YMMV / AC/DC

• Archive Panic: Even though they've leaned back on their schedule a bit since Stiff Upper Lip, they've still put out seventeen albums (not counting the international release of High Voltage which combines their two original Australian albums), and have three live albums, an EP, and two box sets full of rarities. They aren't as relentless as, say, Motörhead was, but that's still a lot of the same basic Hard Rock sound. The band haven't made it easy for newcomers since they don't really put out greatest-hits compilations, unless you count their two soundtrack albums, Who Made Who (for Maximum Overdrive) and Iron Man 2.
• Broken Base: Whether Bon or Brian is their best frontman. Though even Bon fans like Back in Black.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: "Moneytalks" was meant to criticize shallow materialism and the pursuit of obscene wealth… except the song itself sounds so glamorous and awesome that listeners may not get that impression.
• Epic Riff: "Back in Black", :Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Thunderstruck", "It's A Long Way To The Top", "Mistress for Christmas", "Beating Around the Bush", "Fire Your Guns", "Hells Bells", "Jailbreak"... seriously, every song may qualify. "It's a Long Way To The Top" is a special case in that it also has an Epic Riff for bagpipes.
• Fan Nickname: "Akka Dakka". Certain Australian members of their fan-base staunchly believe this to be their real name. (Not related to More Dakka.)
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Rock Or Bust was preceeded and succeeded by a truly surreal amount of problems within the band: Phil Rudd getting in trouble with the law, Malcolm Young's early on-set dementia (which led to his death), Brian Johnson's severe hearing loss, Cliff Williams deciding to retire. It really did seem at that time like the band was stuck between, as the title says, "rock or bust". Fitting that predicament, the band recouped with the album PWR UP (so they chose to rock, not bust).
  • In "Little Lover", Bon Scott sings about romancing a teenage girl who has his "picture on your bedroom wall, next to Gary Glitter". With what we know about Gary Glitter today, it's a bit problematic.
  • The final shot of the "Shake Your Foundations"' music video has the World Trade Center towers in it.
  • While on the above, "Safe in New York City" came out just one year before 9/11, so it's either this (Clear Channel downright removed it from their radio stations in the months following the attacks) or Heartwarming in Hindsight as a Survival Mantra.
  • "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" is about a hitman. Almost forty years after the song came out, Phil Rudd allegedly tried to pay someone a lot of money to kill his personal assistant. Maybe it could be Hilarious in Hindsight since nothing came of it and pretty much everyone made a "dirty deeds done not so cheap" joke after the news broke.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Bon Scott's two previous bands (from before he joined AC/DC) each had a guitarist who played a Gibson SG, which is also Angus Young's preferred guitar.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The band has never changed their style in their decades-long run, often relying on the same three chords in every song. Their own response to this is that those chords work, so why change it? As Brian Johnson supposedly said:
  "Someone said to Angus the other day, ‘Hey, you’ve made the same album 15 times.’ Angus said, ‘No, man, we’ve made the same album 16 times!’"
• LGBT Fanbase: Because AC/DC is also slang for bisexual, they have a large gay following, which they embrace.^note Sadly, nobody told that to the fans who saw emo band Vendetta Red open for them in the early 2000s and shouted a variety of homophobic slurs at them during their set.
• Magnificent Bastard: The unnamed hitman from "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" is a hired gun skilled in TNT, electricity, and various other murder methods, who offers all of his filthy acts at a reasonable price to his paying customers. Targeting perverted high school principals, cheating boyfriends, and even nagging wives, the hitman uses his stealthy skills to pull off his hits, while using his charms to win over all of his clients, to the point of seducing some.
• Mainstream Obscurity: OK, AC/DC is hardly "obscure" (particularly in their homeland of Australia), but most kids these days wouldn't be aware that they're in the discussion for the title of "Biggest Band of All Time", right up there with The Beatles, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath or any other band you could think of. If you asked people to name the top-selling albums of all time, very few would pin Back in Black at #2, behind only Thriller.
• Memetic Mutation: "Big Balls" from Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap has become a popular editing source for YouTube Poops, if only because of the phrases, "I've got big balls," and, "everybody comes and comes again".
• Retroactive Recognition: In the "Big Gun" video, one of the kids in the crowd is future System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian; he appears prominently next to Arnold when he's in the middle of the crowd for the first part of the video.
• Signature Song:
  • "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" is so associated to the Scott incarnation of the band to the point that Johnson vowed to never perform the song out of respect for Scott. Then, there's also "TNT", the overall most popular song from that period.
  • "Back in Black", "Thunderstruck" and "You Shook Me All Night Long" are the main candidates for the Johnson incarnation, while "Highway to Hell" covers both incarnations.
• Song Association:
  • If you've gone to see any movie after roughly 1995, chances are you've heard "Back in Black" in at least two trailers.
  • Many boxing fans can remember "Hell's Bells" as Vitali Klitschko's entrance song for many fights.
  • In Argentina, "Shoot to Thrill" is associated with the humor TV show Caiga Quien Caiga. Doubles as Author Appeal due to the main star of the show, Mario Pergolini, being a HUGE AC/DC fan.
• Spiritual Successor: Airbourne are seen by many as this, being a four piece Australian rock band doing a very similar style of music.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Yes, they had at least one: "Gimme A Bullet", from Powerage, notable in that it's not even a slow ballad but a mid-tempo hard rock song. Australian journalist Jesse Fink noted in his biography of the Young brothers that "Gimme A Bullet" helped him get through an exceptionally painful divorce.
  • "Ride On" is one of AC/DC's only ballads, being about a lonely drifter with no friends, family or lovers just trying to keep going in hopes of a better life someday.
  • "Through the Mists of Time" from Power Up is both a heartfelt tribute to Malcolm Young and a wistful look back at their career.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • After getting into a bit of a rut in the mid-80s, they had a big comeback with The Razor's Edge in 1990, as the album produced two of their most famous songs ("Moneytalks" and "Thunderstruck"). Its follow-ups, Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip, were fairly well received, and 2008's Black Ice got critical acclaim and was that year's second best selling album. And they got into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along the way. So yeah, you might say they won the crowd back just a smidge.
  • Maybe Power Up had the advantage of being released to a hungry public during the COVID-19 Pandemic, but the album received glowing reviews and was considered a welcome return to form, particularly after the band seemed to be falling apart rapidly during the mid-2010s.

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