Crazy World

Crazy World is the eleventh album on which Scorpions bind big choruses, thick guitars and arena-scale drive to tighter songwriting. On a foundation of big melody and hard guitar, it adds words that open to the world and the afterglow of ballads to paint mature arena rock. The universal melody of the worldwide smash “Wind of Change” captured the air of the end of the Cold War and spread the band’s name to a new audience. From the drive of “Tease Me Please Me” and the catchiness of “Don’t Believe Her” to the drama of “Restless Nights,” the songs carry wide-ranging faces. Each song’s outline is grasped at a single hearing, yet the handoff between riff and voice holds fine craft. Its strength is that, even as the density rises, it never loses the step of the rhythm or the clarity of the hooks. Uniting accessibility and raw playing, it keeps the conviction of large-scale rock. Inscribing the era’s change into song and lifting Scorpions to a worldwide presence, it is a monumental record.