AC/DC Magazine Ads Through the Years: 1975-2016
This collection of 40 years' worth of AC/DC magazine ads reveals the band's not-so-secret marketing strategy: Put Angus Young front and center.
Nearly half of the ads, retail posters and other promotional items displayed below feature the band's schoolboy outfit-wearing lead guitarist all by himself. Other times, he's joined by his bandmates or replaced by cannons, amplifiers, brass balls or even Iron Man. The poster for 1990's The Razor's Edge displays the band's logo via some extremely creatively hair trimming.
Bon Scott shares the spotlight with Young on the album cover and magazine ads for 1997's Bonfire, a box set dedicated to the late singer. The promotional materials for 1980's Back in Black, the first album AC/DC released after Scott's death, prominently display the plain black artwork the still-mourning group used as the LP's cover art.
Otherwise, just like at the band's live shows, it's pretty much all Angus all the time. You'll see the 5' 2" guitar hero breaking through huge TV screens, getting electrocuted, stabbed, immortalized as a gigantic statue or tearing up stages all over the world. Just as they've done with their music over the past four decades, AC/DC have found a winning formula and stuck to it.