Band:	Scorpions
Album:	World Wide Live
Style:	Hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	1985
A review by:	Pierre Tombale

01. Countdown
02. Coming Home
03. Blackout
04. Bad Boys Running Wild
05. Loving You Sunday Morning
06. Make It Real
07. Big City Nights
08. Coast To Coast
09. Holiday
10. Still Loving You
11. Rock You Like A Hurricane
12. Can't Live Without You
13. Another Piece of Meat [2001 remaster bonus]
14. Dynamite
15. The Zoo
16. No One Like You

2001 remaster bonus tracks:
17. Can't Get Enough (Part One)
18. Six String Sting
19. Can't Get Enough (Part Two)

This 1985 release should make it into the hall of fame of classic hard rock / metal live productions. Quality has never been a problem to the Scorpions that first paved their way to fame and success far west and far east from home. Great audiences they had in the USA and Japan, without real recognition in their native Germany, only for their ballads. Luckily 'World Wide Live' is not stacked with loads of them, but highlights out of the hard rocking / soft metal era until the mid eighties.

Trademarks such as high quality performances technically well versed musicians and a lead singer with quite a unique voice (though a bit too nosy, if you know what I'm saying) can make it through the world with success even without a homebase of fans, the outcome is a live album that can stand the test of time almost twenty years later even without remastering. Great material, welded together out of catchy riffs and lyrics that get stuck in your head plus the atmosphere of desperately seeking ?(fill in characteristics). Over 67 minutes of hits 80's music for quite a good time, a look to the past of a band that released their first album in 1972 and that has changed theirways through a variety of styles, such as the psychedelic kind of hardrock of the early 70's and the hard rock / metal of the late 70's early 80's, tons of releases focusing on ballads and all the romantic stuff. This live record is like an overview on what has been done until then (leave out the psychedelic kind) and to where they would pave the road to for the future. It's the conflict between the two types of fans (an example are my parents and me) those who like the ballads and soft stuff and those who like the rock show, that is reflected. All this is a part of the record. Songs like 'Holiday' and 'Still Loving You' are for the first of the mentioned types and songs like 'Rock You Like A Hurricane', 'The Zoo' and 'Coming Home' are for the second type of fans, classic hard rock fans of very melodic and catchy hymns and tunes. 'World Wide Live' epitomizes the climax in the era of stadium rock. The band from Hannover that has been breaking the ground ever since it was founded.
You can of course criticize that Klaus Meine (the vocalist) has a german accent in his singing, but that is true for so many german vocalists, how can you care? Maybe you won't like his voice, but still you can't deny that the musicians play at their best. Since the Scorpions were among the first german hard rock bands to sing in english you can't deny the success, the legend that lives on in this sound. 'World Wide Live' drives you back to some good old times.
Of course this album is not free from flaws. Songs I don't like so much are: 'Loving You Sunday Morning', which is lame at times, 'Holiday' and 'Can't Live Without You'. Some songs that are good in general tend to be too repetitive at times. Few songs could have been replaced by better ones that are featured on the Tokyo Tapes live album, for example 'Top Of The Bill' or Pictured Life'. Still this one deserves an 8.