Scorpions-Blackout Review

  Released in 1982, "Blackout" is the eighth studio-album but the Teutonic headbangers. Often considered the last classic album by the Scorps, Blackout was met with relatively healthy sales and critical acclaim. Let's look at this 80s metal classic and see what makes it memorable.

With Uli Jon Roth long out of the picture, the Scorpions lumbered along into the 1980s. After the relatively successful "Animal Magnetism", the band recorded "Blackout" in France and Germany.
The album begins with the NWOBHM sounding "Blackout". With more than a passing similarity to Maiden, the song appears to be riding the NWOBHM wave of success happening at the time. Nevertheless, The Scorpions surely influenced Maiden themselves and have every right to take influence from the next generation of headbangers. I digress, Blackout is a great fist-pounder and one of the best songs released by the band. Next is "Can't Live Without You". The song shows Scorps heading in a more pop-orientated direction, a sappy and soggy ballad without any real edge or spark. More songs like these would dominate later material released by the band later in the decade. Skip it.

Next is my favorite song on the album, " No One Like You" is certainly cheesy and corny. But, like many other ballads from the 1980s, the song is cheesy in the best possible way. A really sweet song about longing and lusting, the Scorpions prove on this track that are one of the best bands at creating ballads that can rock and pile on the cheese at the same time. A great tune and some nice guitar work by lead guitarist Matthias Jabs. "You Give Me All I Need" is another ballad, leaving one to believe at this point if this album was intended to be a concept album. The intro is quite cool, reminding one of the earlier Scorpions acoustic songs off of albums such as "Lonesome Crow" and "Fly to the Rainbow". Not an offensive tune, but the ballads start to tire by this point. Snooze. "Now!" closes out side one.  One of the classics from the album, the song thunders along and Klaus Meine lets loose his classic howl/scream combination from earlier albums. The song is the closest link to early Scorps rockers and is easily the hardest and fastest song on the album. Great song.

Side two amps up the rock kicking off with "Dynamite". Like a brigade of Teutonic metal crusaders, the band fires off salvos of pure metal on this track. Truly one of the last great metal anthems released by Scorpions, the song really shows that the Scorpions of 82 could rock just as hard as the Scorpions of 1976. A true class. Next is "Arizona". About the classic metal story of an "evil woman", the song is about as classic rock as the Scorpions get musically speaking. Fairly generic and slightly bluesy, I prefer the Scorpions when they are throwing salvos of metal brimstone rather than "bluesing it up". Not a band song, but not a Scorps classic. "China White" is obviously a song that concerns drug use and escapism from the world's problems. The song is basically the Scorpions version of "Kashmir", with rising strings and long drawn out passages of solos and orchestration. Not really a big fan of this bloated beast of a song. The albums closes with "When the Smoke Is Going Down", a love-letter to both the fans and fame itself. Klaus is deeply personal, basically telling us what gets him on stage night after night. A sad sounding chiller, but the song is a nice closer.

"Blackout" is not the best Scorpions album (I will review that next week), but is it one of the best and certainly the best of the 1980s. As the Scorpions moved in a very poppy direction, the sales increased but many of the headbangers moved on. But at least in 1982, the Scorpions could rock your f-ing head off. Great album.

Rating-8.5/10