Co-produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, Scary Monsters was recorded between February and April 1980 at the Power Station in New York City, and later Good Earth Studios in London.

Much of the same personnel from prior releases returned for the sessions, with additional guitar by Chuck Hammer and Robert Fripp, and a guest appearance by Pete Townshend.

Unlike the improvisational nature of prior releases, Bowie spent time writing the music and lyrics; several were recorded under working titles and some contained reworked elements of earlier, unreleased songs.

From 1976 to 1979, David Bowie recorded what became known as the Berlin Trilogy, which consisted of Low, "Heroes" (both 1977) and Lodger (1979), made in collaboration with the musician Brian Eno and the producer Tony Visconti.

[5] According to the NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, Hammer added multiple textural layers deploying guitar synth and Fripp brought back the same distinctive sound he lent "Heroes".

[e][12] There was a certain degree of optimism making [Scary Monsters] because I'd worked through some of my problems, I felt very positive about the future, and I think I just got down to writing a really comprehensive and well-crafted album.

[f][6][13] The lyrics for the title track, which dated back to a 1975 song called "Running Scared",[14] were written in response to a promotional campaign for Kellogg's Corn flakes cereal, which offered novelty toys of "Scary Monsters and Super Heroes".

[19] Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine considers Scary Monsters to be a culmination of Bowie's 1970s works and the record's sound to be not "far removed from the post-punk of the early '80s".

[20] Nicholas Pegg agrees, describing the record as "the triumphant culmination of Bowie's steely art-rock phase and a crucial doorway into early 1980s British pop".

[5] In a career retrospective, Consequence of Sound described Scary Monsters as "a high watermark of art pop by which Bowie's future releases are still compared.

[12] Partly taken from an older tune titled "Tired of My Life", it features lyrics read by the Japanese actress Michi Hirota, which were translated by Hisahi Miura.

Hirota delivers her performance in what is described by Buckley as a "macho, samurai voice", which was done at Bowie's insistence as a way to "break down a particular type of sexist attitude about women".

[26][27] For the title track, the rhythm section took inspiration from Joy Division; Davis's drum performance has been compared to Stephen Morris's on "She's Lost Control" (1979).

[28][12] Described by Perone as punk rock,[24] the music is heavily distorted, featuring Fripp's ferocious guitar-playing, Davis's pounding drums, and David Bowie's treated Cockney accent.

[17] "Teenage Wildlife", the longest track on the album, is structurally similar to "'Heroes'" but does not feature a refrain; its verses only end with the title being sung over Fripp's guitar breaks.

[12] Although it descends from the early-mid 1970s "I Am a Laser", "Scream Like a Baby" features a contemporary new wave sound with lyrics of instability and political imprisonment, comparable with themes present on The Man Who Sold the World (1970).

[16] The original LP's rear sleeve referred to four earlier albums, namely the immediately preceding Berlin Trilogy and 1973's Aladdin Sane, the latter also having been designed and photographed by Duffy.

The cover images from Low, "Heroes" and Lodger—the last showing Bowie's torso superimposed on the figure from Aladdin Sane's inside gatefold picture—were portrayed in small whitewashed frames to the left of the tracklisting.

[53] Melody Maker called it "an eerily impressive stride into the '80s",[56] while Billboard correctly predicted that it "should be the most accessible and commercially successful Bowie LP in years".

[57] The Guardian's Robin Denselow agreed, describing Scary Monsters as being "full of accessible, highly original melodies that are increasingly inaccessible".

[60] Adding further praise was James Johnson of the Evening Standard, who described the "remarkable" LP as one of the year's best and "proves that Bowie can still maintain his mastery of the rock mainstream whenever he feels like it".

[63] Murray gave the album a more mixed assessment in NME, stating: "Scary Monsters is shorn of all hope, yet it represents a call to arms.

Instead, he continued his acting career by performing the lead role of Joseph "John" Merrick in the Broadway play The Elephant Man, which ran from July 1980 to January 1981, and guest starring as himself in the film Christiane F.

[68][69] Nevertheless, he continued working, recording the title song of the film Cat People (1982) with Giorgio Moroder and "Under Pressure" with the rock band Queen in July 1981.

[70][71] The following month, Bowie performed the title role in a BBC adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play Baal and recorded an accompanying soundtrack EP, both released in early 1982.

"[86] The author Peter Doggett describes Scary Monsters as one of Bowie's "most valuable statements", writing that it "annull[ed] audience expectations" and launched a "warning for those who might dare to follow in his footsteps.

"[87] Reviewing the album's remaster for the 2017 box set A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982), Chris Gerard of PopMatters highlighted Bowie's vocal performance on the record as among his best, further complimenting the songs' arrangements and harmonies as "jaw-droppingly brilliant as anything you'll find in the realm of rock 'n' roll.

Leas concluded: "[Scary Monsters] was the album that best-captured everything Bowie was about — and it will always be the conduit through which everything travelled, all of his old selves folded in and carried forward through the rest of his life.

[5] Although Bowie would achieve worldwide mega-stardom and commercial success in the following years, in particular with Let's Dance, many commentators consider Scary Monsters to be "his last great album"[20][89] and the "benchmark" for each new release.

Pegg writes that retrospectively, Scary Monsters sounds "as fresh and dynamic as ever", and ended "Bowie's golden run of cutting-edge albums.