AC/DC’s ‘Shot in the Dark’ Makes Best Mainstream Rock Songs Chart Debut in Over a Decade
AC/DC's "Shot in the Dark" surges onto rock radio, debuting at No. 5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs airplay chart dated Oct…
AC/DC‘s “Shot in the Dark” surges onto rock radio, debuting at No. 5 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Songs airplay chart dated Oct. 17.
The arrival is the best on Mainstream Rock Songs in over 12 years, since Disturbed‘s “Inside the Fire” also ignited at No. 5 on the ranking dated April 12, 2008.
Adding to AC/DC’s feat, the song was released Oct. 7, so it debuts on the chart from five days of airplay in the Oct. 5-11 radio tracking week.
AC/DC’s No. 5 debut is the band’s best on Mainstream Rock Songs, which began in 1981. It passes “Big Gun,” from the Last Action Hero soundtrack, which bowed at No. 6 in June 1993. The group had last appeared on the list at all with “Rock the Blues Away,” for a week, at No. 40, in June 2015.
The band is one of three acts with Mainstream Rock Songs entries in each decade of the chart’s existence (1980s, ’90s, 2000s, ’10s and ’20s), joining Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. (Mick Mars has also visited the chart in each decade, as guitarist of Motley Crue and as a featured artist on Cory Marks‘ “Outlaws & Outsiders,” as has Slash via his solo projects and his work with Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver.)
Concurrently, “Shot in the Dark” starts at No. 7 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock Airplay chart, garnering 4.5 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Most of that audience is via mainstream rock radio.
The song also soars onto Billboard‘s streaming-, airplay- and sales-based rock charts despite having just two days of streams and sales toward the tracking week ending Oct. 8. It debuts at Nos. 8 and 33 on Hot Hard Rock Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, respectively, with 775,000 U.S. streams and 4,000 downloads sold.
“Shot in the Dark” is the first new music from AC/DC since 2014’s Rock or Bust, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. Follow-up LP Power Up is due Nov. 13.
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