Clocking in at 79 minutes and 55 seconds,
the Scorpions
have yet another greatest-hits compilation, this 2002 release on
Hip-O
entitled
Bad for Good: The Very Best of the Scorpions
. Two brand-new recordings can be found closing out the disc on tracks 17 and 18, produced again by
Dieter Dierks
, who is represented on 11 of the dozen-and-a-half titles here. Both songs,
"Cause I Love You"
and
"Bad for Good,"
are in-the-pocket
Scorpions
performances, the kind of thing longtime fans expect, which
wisely oblige. The six pages of
Gerri Miller
's liner notes, written in 2002, don't give too much detail on these new tracks, but the essay is a great overview of the group's career and is as essential as the 96k/24-bit mastering used on this single-disc CD. Though
Universal
had already released a 12-song
20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection: The Best of Scorpions
in 2001, and more than two and a half hours on 1997's 33-track
Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years
,
does live up to the title. Sure,
"Rock You Like a Hurricane,"
"Loving You Sunday Morning,"
"No One Like You"
all invert and pervert that wonderful
Pete Townshend
riff from
"I Can't Explain,"
but they are such wonderful and highly creative inversions which sound great alongside that
Who
gem, produced here in fine fashion by
Bruce Fairbairn
, that
rock
harder than
the Who
, polishing the grit of
AC/DC
and fusing the two sounds of those ensembles to create a very accessible and commercial formula. If you are into the group you can just hit play and repeat, for every track is a winner. The booklet contains whatever chart positions the songs may have obtained (mostly on the U.S.
album rock
charts). ~ Joe Viglione