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Fifty years ago, most citizens of the northern Anglosphere would have assumed Australia’s contribution to world culture began with didgideroos and ended with “Waltzing Matilda.” But that was before they heard the new five-piece rock ‘n’ roll outfit formed in the Sydney suburb of Burwood by two Glasgow-born brothers, Angus and Malcolm Young, who had just hired a third Scottish expatriate a few years their senior, Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott, to be their frontman. For the next five decades, AC/DC would help to transform the international reputation of their adopted homeland with their antipodean take on booze- and sex-soaked rock and roll. If Bach was the sound of God whistling while he worked, AC/DC was the sound of God ordering another round in a strip club on Saturday night.

Like many performers from their era who are still active today, AC/DC’s ongoing commercial viability was secured early in their career. The band released the most recent of their seventeen studio albums in 2020, but their live set-lists are still dominated by tracks drawn from the iconic records they recorded between 1975 and 1981 when they were at the height of their powers. Anthems like “TNT,” “Whole Lotta Rosie,” “Highway to Hell,” and “Dirty Deeds Dirt Cheap” have long been staples of classic rock radio and can still be heard blaring in bars, on movie soundtracks, over sporting events, and out of countless personal listening devices. Their 1980 album Back In Black remains one of the biggest-selling records of the recording era, in company with Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors. Today, lead guitarist Angus Young is the only original member, but the band continues to pack arenas and stadiums. In 2025, they are scheduled to play a list of huge venues in Canada and the US following a round of blockbuster European gigs in 2024.

AC/DC’s lightning-bolt logo is one of the most recognisable corporate signatures on the planet, as instantly legible as the Amazon arrow, the Nike swoosh, the McDonald’s arches, the Rolling Stones’ tongue, Led Zeppelin’s fallen angel, and the Beatles’ apple. Memorials to Bon Scott, who died in 1980, now stand in his childhood home of Kirriemuir Scotland, Fremantle in Western Australia where he was raised, and in Melbourne’s AC/DC Lane. For those unable to afford Ticketmaster’s astronomical stadium prices, tribute bands—including all-female iterations like Hell’s Belles and ThundHer Struck—keep the party going on the pub and club circuit. The quintet was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. Even people who don’t like hard rock at all probably know something about AC/DC: the image of Angus in his schoolboy outfit with his trusty Gibson SG; the Satanic group portrait on the sleeve of Highway to Hell; and an entire genre of roadhouse raunch and blue-collar boogie that originated in the baking sunlight of New South Wales.