AC/DC have spent five decades doing essentially one thing and doing it better than anyone else. Angus Young's Gibson SG and schoolboy uniform, Malcolm Young's metronomic rhythm guitar, and a succession of powerhouse vocalists, first Bon Scott, then Brian Johnson, delivered riff-driven hard rock with zero pretension and maximum impact.
Bon Scott's death in 1980 could have ended the band. Instead, they recruited Johnson and immediately recorded Back in Black, which became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Key Albums
A memorial to Bon Scott that became the biggest hard rock album ever made.
Scott's final album and the moment AC/DC broke through worldwide.
Raw, fast, and furious. The purest distillation of early AC/DC.
Why They Matter
AC/DC proved that simplicity is its own form of genius. Their refusal to evolve is actually their greatest artistic statement: a commitment to the power of the riff that has outlasted every trend in rock.