time in the US, an AC/DC album that they considered not worthy of release just five years earlier. In fact, so unimpressed was the US label's A&R department by Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in 1976 that Phil Carson, the talent scout who signed the band worldwide, was told to his face that AC/DC were going to be dropped, and it was only his pleading (and a show of the finances around the band's previous release) that kept the band on the label.
Now, having successfully introduced the late Bon Scott's replacement Brian Johnson to America, Atlantic threw new fans (and radio programmers) into a tailspin by reintroducing Scott again on a 'new' record, against the band's wishes. In the short-term their tactic paid off - Dirty Deeds... reached number three on the Billboard 200 chart, one slot higher than Back In Black's chart peak - but many of those introduced to the Australian band via their 1980 smash album were understandably confused, and the band felt completely undermined.
