Vinyl Collection - AC/DC The Razors Edge

My copy of AC/DC's The Razors Edge getting some play

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the summer between my sixth and seventh grades was a pivotal time for my musical tastes.  Before then I was listening to pop/top 40 music mostly, and I still love those same artists today.  But that summer, my musical scope was broadened to include heavier things.  Things I never would have thought to listen to before.  I spoke earlier about how I became a Poison fan that summer, and now I will tell you how I became an even bigger AC/DC fan that summer.

It all happened on that same basketball court, with those same friends, and that same boombox.  While my buddy Mark had brought along the Poison record that would make me a lifelong fan, my buddy Nate brought along an album unlike anything I had heard before; The Razors Edge by AC/DC.  From the opening riff of "Thunderstruck" to the bellow of Brian Johnson's opening lines, all I could think was "what in the world is this?" The energy was insane.  The songs were heavy and hard-hitting.  The singer was, well I didn't know what he was, but I liked it! Shortly after this day, I received a dubbed copy of the said album on one side of the tape and a copy of Back in Black on the other side.  I was transfixed on what I was hearing.  What my parents called screaming, I called amazing.


The Razors Edge was my favorite of the two albums at the time.  It was their most recent release and I threw myself into every song.  "Are You Ready", "Moneytalks", "Thunderstruck", and "Got You By The Balls" changed how I looked at music.  No longer was it all synths and vocals.  From there on it was guitars and drums.  I found myself buying any magazine I could find with articles on AC/DC in them.  I cut them out and taped them to my bedroom wall.  At the time I was also a huge professional wrestling fan and would pretend to be a wrestler myself, battling all my stuffed animals until I was champion.  My entrance music was "The Razors Edge", and that was also the name of my finishing move.  My tag team name was Thunderstruck.  I was obsessed with AC/DC.

Once Live came out in 92, I was even more obsessed.  I remember the first time I heard a song sung by Bon Scott.  There was no internet back then, so I didn't have any clue that Brian Johnson was AC/DC's second singer.  Imagine how confused I was by a different sounding voice.  That's when I was educated on AC/DC from my good buddy Nate, who is by far the biggest AC/DC fan I know.  (I highly recommend checking out his website acdc-bootlegs.com.  He has a large collection of bootleg shows in all formats, and a massive collection of AC/DC vinyl, CDs, cassettes, VHS, and memorabilia.  It's pretty fun to look at.)  After Live was released, I started slowly building my collection of AC/DC albums on CD.

After removing some
of the Skid Row cover

Then about a year or so later I was in a local Musicland store when I came across The Razors Edge on vinyl.  My stereo at home was an all-in-one which actually had a turntable on it, so I snatched it up and brought it home to much delight.  Unfortunately for me, the turntable I had didn't sound the greatest, so I usually just listened to the album on CD instead.  As the years went on, that LP made several moves from my parent's house, to college, to my own home where it was stored away in a bin of miscellaneous items where it sat for several years.  Then in 2014, we suffered a flooded basement and many things, basement included, were ruined.  As I was going through my bins of destroyed items I came across my two vinyl records so perfectly glued to each other from the water damage.  After prying them apart, my Skid Row album lost most of it's back cover to the AC/DC album you see pictured above.  It doesn't look pretty, but the good news is the record itself was in perfect condition.  It looked like nothing happened to it through all the years.  It's the record that started my collection and remains in my collection to this day.  I love to break it out from time to time and remember just how much I love The Razors Edge as an album, and especially as a memory.

Thanks for joining me once again on this trip down memory lane.  I hope you enjoyed learning how I became a fan of AC/DC and The Razors Edge. Please take a moment to check out our new website located at briansvinylrecords.com.  There you can find some industry news, some links to pre-order some albums I am looking forward to, as well as my recommendations (located at the bottom of the page) on vinyl gear and albums.  NOTE: Any purchases from the links on the site are part of the Amazon Affiliate program and we do earn a small percentage of money from them.  That money is used to pay for hosting of the site, and if there is any left over it goes to our vinyl addiction.  If you do purchase using one of our links, we thank you sincerely.  If not no worries, we still thank you for your support of the blog and site. 

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