"I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same.“ — Angus Young
I just read that quote and felt like sharing it with you. Some AC/DC appreciation.
Heh. I didn't know this was a common criticism of AC/DC.
It's definitely not unfounded but, the alternative is not always better. A good counter example is a band like Kings of Leon, who kind of split their fans along different album lines. Not saying there's anything wrong with that either, but I love AC/DC and am not upset that they have a pretty consistent identity across their albums.
So many bands change sounds between albums that I'm typically not a fan of a 'band' at all, only ever specific albums. Consistency would be nice in my book.