The Razors Edge

After Blow Up Your Video in 1988, Malcolm Young took time off touring, and his nephew Stevie Young filled in on rhythm guitar. In 1989 drummer Simon Wright left to work with Dio, and Welsh drummer Chris Slade replaced him. Brian Johnson was unavailable for several months while finalizing a divorce, so Angus and Malcolm wrote all the songs, as they would for every album through Power Up in 2020.

The album was recorded at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver. Bruce Fairbairn, who had worked with Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, produced it, and Mike Fraser engineered and mixed it. George Young was involved early but had to bow out. Angus said the funniest song on the album was Mistress for Christmas, which he said was about Donald Trump, and that his best solo was on the title track, which has a rare stretch of fingerpicking. On the tour for Moneytalks, thousands of Angus Bucks, imitation dollar bills with Angus on them, were dropped on the audience.

Reception

Reviews were mixed. Alex Henderson of AllMusic called it arguably the band's strongest album in over half a decade, while John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone gave it two stars. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and stayed on that chart for 77 consecutive weeks, and it reached number four in the United Kingdom. It is certified 6x Platinum in the United States, and sales are put at about 18.8 million copies worldwide. Moneytalks reached number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Razors Edge World Tour ran from November 1990 to November 1991, and shows from it made up the 1992 live album AC/DC Live.