4 keepers
keeper avg .444
Opening track "Bad Boys Running Wild"**** is an impressive combination of melody and crunch, the best since "Loving You Sunday Morning" and "Holiday" three albums ago. Another that highlights the band's flexibility is the two-part "Coming Home"****, whose atmospheric introduction (similar to "Holiday") launches into some bananas but surprisingly melodic coke-music (shrewdly doubled-up on guitar by Matthias Jabs) ; it's surprisingly followed by the similar but still catchy "The Same Thrill." But their ninth album was by far their most successful due to the band's biggest single to date; with an instantly memorable riff (check), ridiculously suggestive double entendre (check), and some of Jabs' most distinctive leads (check), "Rock You Like A Hurricane"**** was ubiquitous in 1984, and an enduring heavy metal classic in the US. I've been hearing the song since grade school and it still sounds appealingly menacing.
Though it includes rock-radio classic "Big City Nights" and a couple interesting diversions, the reggae-influenced "As Soon as the Good Times Roll" and the martial "Crossfire," the second side pales in comparison to the first. Nevertheless, being located on the frontier of western democracy it's cool that Klaus Meine chose to address the fear of war from a strictly human side on the latter. Side 2 pales, that is, except for the ultimate heavy metal power-ballad "Still Loving You"*****, which I designate as Rudolf Schenker's masterpiece because most of what is memorable about the song, from the delicate (and surprisingly difficult) arpeggiated introduction to the plaintive closing leads, is his. It transitions from alluringly tuneful to thunderously heavy with a short volume-swell which couldn't be more imperative or satisfying, making it the best example of Scorpions's impressive creative range.
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