The Razors Edge (1990)
1. Thunderstruck
2. Fire Your Guns
3. Moneytalks
4. The Razors Edge
5. Mistress For Christmas
6. Rock Your Heart Out
7. Are You Ready
8. Got You By The Balls
9. Shot of Love
10.Let's Make It
11.Goodbye & Good Riddance To Bad Luck
12.If You Dare
By the dawn of the 1990s, AC/DC stood at something of a crossroads. The vitality that defined their early records had dimmed somewhat in the preceding decade, and though their name still summoned respect in hard rock circles, it had been years since they truly sounded like themselves. The Razor’s Edge, released in 1990, was their moment of resurrection—and reinvention.
From a production standpoint, this was AC/DC’s slickest venture yet. Bruce Fairbairn, the man behind the console, had already turned sonic straw into gold for the likes of Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, and here he brought a similarly polished veneer. This was not the stripped-back, barroom thunder of Powerage or Let There Be Rock—it was stadium rock writ large. The sound was colossal, compressed, and, for better or worse, commercial.
The opening track, Thunderstruck, is one of those rare anthems that feels instantly mythic. The spiraling guitar intro—almost hypnotic—builds like a ritual invocation before Brian Johnson’s unmistakable howl crashes through. It’s a masterstroke, both musically and in terms of branding. One could argue that Thunderstruck alone secured the album’s legacy. Likewise, Moneytalks, the album’s unexpected flirtation with pop sensibility, gleams with an almost radio-friendly charm. Catchy to the point of contagion, it was, for a brief window, everywhere. Yet, one could be forgiven for wondering whether it was too polished—too far a departure from the group's grimy roots.
Fortunately, The Razor’s Edge doesn’t abandon its lineage entirely. The title track is a taut, storm-brewing epic, full of menace and control. It’s followed by Fire Your Guns, a classically taut rocker built around one of the band’s signature obsessions. This song, like Rock Your Heart Out, harks back to the band’s primal instincts, though the latter does momentarily veer toward the saccharine, perhaps due to a suspiciously glossy keyboard layer buried in the mix.
Elsewhere, the material wavers. Are You Ready and Let’s Make It suffer from overreach—competently played, to be sure, but lacking the bite and danger that once felt inevitable with AC/DC. These are songs that seem to aim for mass appeal, but in doing so, lose some of the band’s character along the way.
The real catastrophe, however, is Mistress for Christmas. It’s hard to comprehend how a band so renowned for their no-nonsense delivery and bawdy swagger could produce something so mawkish. Lines like “I want the woman in red / At the bottom of my bed” aren’t merely tongue-in-cheek—they’re tone-deaf. The less said the better. The closing track, If You Dare, is marginally better, though still feels more like filler than finale. It leaves the listener with a whimper rather than a bang.
It’s perhaps telling that, by this point, the lyrical duties had been entirely assumed by the Young brothers. Brian Johnson’s pen was set aside, though the difference is largely negligible. The themes remained the same—lust, bravado, bravado about lust—but without much of the devil-may-care swagger of old.
And yet, for all its faults, The Razor’s Edge achieved its aim. It reinvigorated the band’s commercial standing, shifted millions of units, and sent them back to arenas they hadn’t filled in years. If it wasn’t a full return to form, it was at least a reminder of the band’s resilience. AC/DC had survived the ‘80s, and with The Razor’s Edge, they roared—however briefly—back into relevance.
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