I believe I've mentioned before that AC/DC's The Razor's Edge was the first AC/DC CD I ever owned. It was also one of the first five CD's I ever owned. The version I'll be reviewing here is the 2003 digitally remastered copy. My son has my old copy.Let me start by saying that the twelve dollar upgrade was worth it. Holy crap the sound is explosive. I mean the dynamics are just through the roof. They make your heart pound in your chest. These songs sound a million times more lively than the original CD does. So, you can already see where I'm going with the production rating.
If you didn't own a copy of this album for some weird reason, I know I made a few tape copies for friends, let me explain how much of a success this album was. It wasn't Back In Black good, but it was this balls to the wall Hard Rock turns Heavy Metal album that created a whole new generation of AC/DC fans. I was one of them. I've explained that I had cassettes of earlier albums prior to owning this CD, but it was this CD that really appealed to me at the time. Highway To Hell is and always will be my favourite album, but at the time I swore by this album.
Thunderstruck which opens the album was the guitar riff of guitar riffs, to my entire grade eight class. At least the cool ones. We all knew one guy that learned to play it, and he was a guitar god as far as I was concerned at the time.
On this remaster you can hear so much more than ever before. Strap on a set of really good headphones, and just listen to the ambience. This effect can also be achieved by cranking the stereo up. I mean really cranking it on some P.A. speakers. But, I thought I'd post the responsible option first. However, based on the sound in my living room, option two is really good too. AC/DC sounds best on an old school stereo system that's built to blow the roof off the house.
After that comes Fire Your Guns. Take all the good things I said above, and strap them on to a song that I don't care for, and that has no ambience, and that covers the this one well. However, I still feel a need to chant "Fire Your Guns", it's just so catchy.
I remember how much I loved Moneytalks when it came out. This was my song, that I sang in front of the mirror, imagining the money falling from the sky. This was the only song where I wanted to be Brian Johnson instead of Angus Young. Later I would discover I prefered being Chris Slade (This album's drummer, and the drummer on Live as well). As I got older I started caring for this song less and less, but that's just due to the commercial sound.
This album had some great singles. Thunderstruck and Moneytalks are good examples, but it was the album tracks that made this album. The album's title track is the best song on the album. It wasn't a hit, and I loved that it was on the live album, but it's this version that makes me drool. The remastered version has that amazing ambience, which makes it sound like the band is performing in the middle of a city square during the dead of night, on top of the already heavily present gangland mentality. The Razor's Edge has gone from being bad ass, to being Darth Vader.
This album also contains my favourite Christmas song, that's not a parody of a classic rock song. Mistress For Christmas captures that awesome "special sweet little something next to the fireplace while the snow falls outside" vibe without even trying. (That's my quote, not lyrics, just so there's no confusion.) It's the perfect Christmas song for Guys. I also acknowledge the male chauvanistic pig quality and all I have to say is "You need to get laid well!"
Rock Your Little Heart is a fun song, but an AC/DC album filler. I mean hell, I wanna rock my little heart everytime I hear the chorus, but that doesn't make it a great song, just a fun one. If this song had come out before all the other songs about rockin' that AC/DC released over the years, this might have been one of those classics instead.
The key to the remastered album is the ambience of many of the songs. For example, I was never a big fan of Are You Ready. It was a hit single, but I thought it was the over played, over rated single. On this re-release it sounds so much cooler. I mean it's no longer a skipper and has become a cranker. There's just this great echo/reverb/overdub sound on some of these songs that has just been made to sound explosive with the remastering. It's very much like discovering a whole new album.
Got You By The Balls is another song that became fantastic with the remaster. I always liked the song to some degree, most of which was very silly and juvenile, but now I enjoy it so much more. This is probably one of the heaviest blues songs I've ever heard. The lyrical content is also very bluesy too. "Hey mister businessman / Head of the company / Are you looking for a lady / One who likes to please? / Hey mister businessman / This one likes to tease / With a special service / In French quantities / But she won't sacrifice / What you want tonight / She won't come across / Unless there's money in her hand / And she's calling all the shots / She got you by the balls (repeat multiple times) / Hey mister businessman / High society / She can play the school girl / And spank you all you please / But she won't sacrifice / What you want tonight / She won't come across / Unless there's money in her hand / She don't go overtime / She got you by the balls (repeat multiple times) / (Kiss your balls goodbye) / Hang it left, hang it right, / Got you by the balls / Got your shorts, got your curlies / Got you - by the balls / She got you by the balls (repeat multiple times until end)".
The same content is carried on in Shot Of Love, which is so catchy sounding, but not a song I'm overly fond of.
I keep forgetting that Let's Make It is even on this album. When I hear it, I enjoy it, but it's just one of those AC/DC songs I never think about. Which leads me to saying that this album has some of the most enjoyable fillers I have ever heard. Bruce Fairburn did a fantastic job with the original production on this album. He took a bunch of songs that are so A-typically AC/DC and made them all stand up and shout. At least while the CD player is going. As I said I forget some songs even exsist outside of the moment.
Goodbye And Good Riddance To Bad Luck is one of the few AC/DC songs that I only like for the lyrics. "Getting (bombed | bummed) out on booze / Got nothing to lose / Run out of money / Disposable blues / Sleazy hotels / Like living in hell / The girls on the hustle / With nothing to sell / Want something for nothing / It's always the same / Keep pushing and shoving / And I'm down on the game / Always in trouble / Forever detained / Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye / And good riddance to bad luck / Well spread out the news / There's a free man loose / Back out of jail / And chasing some flooze / Bad luck has changed / Broken the chains / Lay down a claim / For monetary gains / Wonder what's coming / Out for the take / Freedom for loving / And lust for the taste / Eyes are wide open / Wild to the game / Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye / And good riddance to bad luck / Goodbye and good riddance to bad luck ". Musically I have very little use for the song, althought the solo is kickin'.
The album ends with If You Dare. This song is just pure testosterone. It's like TNT (the AC/DC song) gave birth to a bastard Punk that really wants to get his bad boy on. This is just bad assery at it's simple best.
I love this album more now than I did for a long time. I can still feel a lot of the young teenager in me rockin' his little heart out, while the adult in me sits back and goes, "This is some good shit."
The bottom line is, if you don't have this album you should, and you should make it the 2003 remastered version. If there are newer better remastered albums I don't know about them yet, so I can and will only suggest this version of the original CD version, or the cassette.
8/10 - content
10/10 - production
9/10 - personal bias
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