The final of the four Promotional Items I had for ‘Crazy World’ is the amazing ballad “Send Me An Angel”. It was released as a single on September 17th, 1991 and it did really great going to Top 10 in 7 countries, Top 30 in 3 more and #44 on the US charts. The song was written by Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine one of the few songs on the album to be written by two people as most of the others were more a team effort.
My copy is the U.S. promotional copy and it was really, really basic. It was a CD case with no cover and no backing, only the CD. Can’t get more cheap than that. And since there was no artwork, here is what the cover to the 7″ Single looked like.
Scorpions end ‘Crazy World with a ballad and we end our promo run with the same ballad. And I think it is one of their best ballads ever. “Send Me An Angel” sees Klaus give his best vocal performance as he conveys both a melancholy vibe yet there is still a shimmering light of hope. There is such a pure and honest feel to his vocals which is why I think it connects with me so much. The keyboards add to the sadness and they are handled by Jim Vallance who actually co-wrote 7 of the tracks on the album as well, but not this one.
We are now on the third promotional item I have for the Scorpions album ‘Crazy World’. This time around we have the Promotional CD Single for the song “Don’t Believe Her”. It was released as a single in December 1990 and was written by Herman Rarebell, Klaus Meine, Jim Vallance and Rudolf Schenker. The song went to #13 in the U.S. on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart and it did go to #77 on the UK Singles Chart. A little better than the first single on the album as that only charted in the U.S.
My copy is the US Promotional Copy of the Single on CD. There was no cover for it, it only showed the CD, but it did have a back cover. It also has the now infamous words “For Promotional Use Only…Not For Sale” on the back cover and at the bottom of the CD. I do like that the CD is a picture disc considering we had no cover for it.
We are now to the 2nd of the 4 Promo pieces I have in my Scorpions Collection from the album ‘Crazy World’. The song this time is the opening album track, “Tease Me Please Me”. It was released in November 1990 and was written by Klaus Meine, Mathias Jabs, Herman Rarebell and Jim Vallance. It did go to #8 on the US Hot Mainstream Rock Track Chart, but didn’t chart anywhere else.
My version is the U.S. edition and it is a cheap little cardboard box with a sliding CD sleeve out the side of the packaging. At the bottom of the CD, it does say those famous words…”For Promotional Use Only…Not For Sale”. Oh, I love those words.
The band’s eleventh studio was recorded in 1990 and was the first album in year (maybe decades) to not include Dieter Dierks as producer. Instead, they went with Keith Olsen and went back to a less polished sound which helped see the album go to #21 in the U.S. upon its release on November 6, 1990. It is also the last album to be certified 2X Platinum in the States. It is also known as the band’s first #1 album in their home country of Germany which I find insane it took that long.
The band is still in tact with Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Mathias Jabs, Francis Buchholz and Herman Rarebell. Little did we know though that this would be the last album to feature longtime bassist, Francis Buchholz. But before he leaves, he actually gets his first songwriting credit with the song “Kicks After Six” which we will talk about soon enough. This album saw the band have a more mature tone in some of their songwriting, but don’t worry there is still the whole sleazy piece of rock as well. The best of both worlds.
SIDE 1:
The album opens with, “Tease Me Please Me”, which is a sleazy little track that seems part Motley Crue, part everything else at the time and that is okay. The song is a rocker that doesn’t take a lot of thought, but it still kicks ass. A fun opening track with a cool riff, some nasty guitar work, Klaus’ gritty vocals and overall catchy as hell. It is straight up down and dirty rock & roll. Yes, please…sign me up.
“Don’t Believe Her” is up next and it is proof that the Scorpions were now an American rock band as the sound is like every other band rocking out in the U.S. at the time. I really like the opening guitar work and then it goes very Ratt-like with the tone. The only thing missing was Pearcy’s rough vocals. Instead we get much better with Klaus. The song isn’t something to write home about, but it is still a fun, upbeat song although chorus is pretty weak.
Then it is more radio-fodder with “To Be With You In Heaven”. I thought it was going to be a ballad, but it is too upbeat and too much a rocker to be one, but it doesn’t miss by much. Rarebell has a slamming drumming beat as the base to the song. The song does have those romantic lyrics you’d expect in a ballad and Klaus delivers them flawlessly, but still not a ballad with that dual guitar work from Jabs and Schenker.
The next track was the first ballad and it is the band’s mega-hit “Wind of Change”. The song was written by Klaus Meine and was inspired by the band’s trip to the Moscow Peace Festival in 1989. The song is about the change that was brewing in the Soviet Union and in Berlin. When the Wall fell and the Soviet Union was no more, the song was a unifying song for everyone. The whistling in the song was by Klaus, Mathias was playing the rhythm guitar and Schenker handled the solo. A slow ballad that seem to strike a chord with everyone as it went to #1 in 9 countries and #4 in the U.S. It was certified Silver, Gold or Platinum in 9 countries as well. To say this was a worldwide phenomenon would be understatement. And the YouTube video is closing in on almost 1 Billion views…impressive.
The band ends Side 1 with “Restless Nights” which is very bluesy and almost a doom like vibe to the whole thing. The chorus picks up and is more melodic while the everything is a little dark and foreboding. Even Klaus sings it with a little doom & gloom until his more sunny-vibed chorus. Jabs does lay down a great solo amongst the Meine screams. Still not a huge favorite of mine though.
SIDE 2:
Side 2 kicks off like Side 1 did with pure sleazy, sexualized rock and roll. “Lust of Love” is pretty mindless fun with a great, driving beat and a chorus that lingers long after its gone and you find yourself singing it around the house and your wife looks at you with a suspiciously strange evil eye. It is a rousing metal anthem…well pretty close. I do like it though.
And the next rack is the song with Francis’ first co-writing credit. “Kicks After Six” is more of the same, enticingly good time rock & roll. I have to admit, I like the raucous, sleazy, dirty little rockers. The are fun, joyful and put a little bounce in my step. This one opens with a really cool riff that I think makes the song. Rarebell pounds away the driving beat and the song kicks some major ass for me. Oh, and the solo…don’t forget the solo. Crank it baby!!
“Hit Between the Eyes” keeps the party going with some almost speed metal riffs and what I believe is a killer dual guitar solo between Mathias and Rudolf…love it! Klaus is brutal as he attacks the verses with a feistiness we haven’t seen yet on this album. Probably the heaviest track here and what a 1-2-3 punch we get on this side. A total rocking good time.
Then we get to a different tone on the album and first up is “Money And Fame”. It harkens back to an older Scorps sound, but I’m not really feeling this one. You’d think I like the gloomy feel to it. The talkbox, by Jabs, has been played to death by most bands at this time. The song drags on for me and doesn’t feel like it gets where it is trying to go.
The title track, “Crazy World”, is up next and it does pick up the pace and has a little more rocking feel to it. The “ooohs” by Klaus are a nice touch especially accompanied by some cool riffing. This is a different track from the rest of the album. A little more sophisticated from the sleazy tracks and I kinda dig it. A nice change of pace and a pretty deep cut that maybe should’ve been placed earlier in the set. Who knows.
And finally we get to end and as usual, Scorpions end with a ballad and I think it is one of their best ballads ever. “Send Me An Angel” sees Klaus give his best vocal performance as he conveys both a melancholy vibe yet there is still a shimmering light of hope. The keyboards add to the sadness and they are handled by Jim Vallance who actually co-wrote 7 of the tracks on here as well. You know Jim from his work with Bryan Adams. There is a desperation to the lyrics as he feels so lost but the hope that an angel will come and make everything better. A really beautiful track and one I never tire of hearing. They outdid themselves with this one in my book.
Track Listing:
Tease Me Please Me – Keeper
Don’t Believe Her – Keeper(1/2 Point)
To Be With You In Heaven – Keeper
Wind of Change – Keeper
Restless Nights – Keeper(1/2 Point)
Lust or Love – Keeper
Kicks After Six – Keeper
Hit Between the Eyes – Keeper
Money And Fame – Delete
Crazy World – Keeper
Send Me An Angel – Keeper
The Track Score is 9 out of 11 Tracks or 82%. I like this one and the fact they didn’t over produce this one like ‘Savage Amusement’. The sleazy songs were so much fun and sometimes you just need down & dirty. The more sophisticated tracks like “Winds of Change”, “Crazy World” and “Send Me An Angel” also were a nice dichotomy to the album. You got some slick and some sick…that is what you need sometimes. It was good to bring Keith Olsen in to produce as the guys needed to shake things up a bit. My Overall Score is a 4.0 out of 5.0 Stars as this is their last great album for some time to come…at least in my book.
NEXT UP: CRAZY WORLD – 4 TRACKS FROM CRAZY WORLD – PROMO VINYL (1990)
For My Sunday Song #305, we are discussing the opening track “Eat the Rich” off the 1993 Aerosmith album ‘Get a Grip’. “Eat the Rich” was the second single released on April 17, 1993. The song was written by Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and the great Jim Vallance who has written for so many, most notably Bryan Adams. I don’t think the song did much as a single, but the album did go on to sell well over 9,000,000 copies worldwide.
The song was written as a dig against wealthy people who look down upon others with a disdain as if their wealth makes them so much better than everyone else. Funny thing is Aerosmith was quite wealthy at this time, but they didn’t come from money. They had very poor and humble beginnings as they were practically homeless at times. They knew where their money came from and were grateful.
The album kicks off with an “Intro” that should’ve been merged with the first track “Eat the Rich”. The “Intro” sees Steven Tyler rapping some rhymes along a some cool drumming. And then ends with a riff of “Walk This Way” before going straight in to “Eat the Rich” with some killer tribal drumming by Kramer with a ton of people doing log drumming. There were 6 people credited as log drummers…insane. The song is full of witty lyrics and Tyler just rips through them with ease. It is catchy as hell and the bass groove on this one is sensational along with Perry who slays it on the riffs and the solo. It is a brilliant opening track that gets the juices flowing. So take that Grey Poupon and shove it up your ass. Oh yeah, the song ends with a massive burp. Only fitting!
After the massive success of their previous album, ‘Pump’, the band took a little break in 1992. They started recording the next album in January & February, but stopped for some rest and didn’t return until September of that year to finish up the album. The music environment had significantly changed since 1989’s ‘Pump’ so I believe everyone was curious as to what they would do. And it turns out, they would keep doing what they do best and didn’t change a thing. When most bands faded away around this time, Aerosmith ended up flourishing even more. How did they do it?
First thing was they brought back Bruce Fairbairn as their producer as he has been creating gold with everything they had done…or should I say Platinum since the last album went 7 x’s Platinum. Second, they brought in some friends to help out such as Don Henley and Lenny Kravitz. Third, the record company wanted them to continue using outside writers to help so back was Desmond Child, Jim Vallance, Jack Blades, Tommy Shaw, Richard Supa, Mark Hudson and Taylor Rhodes. Damn, that is a lot of help!!
The line-up was still unchanged with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. The Boston Boys we ready to take on the world again. The album was released on April 23, 1993 and became the band’s first album to debut at #1 on the Charts. They released 7 singles on the album and selling over 7 million copies again in the U.S. It was the band’s third straight album of over 5 million in sales. If that wasn’t enough, the album won two Grammy’s for Best Rock Vocal Performance for a Duo or Group in both 1993 and 1994. The band was on fire still and the fans were eating it up.
We are to the final single that I have for the ‘Permanent Vacation’ album and I am sure you will be happy to get back to the normal reviews as it has been 4 weeks of this album. The final single if for the song “Rag Doll”. The song was written by Joe Perry, Steven Tyler and Jim Vallance (Bryan Adams) as well as Holly Knight (Kiss). Tyler was furious that Holly got a writing credit because he says all she contributed to the song was changing the name from “Rag Time” to “Rag Doll”. One word got her a writing credit and it didn’t sit well.
“Rag Doll” went to #17 on the Top 40 Chart which continued to push the album to multi-platinum status…5 X’s platinum. The single was released on May 3, 1988 and my version is the standard U.S. version. The B-Side is “St. John” and both songs are the basic, standard LP version. No new mixes here.
We have a little break here from the album reviews in the Aerosmith Collection Series. As it turns out, I have 4 singles from ‘Permanent Vacation’ and we are going to go through those over the next few weeks. First up is the second single from the album “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” and this one is a two for the price of one treat as I have both a 7″ Single and a 12″ Maxi-Single of the song. Since I don’t want to completely bore you to tears with two separate posts on the same song, I decided to them both together in one giant treat.
7″ Promo Single:
First up we will tackle the 7″ Single. My version is the the Promo Copy of the song so the A-Side and B-Side are the same song. Since this is 1987, both versions are the stereo version and not one of them being a Mono like in the earlier years. The song was released as a single on September 22, 1987 and did really well for the band. It brought them back to the mainstream after years of filling up the discount rack. The song went to #12 on the Billboard Top 40 and was a regular on MTV.
The song started out as a song called “Cruisin’ for a Lady”, but thanks to help from co-write Desmond Child, we got “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)”. The song is about a man that goes in to a strip club and falls for one of the dancers. They go back stage and she whips out her gun and is actually a man. The song inspiration actually came from the band seeing this blonde beauty at the far end of a bar and it turning out to be Vince Neil from Motley Crue.
Another 12″ Single I picked up from Noble Records on that big Metal Collection he was selling was from Aldo Nova. You remember Aldo from his early 80’s song “Fantasy”. This was a Promotional 12″ Single for his fourth album ‘Blood on the Bricks’ that came out in 1991. It was for the first single, the title track “Blood on the Bricks”.
This particular single was the “Metal Radio Exclusive” red vinyl 12″ (in gatefold clear PVC sleeve with color insert) with three songs from the “Blood On The Bricks” album. It was promotional only and not for sale at the time..but now it is fair game because Noble had it for sale almost 30 years later. This was the album and Tour that I saw and got to meet Mr. Aldo Nova and his band and get autographs. They were all super nice.
The cool thing about this album for Aldo Nova is that it was produced and all of the songs were co-written with some guy named Jon Bon Jovi. You see, Jon and Aldo go way back as Aldo worked with Jon on his debut album that became the debut Bon Jovi album before Richie and the gang were a full band. Jon was returning the favor in what they hoped would be Aldo’s big comeback album…which didn’t really work out. Jon had signed Aldo to his Jambco record label.
The A-Side of this LP was “Blood on the Bricks” which was a straight-up rocker. It was uptempo with a hard driving, very catchy chorus. Even though Jon put his stamp on these songs, the guitar still sounds like Aldo’s tone and feel so he didn’t completely strip away that thank goodness. The song was all street tough and had that Jon Bon Jovi storytelling vibe. Like most of the album, it is a little overproduced, but hey, it still isn’t half bad.
The B-Side of this disc had 2 songs. First up was “Young Love” which was written by Aldo and Jon but also had the help of Bryan Adams writing partner Jim Vallance. This song was a little cheesy that was leaning between power ballad and pop song and seemed to be a leftover track that wasn’t good enough for a Bon Jovi album.
The last track is called “Modern World” which was soley written by Aldo and Jon. This is a tough, street fighting type song. It has a lot of edge and balls and has a really cool riff and groove to it with a whole tribal flair. You even get a shout out to Donald Trump, but this was way before his time as president. This was around the time he cheated on his then wife with Marla Maples. There are a lot of cultural references from the time which actually dates the song a little…okay a lot. But Aldo’s playing is sensational and he lays down a great solo in only the way Aldo can.
And there you have it. The 12″ Promotional Single for “Blood on the Bricks” by Aldo Nova. It is a nice piece to add to my ever growing Aldo Nova collection. I hope you enjoyed it and thanks for stopping by.
I haven’t done one of these in awhile where I highlight a 45 Single in my collection so I went through and pulled out “What About Love” from the band Heart. The song is from what is considered their comeback album ‘Heart’ that was released in 1985 and the single was the first off the album and released on June 1, 1985.
The song is a cover song actually and was originally performed by the band Toronto. It was written by Brian Allen. Sheron Alton and Jim Vallance. You know Jim as he is the writing partner for some guy named Bryan Adams. Brian & Sheron were in Toronto, however, Jim wasn’t although he did play drums on the song. Enough about them, let’s get to Heart.
2 Loud 2 Old Music 