WARNING: THIS ARTICLE IS
F**KING LONG. BRING SUPPLIES
F**KING LONG. BRING SUPPLIES
With their niche audience somewhere between classic rockers and traditional metalheads, Hanover, Germany’s the SCORPIONS are one of the greatest bands of all time. But, because they’re typically known as a pop-metal, arena rock, and power ballad band from the 80s with hits like “No One Like You”, “Rhythm of Love”, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, and “Wind of Change”, many are surprised to learn that not only did the Scorpions release their debut album in 1972, but that they formed way back in 1965!
That means the Scorpions got together when the BEATLES were still a touring band and the same year that the ROLLING STONES made their grand American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. It also means that, when they finally became a huge international success, their members were balding middle aged men; more like a “no hair metal” band if you ask me!
And, while rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker is the only original member, thus prompting one to question if the band called the Scorpions in 1965 is really the same band calling itself the Scorpions today, at the very least, original drummer Wolfgang Dziony made it all the way to the group’s first album before taking a hike. Meanwhile singer Klaus Meine, who kinda sounds like ROBERT PLANT, but more German and less girly, has been in the band since 1969, and thus can sorta be considered an original member if you only count people who were on the albums.
Of course, in true legacy band fashion, the Scorpions also went through a bunch of bassists and drummers. They also briefly had a keyboardist and were the launching pad for the career of Rudolf Schenker’s younger brother, lead guitar virtuoso MICHAEL SCHENKER; who was replaced by Uli Jon Roth, who was replaced by Matthias Jabs, who was replaced by Michael Schenker, who was replaced by Matthias Jabs, who holds the spot for the third longest member of the Scorpions since he joined in 1978. Then the 90s came, and the Scorpions attempted to adapt to various trends before realizing in 2010 that they’re just a dumb, fun, unpretentious rock ‘n’ roll band that has no desire to be taken seriously by critics.
But one thing that really bugs me about the Scorpions is that, while there is plenty of photographic evidence of the band in their early incubation phase from before the first album, back when they had mop-tops, wore suits, and traveled to gigs in their little hippie van, not a single bit of music from this apocryphal, mystery-shrouded era has ever surfaced! How is that possible?
According to the group’s biography, the Scorpions were a typical 60s rock ‘n’ roll band, which makes sense, since loud, heavy hard rock played on Flying-V guitars with lots of distortion hadn’t been invented yet. But are we to believe that the Scorpions didn’t record a single 45, demo tape, or live gig in their first seven years of existence? Did they have original songs, or did they do a lot of covers? Was there an early version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” called “My Girl Is Like a Hurricane” with lyrics that go, “my girl is lovely, and she’s so swell/so I give her loving and treat her well/she’s so grand/my girl is like a hurricane?”
The Scorpions probably looked like this other band of a roughly similar name.
Even if the Scorpions didn’t officially release anything in their first seven years of existence, I figure some kind of bootleg recording from this era might have found the light of day; but, nothing! I found two OTHER bands from the 60s called the Scorpions, who both released several singles, but not a darn thing from the German rock band I’m about to discuss!
So, until the Scorpions release any of their recordings from 1965 to 1972, assuming any exist, like most chumps, I’ll just have to start from the first album.
LONESOME CROW (1972)
The average Scorpions fan who went back far enough to check out the group’s first album might not think much when seeing the name Conny Plank credited as the producer. But anyone familiar with Plank’s pioneering work in synthesizer music and the whole German “krautrock” scene might be shocked and puzzled to see his name attached to anything involving that knucklehead “no hair metal” band from the 80s.
And, yet, there he is, the same guy who produced albums by “sophisticated” and “artistic” sound-experimentalists like CUSTER, NEU!, and even KRAFTWERK twirling the knobs for the first album by that very same band that went on to international stardom with “Rock You Like a Hurricane” twelve years later. Not to mention that the Scorpions were initially signed to the same tiny Brain label as many of these “hip”, “smart”, and, well, “brainy” German bands that Conny Plank produced and/or even played with.
Of course, the Scorpions of 1972 were not exactly the Scorpions of 1984, let alone 1974. Lead singer Klaus Meine and rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker are joined by Lothar Heimberg on bass, Wolfgang Dziony on drums, and Rudolf Schenker’s 17-year-old brother and guitar wunderkind Michael Schenker, and, as one might expect, Lonesome Crow sounds little like what the Scorpions would become famous for. Though, if they had broken up immediately after Lonesome Crow, they’d still have left behind one damn fine album of psychedelic heavy prog that’s not just some curiosity from a bygone era, but is also pretty enjoyable and entertaining.
The album’s appropriately titled opening cut “I’m Going Mad” sets the tone and perfectly evokes the feeling of doing a bunch of acid, wandering around in a desert, and spouting off a bunch of philosophical nonsense to yourself that seems to make sense at the time. It’s got a bouncy, hip-shaking, hypnotic groove, Schenker’s noodly guitar soloing, Klaus Meine speak-singing gibberish like “The sun is drying up my brain/the smile and installations are my pain”, and “spooky” “ah-ah-ah” backing vocals. It could easily be the theme for a late 60s or early 70s psychedelic student film.
Oh, wait, there actually was a psychedelic promo film made for “I’m Going Mad.” Well, then!
But then, after that, Lonesome Crow basically sounds like BLACK SABBATH without the heavy, slow, doom-y riffs and with lots of spacey effects and more “ah-ah-ah” backing vocals; almost as if the Scorpions heard the first two Sabbath albums but were only interested in parts like the tail-end of “War Pigs” or the intro to “Fairies Wear Boots”; proving that, early on, Sabbath was as much of a prog band as they were a metal band.
Heck, the second track, “It All Depends”, where Klaus Meine complains about how his girlfriend spends his money and drinks all his beer, sounds like they wrote a whole song around the Sabbath instrumental “Rat Salad”, adding vocals, James Bond surf/spy licks, and some really neat tribal percussion. While “Action” opens with almost the exact same swinging jazz intro as “Wicked World”, but instead of following it with heavy doom riffs, concatenates it with the swinging jazz middle section of “Electric Funeral”, and ends up sounding like music you’d set to a chase scene in an Hollywood crime picture.
And, though Michael Schenker would earn accolades for being a shredding virtuoso in UFO and the MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, on Lonesome Crow, he just seems to be copying Tony Iommi; not that that’s a bad thing or anything. In fact, if you’re smoking pot at a party, and Lonesome Crow comes on the stereo, you might mistake the interplay between Schenker, Heimberg, and Dziony for the very Iommi, Butler, and Ward they seem to be mimicking. And since there are so few actual RIFFS on the album, one wonders what the older Schenker actually even does on the album; barring strumming a few chords.
You also have the lighter “Leave Me”, which is sprinkled with wishy-wooshy TANGERINE-DREAM-style space noises, and there’s “In Search of the Peace of Mind”, which has some pretty, serene, acoustic guitar vibes in the first half before being rudely interrupted by the foreboding second half. And, last and longest is the album’s thirteen-and-a-half minute long title cut, which has a bunch of parts that do all the same Sabbath-style jamming and wishy-wooshy space noises as everywhere else on the album, but, lifts the slow part from the Deep Purple song “Fools”!
Then 3/5 of the Scorpions quit.
FLY TO THE RAINBOW (1974)
The second Scorpions album is considered the start of the relatively short but highly loved Uli Jon Roth era in the Scorpions’ career, when they were still considered this hip, obscure band from overseas that only a handful of hardcore fans in the States were aware of. Kinda like Judas Priest in their early days.
Michael Schenker, Lothar Heimberg, and Wolfgang Dziony have been replaced by Ulrich Jon Roth, Francis Buchholz, and Jürgen Rosenthal on lead guitar, bass, and drums respectively, but don’t get used to Jürgen, since he’d be gone right after Fly to the Rainbow. DO get used to Ulrich Jon Roth and Francis Buchholz, since they’d stick around for a while, and effectively, the Scorpions both were and weren’t starting over. While, obviously, singer Klaus Meine and rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker remain intact, the Scorpions don’t want to be a hippie-trippy, spaced out, psychedelic heavy prog band that copies Black Sabbath and DEEP PURPLE anymore; they just want to ROCK.
At least that’s the impression you’re given from the opener, “Speedy’s Coming.” It’s this AWESOME glammy hard rock tune that opens with a descending pick slide across the fret board, and then goes right into Uli Jon Roth soloing over a basic, three-chord riff. I have no idea what the song is about. Who’s “speedy”, and where is he “coming”? But the song is so fun and energetic and basically announces to the world that the Scorpions are just a ROCK ‘N’ ROLL BAND, full stop. I especially love the second verse that goes, “Do you like AHH-lees KOO-pah/do you like Ring-OO STAH/do you like David BOO-WEE and friends/and the Royal AHHLBERT HAAHHHHH.” I’m guessing it’s just a celebration of rock stars and groupies and fandom and putting up posters of your favorite bands on your wall and going to concerts and meeting stars, etc. KISS could only dream of writing something this great.
But then “They Need a Million” comes on with its pretty acoustic Spanish guitar intro that’s followed by hard-edged bullfighting music set to a technically complicated drum beat and lyrics bitching about rich people (as if the Scorpions wouldn’t want to be rich themselves!), and you realize that the Scorpions haven’t entirely shed the prog from their sound. Also, what is with this new-found social commentary? Seriously! Check out these lyrics to “This Is My Song”:
"I can't believe what the people say
There's only hate everywhere
So many people go different ways
So many things don't you care
They see nobody, they see themselves
But a stage like in a show
They see the hell, and they need your help
They need your help, they need love, love"
Geez, I’ll take psychedelic gibberish over that ANY day!
But let’s get this straight. The psychedelic and spacey effects are pretty much gone, and Fly to the Rainbow sounds more like a normal hard rock album, with two loud, nicely distorted, prominent guitars playing off each other and a much higher focus on traditional hooks and melodies. It’s just that there are still only seven songs on Fly to the Rainbow, and they’re pretty long with progressive arrangements and even a few keyboard parts from auxiliary musician Achim Kirschning; there’s even a little spacey part in the album-closing title track. But, thankfully, the songs mostly rock, the drumming is as aggressive as it is complicated, and the dual guitar arrangements kinda remind me of Love It to Death and Killer-era ALICE COOPER.
This can’t necessarily be said for “Fly People Fly” and “Far Way”, which are ballads, albeit good ones and another indication of the Scorpions’ future direction. Also, don’t confuse “Fly People Fly” with “Fly to the Rainbow”, even though it uses the name of the album in the lyrics. There are also quite a bit more acoustic guitars on Fly to the Rainbow than on Lonesome Crow, almost as if new guitarist Uli Jon Roth is saying, “Hey, unlike that other guy, I can play pretty flamenco guitar JUST as well as I can shred!”
But what’s really strange is that both Uli Jon Roth and Rudolf Schenker now take turns singing on a couple tunes as well. It’s actually kinda jarring when you hear that easily recognizable voice of Klaus Meine singing on the acoustic intro to “They Need a Million”, and then the song gets all loud ‘n’ rockin’, and this other voice with a lower register and that isn’t as good comes on to sing the rest of it. And then both Uli Jon Roth AND Rudolf Schenker take turns singing on “Drifting Sun”, relegating Klaus Meine to the position of backup singer! I understand new guitarist Uli Jon Roth wanting to sing on a couple tunes, since he’s the new guy, but if Rudolf Schenker is gonna sing, why did he hire an ACTUAL singer in the first place?
Thankfully, going forward, Rudolf Schenker would learn to keep his mouth shut. The same can’t be said for Uli Jon Roth...
IN TRANCE (1975)
THERE’S A NIPPLE ON THE COVER!!! Except, it’s not on the American version of In Trance, since Americans weren’t ready yet to see a nipple peeking out of a woman’s blouse as she straddles a guitar. Yep, while Germans were all Weimar-ing it up with nipples on their album covers, Americans were hanging out in churches, sending people to prison, and ostracizing their friends and family members from polite society for even thinking of committing such transgressions against decency. And I know what you’re thinking; why not just cover the offending nipple with a sticker? Ahh, that just makes it worse, because then mommy and daddy would buy the album for little Jimmy, thinking it’s safe and family friendly, only for him to remove the plastic wrapping and see the offending nipple underneath!
With a new drummer, who would last a whopping two albums, lead singer Klaus Meine, lead guitarist and occasional lead singer Uli Jon Roth, rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Rudy Lenners more or less found their sound… on three songs. If the Scorpions hang their hat on melodic hard rock, heavy metal, and hard rock that leans towards heavy metal, then In Trance would ostensibly be where the Scorpions begin to sound like what people generally think of what the Scorpions sound like…. on three songs.
Those would be the wicked-sick proto-IRON MAIDEN melodic prog-metal with Uli Jon Roth singing opening cut, “Dark Lady”, the mid-tempo Kiss/UFO angry chord rocker about a has-been pop star “Top of the Bill”, and the energetic, middle-upper tempo with lotsa tom-tom, guitar scratching, and whammy bar noises, “Robot Man.” And, if In Trance was a three-song EP, it would be one helluva great three-song EP of ass kickin’, face melting, hard but melodic, dual-guitar hard rock that leans towards heavy metal or heavy metal proper with excellent riffs, hooks, melodies, and even neo-classical guitar solos, that sounds like it should have come out five years later and could be retconned into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal right alongside your JUDAS PRIEST, SAXON, and TYGERS OF PAN TANG, even though the Scorpions are German.
But In Trance is not a three-song EP. It’s a full length studio album that has ten songs on it, clocks in at 38 minutes long, and has the same “getting our feet wet” vibe as Phenomenon by UFO, which had come out the previous year. Like Phenomenon, In Trance starts on a high energy note and then has two of its other hardest, heaviest, and most memorable songs spaced out on the album amidst way too many ballads, instrumentals, and other, shall we say, “musical diversions” that confuse the listener and give the impression that the group is still not quite sure what they want to sound like.
Case in point, there’s the Uli-Jon-Roth-sung “Sun in My Hand”, which has a really great solo/intro before turning into a fairly standard blues-rock song, the catchy pop rock song with really nice vocal hooks “Longing for Fire”, a soft, sleepy time instrumental piece appropriately called “Night Lights” that closes the album, and no less than FOUR ballads, two of which are placed one after the other. Not that the guitar solo at the start of “Life’s Like a River” isn’t gorgeous, or that the “my-girlfriend-left-me-and-I’m-in-a-trance” with lots of “ah-ah-ah”s ballad “In Trance” is a bad song; it’s just that, when you cram so many ballads between the rockin’ tunes, it tends to slow up the pace of the album and make you forget you’re in fact listening to a hard rock/heavy metal band in the first damn place!
Who told the Scorpions to put so many ballads on one album? ZEPPELIN only needed ONE “Stairway to Heaven”! AEROSMITH only needed ONE “Dream On”! BLUE ÖYSTER CULT only needed ONE “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”! NAZARETH only needed ONE “Love Hurts”! Surely they couldn’t have been writing all these ballads for their audience of male, denim jacket wearing rockers!
After all, they put a nipple on the cover!
VIRGIN KILLER (1976)
The fourth Scorpions album has some significance in my life, because I first heard its title in this really bad 90s comedy called The Stoned Age that I used to watch when I was a kid. It’s basically a low brow Dazed and Confused rip-off, where these two long-haired stoners drive around in a station wagon listening to 70s rock and trying to get laid. And one thing they kept claiming was that this hot, slutty blonde chick looks like the girl on the cover of the Virgin Killer album. At the time, I had no idea what this Virgin Killer album looked like or that it was even a Scorpions album. When I eventually found out, I was a bit confused, since the original cover features a photo of a fully nude prepubescent girl with cracked glass right at her pubic region. Like, why are these guys comparing an adult woman with this little girl? The only conclusion I can draw is that it was an honest mistake on the part of the movie’s writer, and that he was actually referring to the In Trance cover with the blonde woman straddling the guitar. That would make sense. Otherwise, yikes!
Thankfully they replaced the original cover with a normal band photo, because, seriously, come on. Who would want an album with a naked prepubescent girl in their music collection? Who initially thought it was a good idea to put this image on the cover in the first place? And what kind of person would not worry about being seen at the record store holding that album and taking it up to the checkout counter? Especially during the days of vinyl with 12” x 12” record sleeves? And I read that the adult version of the little girl on the cover didn’t have a problem with this photo, which is fine, I guess, but still…
Anyway, for the first time in their career, the Scorpions have released two albums in a row with the same exact lineup. Virgin Killer is also a much better paced record than its predecessor. And the first half is a nonstop barrage of hard rock, only broken up by the lovely ballad “In Your Park.” The album leads off with its best track; the cowbell driven “Pictured Life”, which showcases some of Uli Jon Roth’s strongest leads and has Klaus Meine pronouncing “intoxication” as “EEN-TOXY-KAY-SHAHN.” While “Catch Your Train” and “Backstage Queen” straddle that proverbial line between hard rock and heavy metal, having the bluesy, cock rock swagger of Aerosmith crossed with the heaviness of 70s Judas Priest.
But, something that might surprise some is that, in spite of the album’s rather tasteless original cover, its title track is not the lurid and perverse thing that one might expect it to be. I know it’s easy to think that a song called “Virgin Killer” is some tacky braggadocio about deflowering underage girls or maybe about killing young virgins in ritual Satanic sacrifices, but it’s actually about how the world and the society you live in steals your innocence and “kills” your “virginity”! Don’t’ believe me? Check out these lyrics:
Death on the screen,
Sadistic magazines, watch out
Suicides ev'ryday,
Political ways, get it
Well, you can't find new ways
But he's a virgin killer
No, no, no, can't you see?
No, no, no, can't you see?
You're a demon's, you're a demon's,
You're a demon's desire!
Bob Dylan, eat your heart out!
Also there’s the dark ‘n’ doom-y “Crying Days”, which opens with the great line “force yourself to use your brain”, and another lovely ballad at the end of the album called “Yellow Raven.”
But the band, or specifically, Uli Jon Roth, throws a couple curve balls at the listener in the form of a couple funky songs in the second half that might cause the listener to say, “What the hell is this?” One is “Hell-Cat”, complete with bottleneck slides and “zany”, SWEET-style vocal delivery, and the other is “Polar Nights”, which makes ample use of porno movie wicky-wicky guitar effects. Curiously both of these songs are sung by Roth, and both are still pretty good, but neither sounds like it really belongs on a Scorpions album.
Then again, it was the 70s, and nobody was yet quite sure what belongs on a Scorpions album.
That is, except for a photo of a prepubescent naked girl, which doesn’t belong on ANY album.
TAKEN BY FORCE (1977)
Wouldn’t it be awesome if Taken by Force was actually called Taken by the Force, and it was a tie-in with Star Wars, which also came out in 1977?
Of course it wouldn’t, because Star Wars sucks. Or, as Freddie Mercury sang, “Jaws was never my scene, and I don’t like Star Wars.”
And we wouldn’t want to demean the fifth and, as yet, best and heaviest Scorpions album by tying it in with that Star Wars dreck, would we? But, not only is Taken by Force the best and heaviest Scorpions album up to this point; it also introduces a whole new musical genre into the world! Don’t believe me? Check out these lyrics to the first song!
We’d like to introduce tonight
The kings of a brand new style
They are hungry to play
We’d like to introduce tonight
The new heavy steam rock style
Quite different and strange
I’m assuming by “they” they’re talking about themselves and not, say, KROKUS or RIOT, but curiously this “steam rock” has a glaringly obvious similarity to ANOTHER style of music called heavy metal. I wonder if they consider “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man”, with its head-banging beat, chugga-chugga riffs, and crossdresser lyrics written by new drummer Herman Rarebell, to also be “steam rock.” Or, for that matter, the album’s best track, Uli Jon Roth’s crushing centerpiece of ass heavy grooves, dark riffing, and, I guess, the only fantasy lyrics in the Scorpions’ entire discography, “The Sails of Charon.”
But certainly not the acoustic/electric, Heart-style gallop of “The Riot of Your Times.” That would be “xrock”, or, as the lyrics say, “You’ll be the x-rock king, the new electric face/A new generation’s mind/The riot of your time.” I guess Taken by Force introduced TWO new genres into the world!
“Steam rock” and “xrock” aside, the Scorpions have a new drummer named Herman Rarebell. One might be like, yeah, so what? So, he’s the next guy in line to join the Scorpions. He might be a tight, powerful drummer, but drummers are a dime a dozen, and why does it matter as long as he can keep a beat and do a few fills. Well, DON’T say that, because Rarebell would be that rarest of bells that would stick around for a while, AND as ALSO implied earlier, he would write many of the band’s lyrics going forward; typically focusing on naughtier and spicier topics.
In addition to being the first album with new drummer Herman Rarebell, Taken by Force is also the final studio album with lead guitarist Uli Jon Roth, since, apparently, he didn’t feel his style really jived with what the Scorpions were doing anymore. This, of course, is a huge shame, since he wrote the “The Sails of Charon”, along with the groupie bashing, funky-bluesy rocker “I’ve Got to Be Free” and the oddly spiritual and uplifting bongo-drum driven “Your Light”, so I don’t know what his problem is.
Also, thankfully, unlike on the previous three albums, Roth doesn’t sing any of the songs, allowing Klaus Meine to do his job properly, because the Scorpions only need one voice, and that’s the booming, loud, and powerful, yet gorgeous and melodic-as-all-hell voice of Klaus Meine. Also, thankfully, there’s only ONE ballad on the entire album; that would be – hate to say this, because I wanna love every old Scorpions song – the pretty dull final track “Born to Touch Your Feelings”, not helped one bit by all the broads talking in different languages at the end of the song.
Speaking of broads and ballads, “We’ll Burn the Sky”, which has some “transcendent” hippie-ish lyrics curtesy of Jimi Hendrix’s last girlfriend, starts off all quiet and soft like a ballad, and then gets all rockin’ and isn’t a ballad anymore. Also, Klaus Meine likes to say “ah-ah-ah” a lot. I like it. It works.
But why are there only eight songs on the album? That’s one less than the album before! And one less than the album before that one!
Lazy ass Germans.
Like Strangers in the Night by UFO, Tokyo Tapes is the Scorpions’ grand finale to an era mainly defined by their lead guitarist, causing some hardcore fans to claim that anything the group released after it sucks. And, while I don’t agree with this assessment in either case, one big difference is that, while the Michael Schenker-era for UFO would be when UFO was at their most popular, the Uli Jon Roth-era for the Scorpions is right before they started selling gazillions of records and became international rock stars. This might be why Tokyo Tapes isn’t revered as highly as Strangers in the Night.
Or it might be because Strangers in the Night isn’t weighed down by two pointless 1950s rock ‘n’ roll covers. One of which happens to be the Elvis version of “Hound Dog”, where the lyrics were changed to “you never caught no rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine”, rather than the original Big Mama Thornton version that goes “you can wag your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more”, which means that the Scorpions didn’t learn anything from World War II and are thus racist.
But certainly not the acoustic/electric, Heart-style gallop of “The Riot of Your Times.” That would be “xrock”, or, as the lyrics say, “You’ll be the x-rock king, the new electric face/A new generation’s mind/The riot of your time.” I guess Taken by Force introduced TWO new genres into the world!
“Steam rock” and “xrock” aside, the Scorpions have a new drummer named Herman Rarebell. One might be like, yeah, so what? So, he’s the next guy in line to join the Scorpions. He might be a tight, powerful drummer, but drummers are a dime a dozen, and why does it matter as long as he can keep a beat and do a few fills. Well, DON’T say that, because Rarebell would be that rarest of bells that would stick around for a while, AND as ALSO implied earlier, he would write many of the band’s lyrics going forward; typically focusing on naughtier and spicier topics.
In addition to being the first album with new drummer Herman Rarebell, Taken by Force is also the final studio album with lead guitarist Uli Jon Roth, since, apparently, he didn’t feel his style really jived with what the Scorpions were doing anymore. This, of course, is a huge shame, since he wrote the “The Sails of Charon”, along with the groupie bashing, funky-bluesy rocker “I’ve Got to Be Free” and the oddly spiritual and uplifting bongo-drum driven “Your Light”, so I don’t know what his problem is.
Also, thankfully, unlike on the previous three albums, Roth doesn’t sing any of the songs, allowing Klaus Meine to do his job properly, because the Scorpions only need one voice, and that’s the booming, loud, and powerful, yet gorgeous and melodic-as-all-hell voice of Klaus Meine. Also, thankfully, there’s only ONE ballad on the entire album; that would be – hate to say this, because I wanna love every old Scorpions song – the pretty dull final track “Born to Touch Your Feelings”, not helped one bit by all the broads talking in different languages at the end of the song.
Speaking of broads and ballads, “We’ll Burn the Sky”, which has some “transcendent” hippie-ish lyrics curtesy of Jimi Hendrix’s last girlfriend, starts off all quiet and soft like a ballad, and then gets all rockin’ and isn’t a ballad anymore. Also, Klaus Meine likes to say “ah-ah-ah” a lot. I like it. It works.
But why are there only eight songs on the album? That’s one less than the album before! And one less than the album before that one!
Lazy ass Germans.
TOKYO TAPES (1978)
Like Strangers in the Night by UFO, Tokyo Tapes is the Scorpions’ grand finale to an era mainly defined by their lead guitarist, causing some hardcore fans to claim that anything the group released after it sucks. And, while I don’t agree with this assessment in either case, one big difference is that, while the Michael Schenker-era for UFO would be when UFO was at their most popular, the Uli Jon Roth-era for the Scorpions is right before they started selling gazillions of records and became international rock stars. This might be why Tokyo Tapes isn’t revered as highly as Strangers in the Night.
Or it might be because Strangers in the Night isn’t weighed down by two pointless 1950s rock ‘n’ roll covers. One of which happens to be the Elvis version of “Hound Dog”, where the lyrics were changed to “you never caught no rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine”, rather than the original Big Mama Thornton version that goes “you can wag your tail, but I ain’t gonna feed you no more”, which means that the Scorpions didn’t learn anything from World War II and are thus racist.
Ha-ha-ho, nah, just kidding; well not about the two pointless 1950s covers, which could have been replaced by actual Scorpions songs like “The Sails of Charon” and “The Riot of Your Time”, neither of which is performed on Tokyo Tapes, which totally blows, since those are like two of the best songs on Taken by Force.
But, even with a few minor complaints, Tokyo Tapes is still a whole heck of a lot of fun, and anyone who’s seen the Scorpions live after 1984 knows how they do the well-known hits with note-perfect, machine-like precision, where what you hear on the album is what you hear live. This was apparently not always the case, and some might be surprised at how improvisational the Scorpions could be; or at least seem to be.
First of all, the Scorpions didn’t have any well-known hits in 1978. They perform one song (or, rather, part of a song) from Lonesome Crow, two from Fly to the Rainbow, four from In Trance, three from Virgin Killer, three from Taken by Force, and five that weren’t on any albums. In fact, they open the concert with the awesome swinging blues metal jam “All Night Long”, which is so good, it’s a shame they didn’t recorded it for a studio album. One of the other non-album tracks is “Suspender Love”, a b-side that I don’t particularly like.
Second of all, you get all these lovely Easter eggs:
⦿ Klaus Meine talking to the Japanese crowd in a British accent
Though, seriously, why did musicians say “love” when they meant “sex”? Would the album titles Sexdrive and Sexhunter have presented that much of an obstacle to getting stocked in record stores and played on the radio in 1979? Especially when WHITESNAKE is putting an ass-naked broad straddling a giant serpent on their cover, and the Scorpions have a photo of a posh couple in the back of a limo with the man stretching bubble gum from the woman’s exposed nipple? Actually, when I saw the latter cover when I was a kid, I was really confused. Was this supposed to be titillating, or was this some sort of artistic statement that I’m too young and stupid to get? What’s even sillier is that, when you open up the album, there’s another photo of the couple, and now they have big, goofy grins on their faces, but the woman is topless and holding a picture frame housing a photo of the Scorpions. Ugh, whatever, Germans.
With new lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, the Scorpions became a leather-clad NWOBHM-adjacent 80s heavy metal band with the bright, polished but hard-edged Martin Birch-esque production that became the thing as soon as the 80s began, even though Lovedrive came out in 1979. Okay, they were wearing leather before, and they haven’t changed that much; the Scorpions had been a melodic hard rock and heavy metal band since as early as 1974, and songs like “Dark Lady”, “Robot Man”, and “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man” basically are 80s metal in the 70s; but all the progressive, pop-rock, funk, blues, and boogie-rock 70s influences that found their way onto albums like Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, and Taken by Force have been excised from the band’s sound. On the other hand, you still get the honestly lovely ballads, in this case “Always Somewhere” and “Holiday”, and plenty of Klaus Meine’s “ah-ah-ah”s, because, whether you’re dressed in bell bottoms and paisley or the shiny dead skin of a cow, there are few better ways of extracting all that “love” from your female fans than ballads; especially when the singer goes “ah-ah-ah” a bunch of times.
Of course, gotta mention that Michael Schenker played lead guitar on three of the album’s eight songs – why only eight songs? Couldn’t they have given us nine or ten?! – and it’s surreal to think how, if the younger Schenker didn’t behave so erratically and just quit the group again, he could have joined his older brother, along with Klaus Meine, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Herman Rarebell, in basking in the spotlight, raking in the cash, and playing to millions of screaming fans around the world; instead he started the Michael Schenker Group, who I get to see in tiny venues, since they never got too popular!
But, anyway, with two ballads and a reggae-rocker called “Is There Anybody There?”, which sounds like the Police gone metal but actually is pretty damn good, Lovedrive only has five actual tunes of the aforementioned NWOBHM adjacent 80s heavy metal. But, hooee, are they great! If you’re one of those “Uli or die” Scorpions fans, then you’re HELLA missing out on some killer-ass melodic metal tunes that you could easily stack up against what Priest, SAXON, Maiden, Tygers of Pan Tang, DIAMOND HEAD, ANGEL WITCH, and whoever else were doing that at the time!
And, as for you, Mr. Wolf Hoffman of one of my all-time favorite bands, who claims the Scorpions were “rock” rather than “metal”, it seems you haven't noticed how closely your band’s very own “jah-jigga-jah-jigga” galloping classic “Restless and Wild” resembles the “jah-jigga-jah-jigga”, galloping classic title track for Lovedrive!
And, all you other metal heads and rockers who think the Scorpions are some kind of commercial poser sell-out band, you need to hear the mid-tempo chugging opening cut “Loving Your Sunday Morning”, the speedy second cut “Another Piece of Meat”, “Coast to Coast,” the instrumental with some nice harmonized guitar work that sounds like a backing track the group forgot to write lyrics to, and the ass kicker with the pounding, atypical beat “Can’t Get Enough.”
Oh, and the Scorpions sing about sex, or, sorry, I mean, “love” a lot more now.
One element of the 70s that the Scorpions recycled is terrible cover art. Yes, when I think of bad ass metal cover art, the first thing that comes to mind is a photo of a man, a woman, and a dog on a beach. I know, the album is called Animal Magnetism, and a dog is an animal, and humans are animals too, but, like, what the hell else is going on here? The man is standing with his back towards us, the woman is on her knees staring up at the man, the dog is sitting next to the woman, and there’s nothing particularly suggestive going on; unless there’s something I’m not getting. My girlfriend likes the doggy, though!
With all the lineup and stylistic shenanigans over with, the Klaus Meine/Rudolf Schenker/Matthias Jabs core trio locked in place until the end of time, the Francis Buchholz/Herman Rarebell rhythm section sticking around for the next twelve years, and the world about to embrace heavy metal on a wide scale, the Scorpions had ARRIVED.
You might think, didn’t that already happen with Lovedrive? Well, kinda, but that album still felt like the dress rehearsal. Animal Magnetism is the real deal. It consists of nine songs instead of eight, and of those, only one is a ballad; the dreamy “Lady Starlight”, which utilizes a string section. Also, Animal Magnetism doesn’t have any experiments in Police-style reggae rock or instrumentals which sound as though the group simply forgot to write some lyrics.
But, with that said, Animal Magnetism is also the Scorpions’ most streamlined effort; to the point where some might be put off by the simplicity of songs like “Falling in Love” or “Only a Man”, with their blocky, three-and-four-chord riffs and basic, mid-tempo beats. While the angry break-up rocker “Hold Me Tight” is both incredibly simple and sounds a bit sluggish following the only fast song on the album, “Don’t Make No Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep).” On the other hand, my two favorite songs on Animal Magnetism, and possibly of the Scorpions’ discography, actually happen to be the two slow songs at the end. One of those is the album-closing, nearly doom-metal dying-man’s-crawl-through-the-desert with Middle Eastern guitar solos and Klaus Meine moaning on top title track.
The other is “The Zoo”, with its super-simple riff that goes “chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-dah-dah”, a big catchy chorus, and just this grimy street vibe. It sounds so grand and epic, and it’s literally just about taking your girlfriend out on a date. And, while the song is G-rated, I do wonder what this couple is doing on 42nd Street; checking out a grindhouse flick, scoring drugs, seeing a live sex show? Also what do the lines, “Hungry eyes are passing by” mean? Are they referring to homeless people or people who are just starved for kicks?
In summation, don’t expect the fastest or most technically complicated batch of songs from the Scorpions this time around. DO expect big hooks, melodic guitar solos, and a heckuva lot catchiness and replay value; especially in the opening track, “Make It Real”, which has some of Matthias Jabs’ most gorgeous lead guitar work, along with a positive, if overly sincere message about taking chances and following your dreams. Then it’s followed by a song about a girl who stuffs her bra.
But, check out these lyrics to the stomping, VAN HALEN-style groover “Twentieth Century Man”:
In the jungle of these times
There’s nothing left for them to buy
They look for God on the screen
They’ve even got dream-machines
They are mesmerized
And you thought the Scorpions couldn’t be deep or profound. You think I’m being sarcastic, don’t you.
I’m not even going to shroud this in mystery or build this up for you; Blackout is unequivocally my favorite Scorpions album. First of all, it’s another one that’s significant for me, because I first heard the song “Blackout” at a young, impressionable age on my brother’s K-Tel Metal Force sampler cassette, which is also where I first heard ACCEPT, MEGADETH, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, DIO, METAl CHURCH, GRIM REAPER, and even STRYPER, and it didn’t sound like that other Scorpions song that was played on classic rock radio all the time. I was like, what the hell! the Scorpions aren’t glam-metal or pop-metal or any of these other condescending, poser genre names! They’re just a metal band!
If you haven’t heard “Blackout”, which opens the album Blackout, it has this one-chord riff that goes “bap-bap-bap, bap-bap-bap” and these lyrics about blacking out from drinking too much and a chorus where Klaus Meine screams, “I don’t wanna find out/I just wanna get out/blackout/I really had a blackout.” And it’s just this crunchy as all hell, middle-upper tempo heavy metal song that totally kicks ass as hard as anything Judas Priest or Iron Maiden had out at the time.
Secondly I consider Blackout to be the Screaming for Vengeance of the Scorpions’ career. That is, it’s their heaviest, most metallic, definitive release up to that time, and it’s on the precipice of the group’s big breakthrough; from when they went from being a cult metal band with a growing fan base to ultra-mega, mainstream rock stars. And, believe you me; Blackout is the most metal album the Scorpions have pretty much ever released! The distortion is on crunch, the songs are on fast, and the riffs are on chug, with two straight-up SPEED METAL tunes called “Now!” and “Dynamite”, and a second track with a palm-muted proto-thrash riff called “Can’t Live Without You,” which might give you the impression it’s a ballad by virtue of its title, but is actually a crushing, fist-pumping love letter… to the fans!
It’s also a testament to the Scorpions’ talent that they could seamlessly switch from the heavier stuff to the melodic, single-ready pop-metal of “No One Like You” and “You Give Me All I Need”, and make these songs fit perfectly within the rest of nine-song, 37-minute-long album. Did Judas Priest have such versatility in the songwriting department? Personally I don’t think so. They had to hire an outside writer to do “(Take These) Chains”, while Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, and Matthias Jabs were capable of going between an aggressive and romantic vibe all by themselves!
Yep, as controversial as this may sound, if we’re talking strictly the SONGS – NOT the guitar playing, shredding ability, or “heaviness”, but just the songs – the Scorpions beat Judas Priest hands down. Sorry, not sorry. And, to be honest, if we’re talking guitar crunch and all around heaviness, I believe the Scorpions beat Priest and Maiden as well. Seriously! Listen to Blackout back to back with Screaming for Vengeance or The Number of the Beast, and tell me which is the heaviest of the three!
There’s also a happy, good-time, big-chord, heavy metal power-pop song called “Arizona.” It seems a lot of metal bands had a song or two that’s basically Cheap Trick-style power-pop with more distortion on their late 70s and early 80s albums; check out the Saxon songs “Suzie Hold On” and “Out of Control”, Accept’s “Midnight Highway”, or even the Judas Priest tune “Evening Star” for other examples.
But, what would a Scorpions album be without a ballad? In this case, it’s the okay but not superb album-closing “When the Smoke Is Going Down”, a song that I have no great desire to talk about, since it comes at the end and is basically an afterthought. There’s also the heavy, slow, plodding “China White”, which some might call Scorpions-gone-doom metal and totally rules. In fact, if you’re a modern doom metal band looking for a somewhat unusual song to cover, there you go! And, in spite of the song’s implicitly drug-themed title, it’s actually an anti-war song.
After all, how you gonna shag all those groupies if the government is sending you off to war? Then, again, by this point, the Scorpions would have been too old to enlist in the military anyway.
With metal fans moving on to heavier and more aggressive stuff in the two years since Blackout came out, and the Scorpions polishing up their sound a bit, I can see why Love at First Sting is considered by some to be the group’s big sellout album; an accusation not helped one bit by the fact that it includes their most popular song, that stupidly overplayed ode to cheap sex with the simplistic riff that kinda sounds like “Louie Louie”, just with lots of distortion. I mean, I still like “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, but I don’t ever need to hear it again.
I also find it hilarious how, as long as you don’t drop f-bombs and you use enough innuendos, you can write the dirtiest song ever and have it play at family restaurants, airports, and sporting events. Also see “You Shook Me All Night Long” for another fine example of this thinly veiled musical pornography. I’m not judging or anything; I just find it amusing.
Love at First Sting also has two of the Scorpions’ other most popular songs, the catchy-as-all-hell party anthem with the big chorus “Big City Nights” and the lovely album-closing ballad, “Still Loving You.” And, with the Scorpions among the few bands that made it out of the late 70s/early 80s heavy metal ghetto to become ultra-mega successful rock stars, I can definitely understand why more underground-leaning head bangers into thrash would think Love at First Sting is just a bunch of commercial bullshit for chicks and posers. I just don’t agree with them. But, then, I like DOKKEN.
No, but unless you’re only looking for the most aggressive stuff out there, how can head bangers deny “The Same Thrill”, which is fast and ass-kicking, MOTÖRHEAD-style speed metal, or “Coming Home”, which starts like a ballad but then gets all fast and ass-kicking and is about how playing to all the fans around the world is like “coming home”?
Then again, Dokken have a couple fast songs too.
As slick as the album may sound, it’s still got all the hooky, riff-filled, melodic hard rock and heavy metal one wants and expects from the Scorpions. It opens with “Bad Boys Running Wild”, which has another one of those criminally basic riffs that the Scorpions can get away with playing because of how strong the other elements are, particularly Klaus Meine’s singing and Matthias Jabs’ leads; otherwise, it has the most ass-simple, four-chord riff that a monkey could play. Not to mention that its “caustic” warning about the “dark” and “dangerous” streets is just so darn cute, quaint, and hilarious coming from these nearly 40-year-old rockers in the mid-80s during the height of crack and drive-by shootings.
Like, yo, daddio, the gangs don’t “rumble” with bats, knives, and chains anymore; they just shoot each other with Uzis and sawed off shotguns. At least Judas Priest took a more pro-active approach to their gang problem in “The Sentinel”, where their lone vigilante kills an entire gang by throwing knives at them.
You also get the excellent “I’m Leaving You”, which has a more complicated riff than the opening cut but is still super catchy, a surprisingly dark ‘n’ bleak song about young people caught in the crossfire of battle, that’s confusingly titled “Crossfire” and set to a marching drumbeat, and another attempt at Police-style reggae-rock called “As Soon as the Good Times Roll”, which sucks ass. Though, the song does show that Francis Buchholz can play dub-style bass lines, so if some reggae/dub leaning band needs a bass player, Buchholz is yer man!
Can you imagine BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE hiring the bass player from the Scorpions? Ha! That’s almost as absurd as Johnny Rotten recording an album with Steve Vai or Ginger Baker!
Seven years, four studio albums, two lead guitarists, and one conquered world later, the Scorpions are no longer the rock ‘n’ roll underdogs they were on their first live album, Tokyo Tapes. The group’s second official double live album, Worldwide Live, which, as the title implies, wasn’t recorded at one show, but at a whole bunch of different ones around the world, is a celebration of the group’s world domination; there was even a companion documentary that came out around the same time. The rough edges have been smoothed out, and the Scorpions are now capable of producing note-perfect versions of the same set on a nightly basis. To some, this may seem antithetical to the ramshackle, raucous nature of rock ‘n’ roll; and to some, hey, it’s the Scorpions, their job is to rock, and they do their job well. I guess I can take it both ways as long as I like the band.
First of all, not only does Worldwide Live not repeat a single song from Tokyo Tapes, it doesn’t have anything from the Uli Jon Roth era at all. That’s right; even though songs like “Dark Lady”, “Robot Man”, “Top of the Bill”, “Pictured Life”, “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man”, or any of the 70s ballads could fit perfectly among the Scorpions’ 80s material, the group ignores these songs entirely; I guess it makes sense, since they have enough material with the Matthias Jabs lineup, and Matthias Jabs probably didn’t feel like learning Uli Jon Roth’s guitar solos. They do play “Another of Piece of Meat” and “Coast to Coast”, so clearly he doesn’t mind playing Michael Schenker’s leads; or the group made him, I dunno.
Furthermore, unlike Tokyo Tapes, there aren’t any new non-album tracks or pointless covers either. Every song on Worldwide Live is from one of the four studio albums that preceded it; specifically, they do five from Lovedrive, two from Animal Magnetism, four from Blackout, and five from Love at First Sting. If there’s any song I wish they’d played from one of these but didn’t, it’s probably “Don’t Make No Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep)” from Animal Magnetism. I just like that one!
There are a few subtle changes, like they clip the light opening to “Coming Home” and get right to the fast part, and they cut off the bit of heavy riffing at the end of the ballad “Holiday” as the crowd sings “ah-ah-ah” along with the song, which is followed by immediately by another ballad, “Still Loving You.” This would, I guess, become the customary slow section of the group’s live set; these days they perform “Send Me an Angel” and “Wind of Change” back to back, but obviously, those songs didn’t exist in 1985. There’s also some clap-n-chant-along audience participation during “Big City Nights”, and “Can’t Get Enough” is broken up by a mid-song break called “Six String Sting”, which is just screaming and guitar soloing. I also think fast tunes like “Dynamite” sound especially great live.
Otherwise, it’s another live album; it’s one of those things that you revisit every once in a while, particularly when you feel like marathon listening to a band’s whole discography, before relegating it to the slot on the shelf where you keep your Scorpions CDs for another few years. And, make sure to make some extra room with these super neat deluxe 50th anniversary versions, which are thick digipaks that easily smoke the original, plain CD releases! Worldwide Live actually comes with the documentary too! Hooray for bonus material and physical media!
And, though the Scorpions claim that the “true” way to experience the band is live, where Klaus Meine says brilliant stuff like, “Do you know what we’re doing tonight? We’re doing a live recording tonight!” and “The reason we love California so much is because you guys know how to party!”, I guess I have to be satisfied by hearing them in the “untrue” way, since they don’t perform some of my favorite tunes anymore.
Also, isn’t it hilarious how there was a time when “Rock You Like a Hurricane” was a new song, and people didn’t have to pretend to be excited to hear it?
It took the group four years to come back with another album? In the liner notes, they talk about how longtime Scorpions producer Dieter Dierks totally just copied what Robert “Mutt” Lange did on the DEF LEPPARD album Hysteria. But it’s not as if Herman Rarebell lost one of his arms in a car accident! They just took that long because they meticulously recorded every little part, smoothing the album over, and making it sound as pristine as possible. That it has any personality at all is a testament to just how good the Scorpions are.
Seriously, they started working on Savage Amusement in 1986, and it came out in 1988, and it only has nine songs on it, and it’s only 37 minutes long! I get it; it’s still the 80s, and bands were recording for the vinyl LP format with a customary length of about 40 minutes. But, at the same time, when Def Leppard came back from their four-year gap, their album was an hour-long and had a dozen songs on it. To be fair, the Scorpions did write a handful of extra tunes that were included as bonus tracks on the 50th anniversary deluxe version and thus could have made the album longer, but chose not to, I guess.
Anyway, those “serious” metal heads lobbing the Scorpions with accusations of being a cheesy, sellout, pussy, pop/glam/hair-metal band for teenage girls could make their strongest case with Savage Amusement. You have to enjoy or, at very least, not mind big, gated, fake-sounding drums and a fair bit of mainstream pop – not pop-metal, but straight up MICHAEL JACKSON-style pop – to get into quite a bit of Savage Amusement. But, if you can get past these things, or hell, don’t mind these things in the first place, then Savage Amusement is a perfectly decent, if flawed Scorpions album.
Though, try not to throw up when you hear Klaus Meine sing, “Welcome to a trip into my hurt feelings”, which is the first line to a pretty lame power ballad called “Walking on the Edge”, which doesn’t deserve such an “edgy” song-title and is only saved, barely, by a Matthias Jabs’ lead and a few seconds of pretty flamenco work. There’s also another ballad at the end called “Believe in Love”, and it’s not that great either. I’d have easily swapped these out with any of the bonus cuts that weren’t on the album; particularly the fast tune which is curiously called “Fast and Furious” or, heck, their cover of “I Can’t Explain”, which was released as a b-side, but could just as easily have been on the album. In fact, I heard the Scorpions version before the original and absolutely loved it and could mistake it for one of their originals.
On the other hand, “Rhythm of Love” and “Every Minute Every Day”, with their new jack swing R&B funk beat and sex-under-candlelight sleaze vibe, are quintessential stripper anthems. That’s not necessarily a complaint, and I actually like “Rhythm of Love”, but “Every Minute Every Day” just sounds like a less good re-write of “Rhythm of Love.”
Savage Amusement has the rockers, though. You’ve got the sluggish but inspirational opener “Don’t Stop at the Top”, the appropriately titled head banging “We Let It Rock… You Let It Roll”, and the rather surprising, hits-you-from-out-of-nowhere speed-thrasher “Love on the Run.” So, when the Scorpions wanna bring the metal, they can still bring the damn metal! Also, ain’t it funny how the ones with the love-y song titles often end up being rippers, while songs with titles like “Walking on the Edge” are wussy ballads? And “Media Overkill” could have been a more serious rocker about a somewhat “heavy” topic, which is especially relevant in today’s world of smartphones and social media, had it not been set to the cheesy “Ghostbusters” beat or used the silly voice box effect.
Again, I’m not sure why the Scorpions felt the need to make an album as polished as Savage Amusement, especially since Love at First Sting seems polished enough; other than maybe the group was just going along with the trends of the time.
But they did, and it sold a few million units, and, in the end, when you’re trying to spread Western Capitalism into the Eastern bloc in order to bring on the wind of change, isn’t that all that matters?
If I’m not mistaken, Crazy World is thought of as “Wind of Change” and ten other songs. Or that, for most people who know of the Scorpions, it’s just a dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record with this one bright spot in the form of an emotionally stirring power ballad, in which a group of moronic tone deaf rock stars take a break from singing about partying and banging groupies to do a song about the end of the Cold War and the promise of peace and prosperity in the Eastern bloc.
Of course, 33 years ago, the Scorpions couldn’t know that Putin would invade Ukraine. And, when I recently saw them live, they performed “Wind of Change” with the big projector screen flashing a blue and yellow peace sign. They also played another ballad from Crazy World called “Send Me an Angel”, which is also quite emotionally stirring with its big chorus and some neat use of keyboards, right after it too.
But, even without the two ballads, Crazy World is not just another typical, dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record. How can it be? Several of the members of the Scorpions don’t even have hair! No, but, seriously, we’re talking about the Scorpions here, not POISON or ENUFF Z’NUFF. Singer Klaus Meine, lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, rhythm and sometimes lead guitarist Rudolf Schenker, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Herman Rarebell are masters of their craft and have enough new ideas and surprises to keep any of their albums from falling too deeply into tired genre clichés. Hence why I can darn near love the odd start/stop timing and heavy riff-filled breakdown in “To Be with You in Heaven”, even if I think the song is overall too schmaltzy.
But Crazy World is definitely the band’s attempt at getting back to the rock after the way too slick and poppy Savage Amusement. Not that Crazy World doesn’t have its share of poppy choruses, and the drums still have that late 80s, echo effect, but there are no new jack swing, R&B groove “Rhythm of Love” type songs, and the album just rocks a lot more.
And, if the opening cut “Tease Me Please Me” doesn’t totally kick your ass with one of the catchiest sleaze-metal riffs ever, you’re wrong, stupid, and dumb, and I don’t wanna have anything to do with you. It’s like the Scorpions’ most perfectest song about the all-important topic of banging loose sluts… but keeping it a secret, so that nobody knows that the loose sluts are loose sluts. It’s immediately followed by a driving, “Big City Nights”-style, chugga-chugga rocker called “Don’t Believe Her”, which kicks slightly less ass, if only because the chorus is a little too cheesy.
Elsewhere, you get this slow, bluesy, and kinda dark song called “Restless Nights” that turns into another catchy pop-metal tune in the chorus. You have “Lust or Love”, which is another catchy sleaze-rocker, but that reflects on the effect all that easy sex has on a man’s psyche. And you have the grooving heavy stomper “Money and Fame”, which has some nice bluesy slide guitar. And there’s the surprisingly pessimistic title track, which has a really great descending guitar riff in the chorus and lyrics that “oo-oo-oo, it’s a crazy world.” Damn, with lyrics like “bust my balls for the tax man” and “they spent our money on missiles for the third world war”, the song should really be called “Lousy World.” What happened to all the hope and optimism from “Wind of Change”?
But the biggest surprise on the album comes from these two faster punky songs that sound like the Scorpions are channeling the RAMONES. I’m totally seriously! “Kicks After Six” has a chorus that goes “oo-oo-oo-oo” like the BEACH BOYS and is about some normal workaday wage slave chick who turns into a ho at night, and “Hit Between the Eyes” has a surf-rockabilly lead that you’d never expect to hear in a Scorpions song!
So, to think of Crazy World as a typical, dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record that’s merely a product of its time is the epitome of critical laziness. It’s honestly a damn fine record, and, really the best album the Scorpions would release in two full decades.
Sadly the “winds of change” were definitely on the horizon, but they were more like the “winds of strange”, as in the winds of pussy emitted by one big pussy fart called the 1990s.
Longtime bassist Francis Buchholz couldn’t face the heat that it’s now the 90s, and there’s a new sheriff in town in the form of grunge and/or alternative rock. After nearly twenty years with the Scorpions, Buchholz has been replaced by Ralph Rieckermann, who plays… SLAP BASS. Thankfully it’s only on one song, but I have a feeling, if not for the other members intervening, it would have been on more.
On top of that, while hard rock and heavy metal did a good job cock-blocking women’s lib for more than two solid decades, now here we are in the 90s, and you have these new bands with weird, non-bad ass names like NIRVANA and PEARL JAM, who actually want women to NOT just dance in cages or give blowjobs backstage!!! And, two years after the Scorpions released a song celebrating the fall of the Soviet Union, you have some dreadlock-wearing jackass rapping over Zeppelin riffs about how Communism is a good thing!
How the hell are the Scorpions supposed to exist in an environment like this? AC/DC, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, and all the European power metal bands acted as though the 80s never ended, serving up only the stuff their fans wanted to hear. KISS and MÖTLEY CRÜE shamelessly released grunge albums, while W.A.S.P. went the industrial route. And DIO, Accept, Judas Priest, and our boys the Scorpions attempted to have it both ways, absorbing enough 90s influences to potentially appeal to the alternative crowds, while not alienating their fans too much. Well, some more than others; hearing Udo rap and sing political lyrics on Death Row is, er, something else…
Thankfully, the Scorpions did NOT go that far. But it’s clear from the down-tuned guitars, heavy PANTERA-ish groove, and vaguely socially conscious lyrics of the opening track, “Alien Nation”, the Scorpions were very much trying to keep up with the 90s. “No Pain No Gain” is similarly dark, heavy, and groove-oriented, and “Unholy Alliance” could be mistaken for a Tony Martin-era 90s Sabbath song; that is, until the funky chorus with Klaus Meine going, “uh-uh-uh-uh-unholy alliance”, at which point, you could mistake the Scorpions for KING’S X. But, even with these new-found influences, these are still very enjoyable songs, and it’s kinda neat hearing Matthias Jabs and Rudolf Schenker playing angrier riffs in a lower tuning; not to mention that this isn’t the first time that Herman Rarebell has done funky groove drumming.
But, if you’re just jonesin’ for the Scorpions of old, you still have a delightfully sleazy cock rocker like “Someone to Touch”, which shows that no amount of 90s progressivism can stop a Scorpion from making passes at the few leftover female audience members who didn’t get lesbian haircuts. And “Nightmare Avenue” is the type of Scorpions-by-way-of- Motörhead tune that an 80s holdover in a motorcycle jacket and aviator shades clamors for.
On the other hand, you can tell it’s the 90s because of the ridiculous sounding slap bass on the otherwise normal bluesy hard rocker “Taxman Woman” and the try-hard angst on the Ugly Kid Joe-style alternative pop-metal “Hate to Be Nice”, which has one of those eminently catchy lead guitar lines that you’ll either love or think sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I honestly like these songs, and they’re not too big of a departure from classic Scorpions, but you can definitely tell that the group is trying to extend an olive branch to the kids with eyebrow piercings.
Also Face the Heat has no less than THREE power ballads! These are so by the numbers, you’ll wonder why the Scorpions spent any time on them at all; literally another, ugh, “we are the world”, pro-world peace ballad called “Under the Same Sun” and another, double ugh, “I’m so lonely since you left me” break-up song with the extremely original title “Lonely Nights.” The other ballad, “Woman”, is only unique in that it’s got keyboards and fake strings. Would that have been so bad if the band cut the album by three songs and reduced it to a compact eight songs and 38 minutes long? Actually, nine, if you count the cover of “Latest Flame” hidden at the end.
And, there you have it; the Scorpions actually pretty okay 90s alt-metal album! Oh, wait, they made more albums in the 90s? Uh oh…
Ten years, three studio albums, one longtime bass player, and one musical and cultural paradigm shift later, the Scorpions are now a well-established classic rock band trying to stay “relevant” (whatever that even means) in the “angsty”, “hip”, “progressive”, “sarcastic”, and terminally anti-fun 90s. On one hand, they want to please their fan base of baby boomers and older generation X rockers, and on the other, they want to find some way to appeal to the “alternative nation” of slackers, grunge kids, and morons in baggy pants.
Why else would they call their third live album Live Bites and write the name of the album in the same gritty typewriter font that you’d find on an alternative or punk CD? Get it? It’s like that shitty 90s indie comedy Reality Bites, where they’re saying that playing live “totally bites, dude”, but they actually DO like playing live. That or Live Bites consists of “bites” and snippets from live concerts from the band’s previous world tour.
See, if Tokyo Tapes presents the Scorpions as raw, energetic rock ‘n’ roll underdogs, and Worldwide Live is the “we conquered the world”, glorified greatest hits live album, then Live Bites is the "for hardcore fans only" release that features eleven live tunes, with a greater focus on obscure tracks, and three entirely new studio cuts. In fact, I’m guessing the CD was more or less a contractual obligation, and the band felt they had to throw on some new studio material to help it move a few more units than it would have if it was just all live.
Furthermore, if you’re expecting a Scorpions live release to include “No One Like You”, “The Zoo”, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, “Blackout”, or “Big City Nights”, then prepare for disappointment! It’s kind of refreshing that they didn’t feel any need to give fans new live versions of these tried (tired) and tested live standards among the eleven live tunes. Then again, it does include such recent hits ‘n’ popular faves like “Tease Me Please Me”, “Rhythm of Love”, and “Wind of Change”, so they clearly felt the CD needed some commercial appeal.
The most curious song on the entire collection, however, is “Living for Tomorrow”, which was neither on any Scorpions studio album, nor is one of the three new studio tracks, but for some reason, was released as a single in 1992 in the Netherlands and nowhere else.
It’s kinda neat hearing Klaus Meine translate the song for the Russian crowd, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of those, ugh, “we are the world”, pro-world peace ballads that Michael Jackson, QUEEN, and now the Scorpions love doing so much, because apparently they got sick of making ballads about getting dumped by chicks.
Speaking of songs about getting dumped by chicks, they do “In Trance”, which I thought the band didn’t play anymore, since it’s an Uli Jon Roth song, so that’s pretty cool. They also pull out the Police-style reggae rocker “Is There Anybody There?” from Lovedrive, which is actually a good, if really odd choice to randomly pull out. And they perform the ballad at the end of Blackout, “When the Smoke Is Going Down”, which I never thought was that great. If they’re going to do obscure songs from Blackout, why not do the excellent proto-doom “China White”?
You also get some expected tunes of recent Scorpions vintage; one from Savage Amusement, three from Crazy World, and two from Face the Heat. Gotta say, though, that “Rhythm of Love”, as commercial and poppy as it is, still sounds way better on natural sounding drums than the ultra-gated, fake-sounding echo-drums on the studio recording. And, when played live, “No Pain No Gain” and “Alien Nation” sound less like groove-oriented 90s alternative metal and just slamming heavy rock tunes that actually fit quite well within the rest of the Scorpions’ work. There’s also a track called “Overture in V”, which is just Matthias Jabs playing guitar solos.
But, really, the real reason the fans spent the $15 on an okay but pointless live CD was, of course, to hear the three new studio songs. So, were the three new songs worth the full price of a CD? HELL NO.
Okay, “Edge of Time” is a fun, bouncy, novelty pop-rock song that sounds like a rejected 80s track with Ralph Rieckermann’s synthetic sounding Seinfeld slap bass, so that one gets a pass just for its sheer silliness, even if it’s another world peace song. On the other hand, “Heroes Don’t Cry” is a melodramatic ballad which also sounds like some rejected studio material, but just isn’t very good. And “White Dove” is YET ANOTHER pro-world peace ballad that CLEARLY FUCKING WAS an album outtake or rejected track, since it sucks ass, except that it has gospel soul vocals, which don’t make it suck ass any less! Why are the Scorpions writing so many fucking ballads? Seriously, counting the studio tracks, this CD has FIVE FUCKING BALLADS!!!
And, what’s with this new obsession with world peace? What happened to the songs about screwing sluts??? What happened to the SASS???
Sorry for the all the cuss words. I’m so glad I got this CD used.
Well, longtime drummer Herman Rarebell is gone now too. Maybe his last name should have been RareBALLS, since he apparently took the Scorpions’ balls with him. The drummer they used was just a session guy. I would be too if Pure Instinct was the album I was introduced on.
But, first, let’s talk about me again! Pure Instinct is another one that’s personally significant to me! I saw the Scorpions live at Pine Knob on this tour, and it’s the first album the Scorpions released after I became a fan of hard rock and heavy metal. When Face the Heat came out, I was a nine year old boy into comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, action movies, and pro-wrestling. By the time Pure Instinct came out, I was a twelve-year-old MAN listening to, ahem, METALLICA, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, DEEP PURPLE, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, GUNS N’ ROSES, and, of course, the Scorpions!
In all honesty, however, I actually mainly went so I could see the Scorpions’ opener, Alice Cooper, of whom I was a much, much bigger fan. I only knew the Scorpions from their Best of Rockers and Ballads compilation CD, which is pretty much all you need to know before going to see the Scorpions, since they barely alter their live set on a tour-to-tour basis and just include two or three songs from their newest album every time, before permanently retiring the new songs from their live set.
In the case of Pure Instinct, that’s probably a good thing. I never actually bought Pure Instinct when it came out, so I didn’t know what it sounded like at the time. I just remember the hilarious cover of a naked family in a zoo cage with a bunch of wild animals looking in at the humans, and how the mother’s nipple was all exposed. They had to have an alternate cover to sell at Walmart and K-Mart, and that alternate cover is a photo of Rudolf Schenker, Matthias Jabs, Ralph Rieckermann, and Klaus Meine with their mouths open wide like a bunch of idiots and Rudolf Schenker holding his Flying-V guitar as if the band doesn’t sound like tired old men, and the album isn’t full of ballads and acoustic pop-rock songs.
But they do, and it is. What’s really sad is that the album starts off really promisingly with “Wild Child”, a total old school 80s-style heavy hard rocker that makes it seem as though the 90s never happened. Other than some keyboards in the song that sound like bagpipes, the Scorpions are right back in their natural environment. There’s also “Oh Girl (I Wanna Be with You)”, another hard rocker with some terrific guitar work but an overly saccharine chorus that threatens to ruin the whole song. Pretty much the rest of the album sucks.
For instance, “But the Best for You” is a total bore that alternates between acoustic Latin lounge music and basic major chords. “Stone in My Shoe” uses the “Sweet Jane” riff, but is otherwise a mediocre pop-rock song. At least “Where the River Flows” has some country-ish steel guitar twang to make it a mildly interesting once-through listen. And “Time Will Call Your Name” sounds like an acoustic song from Led Zeppelin III with the bongo drums and Middle Eastern melody playing behind the acoustic strumming, only it’s not good.
And the rest are just boring, time-filling ballads with generic love song titles like “When You Came into My Life”, “Are You the One?”, and “You and I.” There are two other songs, but who cares?
More like Pure STINK if you ask me!
Sadly, things would get worse before they got better.
It’s kind of funny that Eye II Eye was released the year before CD sales severely dropped due to file sharing, since it’s literally the kind of CD that justifies file sharing, free downloading, and outright music stealing. Eye II Eye is undoubtedly, unequivocally, and unquestioningly the worst album the Scorpions ever made, and it’s not even close.
It’s also the first album with Herman’s Rarebells’ official, full-time replacement, new drummer James Kottak. Good job, guy… except I can’t even tell when you’re actually playing the drums and when the computer is playing them for you.
Let’s put this in perspective. Following the severe musical shift from hard rock to “alternative” rock in 1992, the Scorpions made a noble attempt at adapting to the 90s in 1993 with heavier, down-tuned riffs and some funkier beats that didn’t otherwise interfere too much with their sound on the honestly pretty good Face the Heat. Then, in 1996, they followed it with Pure Instinct, which is just a tired collection of ballads and mediocre pop-rock songs that sounded like the group was just knocking out a contractual obligation. And, finally, in what seems like the most cynical and calculated move in their entire career, the Scorpions unleashed Eye II Eye onto their unsuspecting fans, filling it top to bottom with programmed trip-hop beats, acoustic and/or lightly distorted guitars, samples, basic major chords, “sensual” whisper-moan vocals, and boring ballads, which are only made comically worse by incorporating programmed modern R&B percussion.
In other words, Eye II Eye is an absurdly unnatural departure from anything people think of when they think of the Scorpions, entirely lacking in any conviction, and wearing its commercial intentions like the cheap cologne the Scorpions look like they’re advertising in all of the unintentionally funny photos in the CD booklet.
The handful of times it does get “hard” or “heavy” is with these alternative metal and nu-metal songs, which have the soft verse/loud chorus formula, only saved from 100% sucking to 95% sucking by the lead guitar work. And even then the guitars seem a bit processed. Also Klaus Meine sings incredibly stupid lines like “my mind is like a tree/and I want you to water me” in (sigh) “Mind Like a Tree”, while the song “Aleyah” repeats the title like 50 gazillion times. I guess it’s also worth mentioning that “Freshly Squeezed” sounds like it has an accordion in the background, and there’s some polyrhythmic percussion in “Skywriter” and bongo drums in “10 Light Years Away.” But none of these little touches make these songs any less boring.
And, just like that, the Scorpions make it seem as though the last twenty years never happened!
If you’re one of those Gen-X guys who thought the party was over, and that all the trollops with teased hair started dressing in flannel or became “politically aware”, so you got married, started a family, and stopped paying attention to any music since 1992, and then you happened to hear the Scorpions’ 2010 album, Sting in the Tail, you would never think the Scorpions had dabbled in alternative metal, shitty ass boring pop rock, techno-alternative, symphony-backed re-recordings of old songs, unplugged versions of old songs, doom metal, or industrial/nu metal since Crazy World way back in 1990!
I don’t know if they realized that there were no new trends left to follow, or if they just saw their musical peers going back to the signature styles which made them all popular, but the bottom line is that, the Scorpions have RETURNED to the mid-80s hard rock and heavy metal with big hooks, catchy choruses, and melodic guitar solos that made them such huge stars in the first place. With Sting in the Tail, the Scorpions proudly declare that the world has gotten too damn serious, and that the groupies need to get shagged again!
You might be compelled to ask, but didn’t Unbreakable already do that? It KINDA did, but it still had the down-tuned 70s blues metal riffs and motorcycle chugalug that was atypical for the Scorpions; Sting in the Tail sounds like a long-lost album that should have come out between Blackout and Love at First Sting. Other than the cheesy Ed Hardy/Jersey Shore/Guido-bro tattoo art and a harrowing anti-war power ballad called “The Good Die Young”, which makes a reference to, I’m assuming, Islamic terrorism with lyrics like, “When the bomb went off at the side of the road/ sounds of breaking steel, windshields full of blood”, there is nothing on Sting in the Tail that doesn’t sound like an homage to Ronald Reagan’s non-PC, hedonistic yet reactionary, pro-Capitalist 1980s.
And make no mistake; when you hear Rudolf Schenker strumming the opening chords to the “Rock You Like a Hurricane” callback “Raised on Rock”, and you hear Matthias Jabs’ lovely guitar solo, and you hear James Kottak’s reverbed but still natural-sounding 80s drum tone, and you hear Klaus Meine singing, “I was born in a hurricane/ nothing to lose and everything to gain”, and you don’t notice Paweł Mąciwoda’s bass lines at all, you’ll know this IS your father’s Scorpions! In fact, if your old man hears you jamming Sting in the Tail, he’ll say, “gosh, I’ve never heard THESE Scorpions songs before! I must have missed them when I was a tail-chasing young whippersnapper before I met your mom!” And you’ll say, “Ohhh dad, this is the NEW Scorpions album! They’re playing in standard tuning again!”
Okay, you might say, it may sound like an early 80s Scorpions album, but it is it good? As Varg Vikernes would say, “Let’s find out!” You get songs with names you’ve heard a million times, like “No Limit”, “Rock Zone”, “Turn You On”, “Let’s Rock!”, and “Spirit of Rock”, along with a song with a HILARIOUS pun in the title. You get predictable rhyme schemes like “he’s an angel but no one can tell/ he might be from heaven might be from hell” and “so come on/ if you wanna feel that sting/ come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, baby shake that thing.”
You get mid-tempo, chugga-chugga metal with some neat use of the wah-wah pedal. You get a stomping Van Halen with double-entendre sleaze-rocker; that’s the one with the hilarious pun in the title. You get a few optimistic anthems with big, memorable choruses. You get a speedy cock-rocker. You get the slow and sexy Zeppelin-ish groove rocker designed explicitly for the purpose of being the music at a strip club. And you get some honestly pretty good ballads, particularly “Lorelei”, which is automatically classy and cultured, since it uses an old-timey name.
Oh, and the ballad “SLY” is allegedly about a girl named Sly, but the title is actually short for “Silly Little Yuppies”, and the song became the catalyst for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Okay, haha, no, it’s short for “Stupid Loud Yankees” and is actually the Scorpions’ thinly veiled attack on their American fans.
Haha, I kid again! The Scorpions love America. Nah, the truth is “SLY” is short for “Still Loving Yemen” and is another one of the group’s songs promoting world peace, particularly in Yemen, and signaling their support for an end to the Yemeni civil war.
In other words, HELL FUCKING YES, IT’S GOOD!!! Sting in the Tail has all the clichés of the 80s done with zero irony or self-awareness, and yet none of the twelve songs sound like a song you’ve actually heard the Scorpions do before; well, except for the opening track, but that was on purpose.
And the last song, “The Best Is Yet to Come”, is ruined by an annoying ass chorus that goes, “Hey-ah-eh-oh/ don't look now, the best is yet to come/ hey-ah-eh-oh/ take my hand, the best is yet to come.”
But, above everything else, you get proof that bands should pick the style that they’re best at and NEVER, EVER deviate from it.
Directly from the liner notes:
Like every other legacy band, the Scorpions did the album where they were backed by an orchestra, and they recorded an unplugged album, and now, they’ve put out an album where they’ve re-recorded a bunch of their old songs along with some covers you’ve heard fifty bajillion times. At least, in their case, they didn’t feel the need to release an album where they re-recorded old songs AND another album where they recorded covers; thankfully, they consolidated both of these pointless releases into a single CD.
But how does one even rate an album like Comeblack? I mean, it’s technically a brand new studio album, and if it was the first Scorpions album you’d ever heard, because you asked your mom to get you a Scorpions album, and she went to the CD store, and she picked out the one with the vintage car design on the cover, then you’d be introduced to seven of the best and most popular arena rock, pop-metal, and power ballads of the 80s, along with a diverse array of popular covers, and thus find plenty of enjoyment out of Comeblack. Hell, for some people who don’t care which version of the song they hear, Comeblack might be the only Scorpions album they even need! Otherwise, for most people who grew up listening to the radio or watching MTV and know both the Scorpions tunes and the cover songs, Comeblack will be a listen-once-and-sell-on-Ebay sorta deal.
The most annoying thing about Comeblack is that the band didn’t even dig deep into their catalog. It actually would have been kind of interesting to hear the Matthias Jabs/Paweł Mąciwoda/James Kottak lineup doing Uli Jon Roth era material like “Pictured Life”, “Top of the Bill”, “Dark Lady”, or “The Sails of Charon.” But, NOPE! You get seven of the group’s most popular songs, where the only differences I can hear between the original recordings and the new ones are slightly thicker and crunchier distortion and Klaus Meine singing some different vocal inflections in certain lines.
Two noteworthy exceptions are that “Rhythm of Love” has a more natural drum sound, since they didn’t use the overly-processed late 80s, “Mutt” Lange production, and “The Zoo” now has STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN-style bluesy guitar accents over the “chunga-chunga-chunga-DAH-DAH” part. Also, “Blackout” doesn’t end with glass shattering at the end.
As for the covers, the best and most interesting ones are “Tainted Love” done as a heavy metal song and “Children of the Revolution”, a 70s glam-rock classic which translates well to heavy metal; as proven nineteen years earlier when it was covered by Paul Di’Anno’s KILLERS. Otherwise, the Scorpions do faithful and not particularly interesting versions of 60s British favorites by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the KINKS, and the SMALL FACES. In fact, when I was listening to this CD with my girlfriend, we couldn’t help but notice that they actually managed to suck all the life out of “Ruby Tuesday.”
Also, I know that the Scorpions probably feel a certain kinship with their fellow Axis buddies in the Land of the Rising Sun, but I think it’s totally bogus how only the Japanese version of Comeblack has their cover of the YARDBIRDS’ “Shape of Things”, a song I actually would have loved to hear the Scorpions do!
And, one last thing; if the Scorpions put out an album with some 1960s songs that influenced them, couldn’t they have re-recorded or unearthed some of their OWN songs from that still apocryphal, mystery-shrouded seven year period before Lonesome Crow? I mean, they’re the ones who keep bragging about how they formed way back in 1965! So, like, what the hell, dudes! Give us some actual proof that you EXISTED in 1965!
THAT would have been a great “encore for the diehard fans.”
Thirteen years, three studio albums that range from okay to fantastic, another studio album of re-recorded songs and covers, one expendable bass player, and the unfulfilled threat of retiring since the last “unplugged” album, and the Scorpions have been re-invigorated by a world that once again seems ready to ROCK. With the no-fun, overly serious, baggy pants and eyebrow piercing 90s now nearly a decade and half in the past, and rock spending the 00s recovering from the 90s and realizing that leather jackets, tight jeans, bullet belts, aviator shades, and sleeveless muscles t-shirt are actually cool and not dorky, the Scorpions seem re-invigorated---
--- there was an MTV that plays music and not just stupid reality TV in the 2010s??!! I mean, The Jerry Springer Show wasn’t cancelled until 2019, but still.
I know, this is MTV in a Hellenic country, where probably the culture and marketing is different from that of the United States, but it’s still surprising to see a band like the Scorpions release a CD with “MTV Unplugged” in the title in 2014! That’s such a 90s thing, when grunge bands like Nirvana and ALICE IN CHAINS had some of their biggest selling CDs with these acoustic live recordings; not to mention Kiss doing their famous MTV Unplugged live show which launched their whole reunion with Ace and Peter way back on Halloween of 1995!
Also, obviously, the Scorpions had already released Acoustica back in 2001. And, in a way, MTV Unplugged in Athens is kind of a redux of that. Probably the biggest and most obvious difference between Acoustica and MTV Unplugged in Athens is that the Scorpions aren’t doing stupid covers of well-known songs. The other is that, in the former case, the band didn’t play a single song from their latest studio album at the time, which they were probably ashamed of and wanted forgotten as quickly as possible; while in the latter case, they do two songs from Sting in the Tail, because they’re actually proud of it.
That doesn’t mean that Klaus Meine, Matthias Jabs, and Rudolf Schenker didn’t write a hefty share of material all by themselves…
… in fact the lovely retrograde gem of aggressive, major chord rocka-rolla called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” is all by Klaus Meine:
A Hollywood stage, girls in a cage
Action, satisfaction, legs around a pole
Bang, I’m in the spot, give me that shot
We rock the night away and that’s the way it goes
You wanna know who I am
I’m in a rock ‘n’ roll band
She walks into the light looking hot
I love the way she moves, oh my God
Just another tune, her heart goes boom
Come on, little lady, show me all you’ve got
Geez, I can just feel the sweaty, fake double-D titties rubbing against my face! With lyrics like that, it’s hard to believe the 90s ever happened! And, GEEZ LOUISE, if Meine and Schenker are still capable of writing jah-jigga-jah crushers like “Hard Rockin’ the Place” or the sexy, strip-club groove with tribal drums “Delirious”, one wonders why the bloody, stinkin’ hell they even bothered hiring outside writers in the first place!
I just wish Rudolf Schenker wouldn’t always pose with his mouth all agape like that. It looks really stupid.
In my original review for Rock Believer, I neglected to mention that the Scorpions named the album after a line in “Steamrock Fever”, the opening track from their 1977 album, Taken by Force, which should give fans a clue as to what direction the Scorpions were going in by this point.
I also forgot to really emphasize how insanely awesome and how much of an upgrade it was replacing longtime drummer James Kottak with MICKEY FUCKING DEE, who played with KING DIAMOND and was in Motörhead for nearly a quarter of a century before Lemmy left the building. Hey, I’m not sure why they fired Kottak after he’d been in the band for twenty years, but I’m sure glad they did…
If you even think of buying the standard version of Rock Believer, you’d best stop yourself before doing something foolish. I posted a link to a song called “Shoot for Your Heart” on a twitter thread, and minutes later, someone responded by saying that Matthias Jabs’ solo was so good, it alone was enough for him to go out and buy the CD. The only problem is that “Shoot for Your Heart” is only on the two-disc “deluxe version” of Rock Believer. In what I think is a truly idiotic move, the main eleven tracks of the album (the “official version” of the album) are on the first disc, which is 44 minutes long, and the five extra tracks, one of which is just an acoustic version of one of the songs from the first disc, are on the 19 minute long second disc. That’s 63 minutes of music that could all have fit on one CD; 67 if the American and European version included Japanese bonus track “Out Go the Lights.”
As janky as that sounds, I still spent $25 on the “deluxe version” only to find out that the paltry three panel foldout digipak didn’t even put the discs on trays but in little slits in the foldout, which increases the chances of scratching up the CDs every time you remove them to play if you’re not extra careful. The packaging itself doesn’t include anything other than a chintzy lyric book with a few band photos and the Scorpions logo stretched across the three panel foldout. How lame. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I LOVE THE ALBUM AND PLAY IT OFTEN!!!
That’s right; I enjoy Rock Believer a lot. First of all – and this cannot be overstated – at the advanced age of 73, Klaus Meine sounds exactly like the young man who sang the lead vocals on Lonesome Crow way back in 1972. He still has all of the charisma, exuberance, and ability to flawlessly hit the notes that he did when he first sang “I’m going mad!” fifty years ago; and he’s still got the adorable, right-off-the-boat German accent as well.
Secondly, Meine, Schenker, Jabs, the Polish guy, and MIKKEY FUCKING DEE have jettisoned the two outside writers on Sting in the Tail and Return to Forever, and the Scorpions seem to have gone back to their pre-arena rock, pre-pop-metal, 70s-hard-rock-bordering-on-metal-style of the Uli Jon Roth and early Matthias Jabs era; especially if you compare it to their previous two albums, which are fulla big choruses and pop hooks, and have that big 80s sound. I’ll even go so far as to make the bold claim that, song for song, Rock Believer is more enjoyable than classic Scorpions albums like In Trance or Lovedrive, which are marred by either too many ballads or a couple pointless filler tracks.
The only ballad on Rock Believer is “When You Know (Where You Came From)”, which unfortunately is included twice, in its regular and acoustic form. Otherwise the album knocks out three energetic rockers in a row before it even thinks of slowing down; at which point, the energy is sapped by a title track which is enough to make me a rock nonbeliever and thus shall never be mentioned again. On the other hand, the opening track, “Gas in the Tank”, has a righteous Motörhead reference (“we’re born to lose, we live to win”), probably as a way to welcome new drummer Mikkey Dee, who, among other things, has one of the best drum sounds in metal.
What’s really a trip, though, is how “Shining of Your Soul” is another Police-style reggae/rock hybrid in the style of “Is There Anybody There?” from Lovedrive, and “Seventh Sun” evokes the heavy and plodding “China White” from Blackout with a thumping “Runnin’ with the Devil”-style bassline and dark, eerie, cosmic mood. Then you have a lotta rockers, such as the swingin’ “Roots in My Boots”, which opens with a BO DIDDLY-style drum beat, “Hot and Cold”, which is just your classic “jah-jigga-jah-jigga” galloping metal tune, “Call of the Wild”, which sounds like a MONTROSE song, “When I Lay My Bones to Rest”, which kicks my ass through my face with its punky three minute CHUCK BERRY boogie rock and lovely chorus, and “Out Go the Lights”, which is only on the Japanese version GODDAMMIT!!!
Sadly “Peacemaker” is not a tribute to the Colt brand revolver that was so popular with cowboys, but is yet another song about bringing peace to the world or some shit. Thankfully “Crossing Borders” isn’t a political statement about immigration but just a metaphor for doin’ it with a chick!
Is it the chick on the cover? I dunno. Other than better production, Rock Believer easily sounds like vintage Scorpions, and a less schooled ear wouldn’t even be able to pick out the new tunes from ones from four to five decades ago. It took the Scorpions seven years, the amount of time between when the Scorpions formed and released their first album, to put out Rock Believer. And some think, due to this lengthy gap and the group member’s ages, that it might in fact be their final album.
While that’s certainly plausible, I’d like to think the Scorpions will release an album that sounds like Lonesome Crow in 2029.
Edwin Oslan
Revenge of Riff Raff
16th April, 2023
⦿ Roth singing the funk rocker “Polar Nights” with one of the most unpleasant voices I have ever heard, like he has a frog in his throat. I don’t remember him sounding this bad on the studio version.
⦿ Some improvised soloing at the start of “In Search of the Peace of Mind.” The song itself ends before the dark, foreboding part.
⦿ A bunch of random guitar noise at the end of “Fly to the Rainbow”
⦿ A boogie/Southern rock intro tacked onto “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man”
⦿ A drum solo during “Top of the Bill”
⦿ The depressing sounding 1901 Japanese folk song “Kojo No Tsuki”, which sounds like a Black Sabbath song
⦿ And craziest of all, “Robot Man” with a 12-bar glam rock, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” riff in place of the “da-da-da” riff and normal 4/4 drumming in lieu of the cool, tribal tom-heavy pattern of the original. I’m not sure why they changed it, but I prefer the original studio version
It’s also worth noting that the original Tokyo Tapes cut three songs from the live concert, since they wouldn’t fit on the album; even as a double album. This neato 50th anniversary digipak reissue of the album includes the three songs that were cut; “Hell Cat”, “Catch Your Train”, and the Japanese national anthem. This means that the Scorpions actually played five songs from Virgin Killer, making it the album most represented on Tokyo Tapes, which seems odd, since Taken by Force was the album they were touring on.
It also means they gave Uli Jon Roth the microphone again. Thankfully it would be the last time they ever would.
Imagine living in the 1979 post-hippie haze of Jimmy Carter’s America, and two bands come out with albums that have the word “love” in their titles. Ugh, you think, who are these damn hippies, this “Whitesnake” and these “Scorpions”, trying to force this “love” crap that failed a decade ago down our throats? And then you laugh to yourself and realize that they’re just using “love” as a euphemism for loose pussy!
⦿ A bunch of random guitar noise at the end of “Fly to the Rainbow”
⦿ A boogie/Southern rock intro tacked onto “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man”
⦿ A drum solo during “Top of the Bill”
⦿ The depressing sounding 1901 Japanese folk song “Kojo No Tsuki”, which sounds like a Black Sabbath song
⦿ And craziest of all, “Robot Man” with a 12-bar glam rock, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” riff in place of the “da-da-da” riff and normal 4/4 drumming in lieu of the cool, tribal tom-heavy pattern of the original. I’m not sure why they changed it, but I prefer the original studio version
It’s also worth noting that the original Tokyo Tapes cut three songs from the live concert, since they wouldn’t fit on the album; even as a double album. This neato 50th anniversary digipak reissue of the album includes the three songs that were cut; “Hell Cat”, “Catch Your Train”, and the Japanese national anthem. This means that the Scorpions actually played five songs from Virgin Killer, making it the album most represented on Tokyo Tapes, which seems odd, since Taken by Force was the album they were touring on.
It also means they gave Uli Jon Roth the microphone again. Thankfully it would be the last time they ever would.
LOVEDRIVE (1979)
Imagine living in the 1979 post-hippie haze of Jimmy Carter’s America, and two bands come out with albums that have the word “love” in their titles. Ugh, you think, who are these damn hippies, this “Whitesnake” and these “Scorpions”, trying to force this “love” crap that failed a decade ago down our throats? And then you laugh to yourself and realize that they’re just using “love” as a euphemism for loose pussy!
Though, seriously, why did musicians say “love” when they meant “sex”? Would the album titles Sexdrive and Sexhunter have presented that much of an obstacle to getting stocked in record stores and played on the radio in 1979? Especially when WHITESNAKE is putting an ass-naked broad straddling a giant serpent on their cover, and the Scorpions have a photo of a posh couple in the back of a limo with the man stretching bubble gum from the woman’s exposed nipple? Actually, when I saw the latter cover when I was a kid, I was really confused. Was this supposed to be titillating, or was this some sort of artistic statement that I’m too young and stupid to get? What’s even sillier is that, when you open up the album, there’s another photo of the couple, and now they have big, goofy grins on their faces, but the woman is topless and holding a picture frame housing a photo of the Scorpions. Ugh, whatever, Germans.
With new lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, the Scorpions became a leather-clad NWOBHM-adjacent 80s heavy metal band with the bright, polished but hard-edged Martin Birch-esque production that became the thing as soon as the 80s began, even though Lovedrive came out in 1979. Okay, they were wearing leather before, and they haven’t changed that much; the Scorpions had been a melodic hard rock and heavy metal band since as early as 1974, and songs like “Dark Lady”, “Robot Man”, and “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man” basically are 80s metal in the 70s; but all the progressive, pop-rock, funk, blues, and boogie-rock 70s influences that found their way onto albums like Fly to the Rainbow, In Trance, Virgin Killer, and Taken by Force have been excised from the band’s sound. On the other hand, you still get the honestly lovely ballads, in this case “Always Somewhere” and “Holiday”, and plenty of Klaus Meine’s “ah-ah-ah”s, because, whether you’re dressed in bell bottoms and paisley or the shiny dead skin of a cow, there are few better ways of extracting all that “love” from your female fans than ballads; especially when the singer goes “ah-ah-ah” a bunch of times.
Of course, gotta mention that Michael Schenker played lead guitar on three of the album’s eight songs – why only eight songs? Couldn’t they have given us nine or ten?! – and it’s surreal to think how, if the younger Schenker didn’t behave so erratically and just quit the group again, he could have joined his older brother, along with Klaus Meine, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Herman Rarebell, in basking in the spotlight, raking in the cash, and playing to millions of screaming fans around the world; instead he started the Michael Schenker Group, who I get to see in tiny venues, since they never got too popular!
But, anyway, with two ballads and a reggae-rocker called “Is There Anybody There?”, which sounds like the Police gone metal but actually is pretty damn good, Lovedrive only has five actual tunes of the aforementioned NWOBHM adjacent 80s heavy metal. But, hooee, are they great! If you’re one of those “Uli or die” Scorpions fans, then you’re HELLA missing out on some killer-ass melodic metal tunes that you could easily stack up against what Priest, SAXON, Maiden, Tygers of Pan Tang, DIAMOND HEAD, ANGEL WITCH, and whoever else were doing that at the time!
And, as for you, Mr. Wolf Hoffman of one of my all-time favorite bands, who claims the Scorpions were “rock” rather than “metal”, it seems you haven't noticed how closely your band’s very own “jah-jigga-jah-jigga” galloping classic “Restless and Wild” resembles the “jah-jigga-jah-jigga”, galloping classic title track for Lovedrive!
And, all you other metal heads and rockers who think the Scorpions are some kind of commercial poser sell-out band, you need to hear the mid-tempo chugging opening cut “Loving Your Sunday Morning”, the speedy second cut “Another Piece of Meat”, “Coast to Coast,” the instrumental with some nice harmonized guitar work that sounds like a backing track the group forgot to write lyrics to, and the ass kicker with the pounding, atypical beat “Can’t Get Enough.”
Oh, and the Scorpions sing about sex, or, sorry, I mean, “love” a lot more now.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM (1980)
One element of the 70s that the Scorpions recycled is terrible cover art. Yes, when I think of bad ass metal cover art, the first thing that comes to mind is a photo of a man, a woman, and a dog on a beach. I know, the album is called Animal Magnetism, and a dog is an animal, and humans are animals too, but, like, what the hell else is going on here? The man is standing with his back towards us, the woman is on her knees staring up at the man, the dog is sitting next to the woman, and there’s nothing particularly suggestive going on; unless there’s something I’m not getting. My girlfriend likes the doggy, though!
With all the lineup and stylistic shenanigans over with, the Klaus Meine/Rudolf Schenker/Matthias Jabs core trio locked in place until the end of time, the Francis Buchholz/Herman Rarebell rhythm section sticking around for the next twelve years, and the world about to embrace heavy metal on a wide scale, the Scorpions had ARRIVED.
You might think, didn’t that already happen with Lovedrive? Well, kinda, but that album still felt like the dress rehearsal. Animal Magnetism is the real deal. It consists of nine songs instead of eight, and of those, only one is a ballad; the dreamy “Lady Starlight”, which utilizes a string section. Also, Animal Magnetism doesn’t have any experiments in Police-style reggae rock or instrumentals which sound as though the group simply forgot to write some lyrics.
But, with that said, Animal Magnetism is also the Scorpions’ most streamlined effort; to the point where some might be put off by the simplicity of songs like “Falling in Love” or “Only a Man”, with their blocky, three-and-four-chord riffs and basic, mid-tempo beats. While the angry break-up rocker “Hold Me Tight” is both incredibly simple and sounds a bit sluggish following the only fast song on the album, “Don’t Make No Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep).” On the other hand, my two favorite songs on Animal Magnetism, and possibly of the Scorpions’ discography, actually happen to be the two slow songs at the end. One of those is the album-closing, nearly doom-metal dying-man’s-crawl-through-the-desert with Middle Eastern guitar solos and Klaus Meine moaning on top title track.
The other is “The Zoo”, with its super-simple riff that goes “chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-dah-dah”, a big catchy chorus, and just this grimy street vibe. It sounds so grand and epic, and it’s literally just about taking your girlfriend out on a date. And, while the song is G-rated, I do wonder what this couple is doing on 42nd Street; checking out a grindhouse flick, scoring drugs, seeing a live sex show? Also what do the lines, “Hungry eyes are passing by” mean? Are they referring to homeless people or people who are just starved for kicks?
In summation, don’t expect the fastest or most technically complicated batch of songs from the Scorpions this time around. DO expect big hooks, melodic guitar solos, and a heckuva lot catchiness and replay value; especially in the opening track, “Make It Real”, which has some of Matthias Jabs’ most gorgeous lead guitar work, along with a positive, if overly sincere message about taking chances and following your dreams. Then it’s followed by a song about a girl who stuffs her bra.
But, check out these lyrics to the stomping, VAN HALEN-style groover “Twentieth Century Man”:
In the jungle of these times
There’s nothing left for them to buy
They look for God on the screen
They’ve even got dream-machines
They are mesmerized
And you thought the Scorpions couldn’t be deep or profound. You think I’m being sarcastic, don’t you.
BLACKOUT (1982)
I’m not even going to shroud this in mystery or build this up for you; Blackout is unequivocally my favorite Scorpions album. First of all, it’s another one that’s significant for me, because I first heard the song “Blackout” at a young, impressionable age on my brother’s K-Tel Metal Force sampler cassette, which is also where I first heard ACCEPT, MEGADETH, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, DIO, METAl CHURCH, GRIM REAPER, and even STRYPER, and it didn’t sound like that other Scorpions song that was played on classic rock radio all the time. I was like, what the hell! the Scorpions aren’t glam-metal or pop-metal or any of these other condescending, poser genre names! They’re just a metal band!
If you haven’t heard “Blackout”, which opens the album Blackout, it has this one-chord riff that goes “bap-bap-bap, bap-bap-bap” and these lyrics about blacking out from drinking too much and a chorus where Klaus Meine screams, “I don’t wanna find out/I just wanna get out/blackout/I really had a blackout.” And it’s just this crunchy as all hell, middle-upper tempo heavy metal song that totally kicks ass as hard as anything Judas Priest or Iron Maiden had out at the time.
Secondly I consider Blackout to be the Screaming for Vengeance of the Scorpions’ career. That is, it’s their heaviest, most metallic, definitive release up to that time, and it’s on the precipice of the group’s big breakthrough; from when they went from being a cult metal band with a growing fan base to ultra-mega, mainstream rock stars. And, believe you me; Blackout is the most metal album the Scorpions have pretty much ever released! The distortion is on crunch, the songs are on fast, and the riffs are on chug, with two straight-up SPEED METAL tunes called “Now!” and “Dynamite”, and a second track with a palm-muted proto-thrash riff called “Can’t Live Without You,” which might give you the impression it’s a ballad by virtue of its title, but is actually a crushing, fist-pumping love letter… to the fans!
It’s also a testament to the Scorpions’ talent that they could seamlessly switch from the heavier stuff to the melodic, single-ready pop-metal of “No One Like You” and “You Give Me All I Need”, and make these songs fit perfectly within the rest of nine-song, 37-minute-long album. Did Judas Priest have such versatility in the songwriting department? Personally I don’t think so. They had to hire an outside writer to do “(Take These) Chains”, while Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, and Matthias Jabs were capable of going between an aggressive and romantic vibe all by themselves!
Yep, as controversial as this may sound, if we’re talking strictly the SONGS – NOT the guitar playing, shredding ability, or “heaviness”, but just the songs – the Scorpions beat Judas Priest hands down. Sorry, not sorry. And, to be honest, if we’re talking guitar crunch and all around heaviness, I believe the Scorpions beat Priest and Maiden as well. Seriously! Listen to Blackout back to back with Screaming for Vengeance or The Number of the Beast, and tell me which is the heaviest of the three!
There’s also a happy, good-time, big-chord, heavy metal power-pop song called “Arizona.” It seems a lot of metal bands had a song or two that’s basically Cheap Trick-style power-pop with more distortion on their late 70s and early 80s albums; check out the Saxon songs “Suzie Hold On” and “Out of Control”, Accept’s “Midnight Highway”, or even the Judas Priest tune “Evening Star” for other examples.
But, what would a Scorpions album be without a ballad? In this case, it’s the okay but not superb album-closing “When the Smoke Is Going Down”, a song that I have no great desire to talk about, since it comes at the end and is basically an afterthought. There’s also the heavy, slow, plodding “China White”, which some might call Scorpions-gone-doom metal and totally rules. In fact, if you’re a modern doom metal band looking for a somewhat unusual song to cover, there you go! And, in spite of the song’s implicitly drug-themed title, it’s actually an anti-war song.
After all, how you gonna shag all those groupies if the government is sending you off to war? Then, again, by this point, the Scorpions would have been too old to enlist in the military anyway.
LOVE AT FIRST STING (1984)
With metal fans moving on to heavier and more aggressive stuff in the two years since Blackout came out, and the Scorpions polishing up their sound a bit, I can see why Love at First Sting is considered by some to be the group’s big sellout album; an accusation not helped one bit by the fact that it includes their most popular song, that stupidly overplayed ode to cheap sex with the simplistic riff that kinda sounds like “Louie Louie”, just with lots of distortion. I mean, I still like “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, but I don’t ever need to hear it again.
I also find it hilarious how, as long as you don’t drop f-bombs and you use enough innuendos, you can write the dirtiest song ever and have it play at family restaurants, airports, and sporting events. Also see “You Shook Me All Night Long” for another fine example of this thinly veiled musical pornography. I’m not judging or anything; I just find it amusing.
Love at First Sting also has two of the Scorpions’ other most popular songs, the catchy-as-all-hell party anthem with the big chorus “Big City Nights” and the lovely album-closing ballad, “Still Loving You.” And, with the Scorpions among the few bands that made it out of the late 70s/early 80s heavy metal ghetto to become ultra-mega successful rock stars, I can definitely understand why more underground-leaning head bangers into thrash would think Love at First Sting is just a bunch of commercial bullshit for chicks and posers. I just don’t agree with them. But, then, I like DOKKEN.
No, but unless you’re only looking for the most aggressive stuff out there, how can head bangers deny “The Same Thrill”, which is fast and ass-kicking, MOTÖRHEAD-style speed metal, or “Coming Home”, which starts like a ballad but then gets all fast and ass-kicking and is about how playing to all the fans around the world is like “coming home”?
Then again, Dokken have a couple fast songs too.
As slick as the album may sound, it’s still got all the hooky, riff-filled, melodic hard rock and heavy metal one wants and expects from the Scorpions. It opens with “Bad Boys Running Wild”, which has another one of those criminally basic riffs that the Scorpions can get away with playing because of how strong the other elements are, particularly Klaus Meine’s singing and Matthias Jabs’ leads; otherwise, it has the most ass-simple, four-chord riff that a monkey could play. Not to mention that its “caustic” warning about the “dark” and “dangerous” streets is just so darn cute, quaint, and hilarious coming from these nearly 40-year-old rockers in the mid-80s during the height of crack and drive-by shootings.
Like, yo, daddio, the gangs don’t “rumble” with bats, knives, and chains anymore; they just shoot each other with Uzis and sawed off shotguns. At least Judas Priest took a more pro-active approach to their gang problem in “The Sentinel”, where their lone vigilante kills an entire gang by throwing knives at them.
You also get the excellent “I’m Leaving You”, which has a more complicated riff than the opening cut but is still super catchy, a surprisingly dark ‘n’ bleak song about young people caught in the crossfire of battle, that’s confusingly titled “Crossfire” and set to a marching drumbeat, and another attempt at Police-style reggae-rock called “As Soon as the Good Times Roll”, which sucks ass. Though, the song does show that Francis Buchholz can play dub-style bass lines, so if some reggae/dub leaning band needs a bass player, Buchholz is yer man!
Can you imagine BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE hiring the bass player from the Scorpions? Ha! That’s almost as absurd as Johnny Rotten recording an album with Steve Vai or Ginger Baker!
WORLDWIDE LIVE (1985)
Seven years, four studio albums, two lead guitarists, and one conquered world later, the Scorpions are no longer the rock ‘n’ roll underdogs they were on their first live album, Tokyo Tapes. The group’s second official double live album, Worldwide Live, which, as the title implies, wasn’t recorded at one show, but at a whole bunch of different ones around the world, is a celebration of the group’s world domination; there was even a companion documentary that came out around the same time. The rough edges have been smoothed out, and the Scorpions are now capable of producing note-perfect versions of the same set on a nightly basis. To some, this may seem antithetical to the ramshackle, raucous nature of rock ‘n’ roll; and to some, hey, it’s the Scorpions, their job is to rock, and they do their job well. I guess I can take it both ways as long as I like the band.
First of all, not only does Worldwide Live not repeat a single song from Tokyo Tapes, it doesn’t have anything from the Uli Jon Roth era at all. That’s right; even though songs like “Dark Lady”, “Robot Man”, “Top of the Bill”, “Pictured Life”, “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man”, or any of the 70s ballads could fit perfectly among the Scorpions’ 80s material, the group ignores these songs entirely; I guess it makes sense, since they have enough material with the Matthias Jabs lineup, and Matthias Jabs probably didn’t feel like learning Uli Jon Roth’s guitar solos. They do play “Another of Piece of Meat” and “Coast to Coast”, so clearly he doesn’t mind playing Michael Schenker’s leads; or the group made him, I dunno.
Furthermore, unlike Tokyo Tapes, there aren’t any new non-album tracks or pointless covers either. Every song on Worldwide Live is from one of the four studio albums that preceded it; specifically, they do five from Lovedrive, two from Animal Magnetism, four from Blackout, and five from Love at First Sting. If there’s any song I wish they’d played from one of these but didn’t, it’s probably “Don’t Make No Promises (Your Body Can’t Keep)” from Animal Magnetism. I just like that one!
There are a few subtle changes, like they clip the light opening to “Coming Home” and get right to the fast part, and they cut off the bit of heavy riffing at the end of the ballad “Holiday” as the crowd sings “ah-ah-ah” along with the song, which is followed by immediately by another ballad, “Still Loving You.” This would, I guess, become the customary slow section of the group’s live set; these days they perform “Send Me an Angel” and “Wind of Change” back to back, but obviously, those songs didn’t exist in 1985. There’s also some clap-n-chant-along audience participation during “Big City Nights”, and “Can’t Get Enough” is broken up by a mid-song break called “Six String Sting”, which is just screaming and guitar soloing. I also think fast tunes like “Dynamite” sound especially great live.
Otherwise, it’s another live album; it’s one of those things that you revisit every once in a while, particularly when you feel like marathon listening to a band’s whole discography, before relegating it to the slot on the shelf where you keep your Scorpions CDs for another few years. And, make sure to make some extra room with these super neat deluxe 50th anniversary versions, which are thick digipaks that easily smoke the original, plain CD releases! Worldwide Live actually comes with the documentary too! Hooray for bonus material and physical media!
And, though the Scorpions claim that the “true” way to experience the band is live, where Klaus Meine says brilliant stuff like, “Do you know what we’re doing tonight? We’re doing a live recording tonight!” and “The reason we love California so much is because you guys know how to party!”, I guess I have to be satisfied by hearing them in the “untrue” way, since they don’t perform some of my favorite tunes anymore.
Also, isn’t it hilarious how there was a time when “Rock You Like a Hurricane” was a new song, and people didn’t have to pretend to be excited to hear it?
SAVAGE AMUSEMENT (1988)
It took the group four years to come back with another album? In the liner notes, they talk about how longtime Scorpions producer Dieter Dierks totally just copied what Robert “Mutt” Lange did on the DEF LEPPARD album Hysteria. But it’s not as if Herman Rarebell lost one of his arms in a car accident! They just took that long because they meticulously recorded every little part, smoothing the album over, and making it sound as pristine as possible. That it has any personality at all is a testament to just how good the Scorpions are.
Seriously, they started working on Savage Amusement in 1986, and it came out in 1988, and it only has nine songs on it, and it’s only 37 minutes long! I get it; it’s still the 80s, and bands were recording for the vinyl LP format with a customary length of about 40 minutes. But, at the same time, when Def Leppard came back from their four-year gap, their album was an hour-long and had a dozen songs on it. To be fair, the Scorpions did write a handful of extra tunes that were included as bonus tracks on the 50th anniversary deluxe version and thus could have made the album longer, but chose not to, I guess.
Anyway, those “serious” metal heads lobbing the Scorpions with accusations of being a cheesy, sellout, pussy, pop/glam/hair-metal band for teenage girls could make their strongest case with Savage Amusement. You have to enjoy or, at very least, not mind big, gated, fake-sounding drums and a fair bit of mainstream pop – not pop-metal, but straight up MICHAEL JACKSON-style pop – to get into quite a bit of Savage Amusement. But, if you can get past these things, or hell, don’t mind these things in the first place, then Savage Amusement is a perfectly decent, if flawed Scorpions album.
Though, try not to throw up when you hear Klaus Meine sing, “Welcome to a trip into my hurt feelings”, which is the first line to a pretty lame power ballad called “Walking on the Edge”, which doesn’t deserve such an “edgy” song-title and is only saved, barely, by a Matthias Jabs’ lead and a few seconds of pretty flamenco work. There’s also another ballad at the end called “Believe in Love”, and it’s not that great either. I’d have easily swapped these out with any of the bonus cuts that weren’t on the album; particularly the fast tune which is curiously called “Fast and Furious” or, heck, their cover of “I Can’t Explain”, which was released as a b-side, but could just as easily have been on the album. In fact, I heard the Scorpions version before the original and absolutely loved it and could mistake it for one of their originals.
On the other hand, “Rhythm of Love” and “Every Minute Every Day”, with their new jack swing R&B funk beat and sex-under-candlelight sleaze vibe, are quintessential stripper anthems. That’s not necessarily a complaint, and I actually like “Rhythm of Love”, but “Every Minute Every Day” just sounds like a less good re-write of “Rhythm of Love.”
Savage Amusement has the rockers, though. You’ve got the sluggish but inspirational opener “Don’t Stop at the Top”, the appropriately titled head banging “We Let It Rock… You Let It Roll”, and the rather surprising, hits-you-from-out-of-nowhere speed-thrasher “Love on the Run.” So, when the Scorpions wanna bring the metal, they can still bring the damn metal! Also, ain’t it funny how the ones with the love-y song titles often end up being rippers, while songs with titles like “Walking on the Edge” are wussy ballads? And “Media Overkill” could have been a more serious rocker about a somewhat “heavy” topic, which is especially relevant in today’s world of smartphones and social media, had it not been set to the cheesy “Ghostbusters” beat or used the silly voice box effect.
Again, I’m not sure why the Scorpions felt the need to make an album as polished as Savage Amusement, especially since Love at First Sting seems polished enough; other than maybe the group was just going along with the trends of the time.
But they did, and it sold a few million units, and, in the end, when you’re trying to spread Western Capitalism into the Eastern bloc in order to bring on the wind of change, isn’t that all that matters?
CRAZY WORLD (1990)
If I’m not mistaken, Crazy World is thought of as “Wind of Change” and ten other songs. Or that, for most people who know of the Scorpions, it’s just a dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record with this one bright spot in the form of an emotionally stirring power ballad, in which a group of moronic tone deaf rock stars take a break from singing about partying and banging groupies to do a song about the end of the Cold War and the promise of peace and prosperity in the Eastern bloc.
Of course, 33 years ago, the Scorpions couldn’t know that Putin would invade Ukraine. And, when I recently saw them live, they performed “Wind of Change” with the big projector screen flashing a blue and yellow peace sign. They also played another ballad from Crazy World called “Send Me an Angel”, which is also quite emotionally stirring with its big chorus and some neat use of keyboards, right after it too.
But, even without the two ballads, Crazy World is not just another typical, dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record. How can it be? Several of the members of the Scorpions don’t even have hair! No, but, seriously, we’re talking about the Scorpions here, not POISON or ENUFF Z’NUFF. Singer Klaus Meine, lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, rhythm and sometimes lead guitarist Rudolf Schenker, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Herman Rarebell are masters of their craft and have enough new ideas and surprises to keep any of their albums from falling too deeply into tired genre clichés. Hence why I can darn near love the odd start/stop timing and heavy riff-filled breakdown in “To Be with You in Heaven”, even if I think the song is overall too schmaltzy.
But Crazy World is definitely the band’s attempt at getting back to the rock after the way too slick and poppy Savage Amusement. Not that Crazy World doesn’t have its share of poppy choruses, and the drums still have that late 80s, echo effect, but there are no new jack swing, R&B groove “Rhythm of Love” type songs, and the album just rocks a lot more.
And, if the opening cut “Tease Me Please Me” doesn’t totally kick your ass with one of the catchiest sleaze-metal riffs ever, you’re wrong, stupid, and dumb, and I don’t wanna have anything to do with you. It’s like the Scorpions’ most perfectest song about the all-important topic of banging loose sluts… but keeping it a secret, so that nobody knows that the loose sluts are loose sluts. It’s immediately followed by a driving, “Big City Nights”-style, chugga-chugga rocker called “Don’t Believe Her”, which kicks slightly less ass, if only because the chorus is a little too cheesy.
Elsewhere, you get this slow, bluesy, and kinda dark song called “Restless Nights” that turns into another catchy pop-metal tune in the chorus. You have “Lust or Love”, which is another catchy sleaze-rocker, but that reflects on the effect all that easy sex has on a man’s psyche. And you have the grooving heavy stomper “Money and Fame”, which has some nice bluesy slide guitar. And there’s the surprisingly pessimistic title track, which has a really great descending guitar riff in the chorus and lyrics that “oo-oo-oo, it’s a crazy world.” Damn, with lyrics like “bust my balls for the tax man” and “they spent our money on missiles for the third world war”, the song should really be called “Lousy World.” What happened to all the hope and optimism from “Wind of Change”?
But the biggest surprise on the album comes from these two faster punky songs that sound like the Scorpions are channeling the RAMONES. I’m totally seriously! “Kicks After Six” has a chorus that goes “oo-oo-oo-oo” like the BEACH BOYS and is about some normal workaday wage slave chick who turns into a ho at night, and “Hit Between the Eyes” has a surf-rockabilly lead that you’d never expect to hear in a Scorpions song!
So, to think of Crazy World as a typical, dumb, 80s hair-metal cock rock record that’s merely a product of its time is the epitome of critical laziness. It’s honestly a damn fine record, and, really the best album the Scorpions would release in two full decades.
Sadly the “winds of change” were definitely on the horizon, but they were more like the “winds of strange”, as in the winds of pussy emitted by one big pussy fart called the 1990s.
FACE THE HEAT (1993)
Longtime bassist Francis Buchholz couldn’t face the heat that it’s now the 90s, and there’s a new sheriff in town in the form of grunge and/or alternative rock. After nearly twenty years with the Scorpions, Buchholz has been replaced by Ralph Rieckermann, who plays… SLAP BASS. Thankfully it’s only on one song, but I have a feeling, if not for the other members intervening, it would have been on more.
On top of that, while hard rock and heavy metal did a good job cock-blocking women’s lib for more than two solid decades, now here we are in the 90s, and you have these new bands with weird, non-bad ass names like NIRVANA and PEARL JAM, who actually want women to NOT just dance in cages or give blowjobs backstage!!! And, two years after the Scorpions released a song celebrating the fall of the Soviet Union, you have some dreadlock-wearing jackass rapping over Zeppelin riffs about how Communism is a good thing!
How the hell are the Scorpions supposed to exist in an environment like this? AC/DC, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, and all the European power metal bands acted as though the 80s never ended, serving up only the stuff their fans wanted to hear. KISS and MÖTLEY CRÜE shamelessly released grunge albums, while W.A.S.P. went the industrial route. And DIO, Accept, Judas Priest, and our boys the Scorpions attempted to have it both ways, absorbing enough 90s influences to potentially appeal to the alternative crowds, while not alienating their fans too much. Well, some more than others; hearing Udo rap and sing political lyrics on Death Row is, er, something else…
Thankfully, the Scorpions did NOT go that far. But it’s clear from the down-tuned guitars, heavy PANTERA-ish groove, and vaguely socially conscious lyrics of the opening track, “Alien Nation”, the Scorpions were very much trying to keep up with the 90s. “No Pain No Gain” is similarly dark, heavy, and groove-oriented, and “Unholy Alliance” could be mistaken for a Tony Martin-era 90s Sabbath song; that is, until the funky chorus with Klaus Meine going, “uh-uh-uh-uh-unholy alliance”, at which point, you could mistake the Scorpions for KING’S X. But, even with these new-found influences, these are still very enjoyable songs, and it’s kinda neat hearing Matthias Jabs and Rudolf Schenker playing angrier riffs in a lower tuning; not to mention that this isn’t the first time that Herman Rarebell has done funky groove drumming.
But, if you’re just jonesin’ for the Scorpions of old, you still have a delightfully sleazy cock rocker like “Someone to Touch”, which shows that no amount of 90s progressivism can stop a Scorpion from making passes at the few leftover female audience members who didn’t get lesbian haircuts. And “Nightmare Avenue” is the type of Scorpions-by-way-of- Motörhead tune that an 80s holdover in a motorcycle jacket and aviator shades clamors for.
On the other hand, you can tell it’s the 90s because of the ridiculous sounding slap bass on the otherwise normal bluesy hard rocker “Taxman Woman” and the try-hard angst on the Ugly Kid Joe-style alternative pop-metal “Hate to Be Nice”, which has one of those eminently catchy lead guitar lines that you’ll either love or think sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I honestly like these songs, and they’re not too big of a departure from classic Scorpions, but you can definitely tell that the group is trying to extend an olive branch to the kids with eyebrow piercings.
Also Face the Heat has no less than THREE power ballads! These are so by the numbers, you’ll wonder why the Scorpions spent any time on them at all; literally another, ugh, “we are the world”, pro-world peace ballad called “Under the Same Sun” and another, double ugh, “I’m so lonely since you left me” break-up song with the extremely original title “Lonely Nights.” The other ballad, “Woman”, is only unique in that it’s got keyboards and fake strings. Would that have been so bad if the band cut the album by three songs and reduced it to a compact eight songs and 38 minutes long? Actually, nine, if you count the cover of “Latest Flame” hidden at the end.
And, there you have it; the Scorpions actually pretty okay 90s alt-metal album! Oh, wait, they made more albums in the 90s? Uh oh…
LIVE BITES (1995)
Ten years, three studio albums, one longtime bass player, and one musical and cultural paradigm shift later, the Scorpions are now a well-established classic rock band trying to stay “relevant” (whatever that even means) in the “angsty”, “hip”, “progressive”, “sarcastic”, and terminally anti-fun 90s. On one hand, they want to please their fan base of baby boomers and older generation X rockers, and on the other, they want to find some way to appeal to the “alternative nation” of slackers, grunge kids, and morons in baggy pants.
Why else would they call their third live album Live Bites and write the name of the album in the same gritty typewriter font that you’d find on an alternative or punk CD? Get it? It’s like that shitty 90s indie comedy Reality Bites, where they’re saying that playing live “totally bites, dude”, but they actually DO like playing live. That or Live Bites consists of “bites” and snippets from live concerts from the band’s previous world tour.
See, if Tokyo Tapes presents the Scorpions as raw, energetic rock ‘n’ roll underdogs, and Worldwide Live is the “we conquered the world”, glorified greatest hits live album, then Live Bites is the "for hardcore fans only" release that features eleven live tunes, with a greater focus on obscure tracks, and three entirely new studio cuts. In fact, I’m guessing the CD was more or less a contractual obligation, and the band felt they had to throw on some new studio material to help it move a few more units than it would have if it was just all live.
Furthermore, if you’re expecting a Scorpions live release to include “No One Like You”, “The Zoo”, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, “Blackout”, or “Big City Nights”, then prepare for disappointment! It’s kind of refreshing that they didn’t feel any need to give fans new live versions of these tried (tired) and tested live standards among the eleven live tunes. Then again, it does include such recent hits ‘n’ popular faves like “Tease Me Please Me”, “Rhythm of Love”, and “Wind of Change”, so they clearly felt the CD needed some commercial appeal.
The most curious song on the entire collection, however, is “Living for Tomorrow”, which was neither on any Scorpions studio album, nor is one of the three new studio tracks, but for some reason, was released as a single in 1992 in the Netherlands and nowhere else.
It’s kinda neat hearing Klaus Meine translate the song for the Russian crowd, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of those, ugh, “we are the world”, pro-world peace ballads that Michael Jackson, QUEEN, and now the Scorpions love doing so much, because apparently they got sick of making ballads about getting dumped by chicks.
Speaking of songs about getting dumped by chicks, they do “In Trance”, which I thought the band didn’t play anymore, since it’s an Uli Jon Roth song, so that’s pretty cool. They also pull out the Police-style reggae rocker “Is There Anybody There?” from Lovedrive, which is actually a good, if really odd choice to randomly pull out. And they perform the ballad at the end of Blackout, “When the Smoke Is Going Down”, which I never thought was that great. If they’re going to do obscure songs from Blackout, why not do the excellent proto-doom “China White”?
You also get some expected tunes of recent Scorpions vintage; one from Savage Amusement, three from Crazy World, and two from Face the Heat. Gotta say, though, that “Rhythm of Love”, as commercial and poppy as it is, still sounds way better on natural sounding drums than the ultra-gated, fake-sounding echo-drums on the studio recording. And, when played live, “No Pain No Gain” and “Alien Nation” sound less like groove-oriented 90s alternative metal and just slamming heavy rock tunes that actually fit quite well within the rest of the Scorpions’ work. There’s also a track called “Overture in V”, which is just Matthias Jabs playing guitar solos.
But, really, the real reason the fans spent the $15 on an okay but pointless live CD was, of course, to hear the three new studio songs. So, were the three new songs worth the full price of a CD? HELL NO.
Okay, “Edge of Time” is a fun, bouncy, novelty pop-rock song that sounds like a rejected 80s track with Ralph Rieckermann’s synthetic sounding Seinfeld slap bass, so that one gets a pass just for its sheer silliness, even if it’s another world peace song. On the other hand, “Heroes Don’t Cry” is a melodramatic ballad which also sounds like some rejected studio material, but just isn’t very good. And “White Dove” is YET ANOTHER pro-world peace ballad that CLEARLY FUCKING WAS an album outtake or rejected track, since it sucks ass, except that it has gospel soul vocals, which don’t make it suck ass any less! Why are the Scorpions writing so many fucking ballads? Seriously, counting the studio tracks, this CD has FIVE FUCKING BALLADS!!!
And, what’s with this new obsession with world peace? What happened to the songs about screwing sluts??? What happened to the SASS???
Sorry for the all the cuss words. I’m so glad I got this CD used.
PURE INSTINCT (1996)
Well, longtime drummer Herman Rarebell is gone now too. Maybe his last name should have been RareBALLS, since he apparently took the Scorpions’ balls with him. The drummer they used was just a session guy. I would be too if Pure Instinct was the album I was introduced on.
But, first, let’s talk about me again! Pure Instinct is another one that’s personally significant to me! I saw the Scorpions live at Pine Knob on this tour, and it’s the first album the Scorpions released after I became a fan of hard rock and heavy metal. When Face the Heat came out, I was a nine year old boy into comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, action movies, and pro-wrestling. By the time Pure Instinct came out, I was a twelve-year-old MAN listening to, ahem, METALLICA, Megadeth, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, DEEP PURPLE, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, GUNS N’ ROSES, and, of course, the Scorpions!
In all honesty, however, I actually mainly went so I could see the Scorpions’ opener, Alice Cooper, of whom I was a much, much bigger fan. I only knew the Scorpions from their Best of Rockers and Ballads compilation CD, which is pretty much all you need to know before going to see the Scorpions, since they barely alter their live set on a tour-to-tour basis and just include two or three songs from their newest album every time, before permanently retiring the new songs from their live set.
In the case of Pure Instinct, that’s probably a good thing. I never actually bought Pure Instinct when it came out, so I didn’t know what it sounded like at the time. I just remember the hilarious cover of a naked family in a zoo cage with a bunch of wild animals looking in at the humans, and how the mother’s nipple was all exposed. They had to have an alternate cover to sell at Walmart and K-Mart, and that alternate cover is a photo of Rudolf Schenker, Matthias Jabs, Ralph Rieckermann, and Klaus Meine with their mouths open wide like a bunch of idiots and Rudolf Schenker holding his Flying-V guitar as if the band doesn’t sound like tired old men, and the album isn’t full of ballads and acoustic pop-rock songs.
But they do, and it is. What’s really sad is that the album starts off really promisingly with “Wild Child”, a total old school 80s-style heavy hard rocker that makes it seem as though the 90s never happened. Other than some keyboards in the song that sound like bagpipes, the Scorpions are right back in their natural environment. There’s also “Oh Girl (I Wanna Be with You)”, another hard rocker with some terrific guitar work but an overly saccharine chorus that threatens to ruin the whole song. Pretty much the rest of the album sucks.
For instance, “But the Best for You” is a total bore that alternates between acoustic Latin lounge music and basic major chords. “Stone in My Shoe” uses the “Sweet Jane” riff, but is otherwise a mediocre pop-rock song. At least “Where the River Flows” has some country-ish steel guitar twang to make it a mildly interesting once-through listen. And “Time Will Call Your Name” sounds like an acoustic song from Led Zeppelin III with the bongo drums and Middle Eastern melody playing behind the acoustic strumming, only it’s not good.
And the rest are just boring, time-filling ballads with generic love song titles like “When You Came into My Life”, “Are You the One?”, and “You and I.” There are two other songs, but who cares?
More like Pure STINK if you ask me!
Sadly, things would get worse before they got better.
EYE II EYE (1999)
It’s also the first album with Herman’s Rarebells’ official, full-time replacement, new drummer James Kottak. Good job, guy… except I can’t even tell when you’re actually playing the drums and when the computer is playing them for you.
Let’s put this in perspective. Following the severe musical shift from hard rock to “alternative” rock in 1992, the Scorpions made a noble attempt at adapting to the 90s in 1993 with heavier, down-tuned riffs and some funkier beats that didn’t otherwise interfere too much with their sound on the honestly pretty good Face the Heat. Then, in 1996, they followed it with Pure Instinct, which is just a tired collection of ballads and mediocre pop-rock songs that sounded like the group was just knocking out a contractual obligation. And, finally, in what seems like the most cynical and calculated move in their entire career, the Scorpions unleashed Eye II Eye onto their unsuspecting fans, filling it top to bottom with programmed trip-hop beats, acoustic and/or lightly distorted guitars, samples, basic major chords, “sensual” whisper-moan vocals, and boring ballads, which are only made comically worse by incorporating programmed modern R&B percussion.
In other words, Eye II Eye is an absurdly unnatural departure from anything people think of when they think of the Scorpions, entirely lacking in any conviction, and wearing its commercial intentions like the cheap cologne the Scorpions look like they’re advertising in all of the unintentionally funny photos in the CD booklet.
The handful of times it does get “hard” or “heavy” is with these alternative metal and nu-metal songs, which have the soft verse/loud chorus formula, only saved from 100% sucking to 95% sucking by the lead guitar work. And even then the guitars seem a bit processed. Also Klaus Meine sings incredibly stupid lines like “my mind is like a tree/and I want you to water me” in (sigh) “Mind Like a Tree”, while the song “Aleyah” repeats the title like 50 gazillion times. I guess it’s also worth mentioning that “Freshly Squeezed” sounds like it has an accordion in the background, and there’s some polyrhythmic percussion in “Skywriter” and bongo drums in “10 Light Years Away.” But none of these little touches make these songs any less boring.
At first, I thought the album was kind of intriguing. The first two songs, “Mysterious” and “To Be No. 1”, with their bouncy programmed beats, bits of keyboard, and Ralph Rieckermann’s hypnotic bass lines, are at very least kind of catchy and fun. And parts of these actually seemed like the group was trying to pay tribute to “krautrock” groups like Can and early Kraftwerk. But then the “experiment” starts to wear extremely thin and gets awfully repetitive, especially since every song that isn’t a ballad has nearly the same drum beat. Were the Scorpions even intending on performing these songs live, or were they making music for the dance clubs?
To make matters even more wretched, “Du Bist So Schmutzig” has new drummer James Kottak RAPPING. Yes, add the Scorpions to the list of classic bands and artists that embarrass themselves with that one song where they attempt to rap; others in this group include Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Accept, and former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno. No, I won’t tell you what songs. You’ll have to do your own research.
Other than the first two songs and the guitar solos, the only other bright spot on the album is a hard rock-ish song called “Priscilla”, in which Klaus Meine seems to be trying to sing like Alice Cooper. And then that’s ruined by a terrible chorus that goes, “Priscilla oh Priscilla, tonight I’m gonna kill ya.”
With fourteen tracks that span 63 painful minutes, it’s actually kind of impressive how far the Scorpions went to give the impression that Eye II Eye was the legitimate start of a new phase in their career, rather than just cheap cash-in.
Then you realize that they thought it was a good idea to dress like Bono.
Just when you thought the Scorpions could not do anything else to take a dump all over their legacy, they cover a song by the late 80s teen pop star TIFFANY.
Almost as if the 90s were a bad nightmare, the Scorpions got together with an orchestra and recorded an album of classic material, that features no songs from their 90s albums; yeah, yeah, I know that “Wind of Change” and “Send Me an Angel” are from Crazy World, which came out in 1990, but we all know that 1990 was still pretty much the 80s. Moment of Glory also includes two new songs, one of which is their Tiffany cover. And, yeah, the timing for this release is a little suspect, since METALLICA released S&M the previous year, and the Scorpions even tried to get Michael Kamen to conduct their rock-band-backed-by-an-orchestra release. But, apparently, the Scorpions had been talking about working with an orchestra since 1995, and their release is a studio album rather than a live concert. Also, for what it’s worth (probably nothing), they got Christian Kolonovitz to conduct instead of Michael Kamen.
More than anything, it seems like the Scorpions released Moment of Glory and its 2001 follow-up, Acoustica, to get fans’ and critics’ attention away from the abortion that was Eye II Eye. After all, they probably didn’t have time to sit down and write all new songs, but at the same time, felt if they just flooded the market with two more official releases, they could buy themselves time before writing all new songs in a style that their fans are more used to; ya know, a style called "rock."
What I wanna know is why the rhythm section was lumped in with the other “guest musicians.” I mean, I guess it makes sense to throw in the bass player Ken Taylor among the guests, since he’s not officially in the Scorpions. But that raises the question of why their actual bass player, Ralph Rieckermann, sat out these sessions. Meanwhile James Kottak had been drumming with the Scorpions since 1996, and he’d continue to do so until 2016, yet he gets treated like a hired gun. Furthermore, the DVD cover of Moment of Glory only shows Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, and Matthias Jabs, as if they’re the only official members of the band! What dicks!
But, hey, Moment of Glory isn’t that bad! I mean, it’s not that good either. But, as far as entertaining, one-and-done listens go, Moment of Glory is definitely fun, if pointless and silly. If anything, I’d have wished “Deadly Sting Suite” was the ENTIRE record, since it’s essentially symphonic, orchestral power-metal, even if the Scorpions had no idea they were dabbling in this genre! It’s a medley consisting of “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man” and “Dynamite”, two of the Scorpions most classic metal songs, embellished with strings, and could fit right in there with At the Edge of Time/Behind the Red Mirror-era BLIND GUARDIAN.
Sadly, the “Deadly Sting Suite” is the exception, and, for some reason, they focus mostly on ballads; there are six total! That’s more than half the album, and that includes the two new songs. With that said, the strings seem like a natural enough fit on “Moment of Glory”, “Send Me and Angel”, and “Wind of Change”, even if “Send Me an Angel” has annoying guest vocals from some guy named Zucchini. “Lady Starlight” already had strings on it, so the Moment of Glory version is essentially just a re-recording with some minor touches. But “Still Loving You” gets comically overbearing by the end.
They also could have recorded a few more obscure songs. Instead we get one from Animal Magnetism, four songs from Love at First Sting, two from Crazy World, two parts of old obscure deep cuts crammed into a medley, and two new songs that, thankfully, the Scorpions would never perform again. And, yes, I’m counting “Crossfire” as one of the Love at First Sting songs, even though it hardly resembles the original and is more like a new piece of classical music. While opening track “Hurricane 2000” actually sounds pretty cool at first, but is ruined by “soulful” female backup vocals. On the other hand, this new version of “Big City Nights” sounds like it could have been the catalyst for that Rock of Ages Broadway musical show-tune schlock. Klaus Meine doesn’t even sing on it! Who the hell is this Ray Wilson, and why did the Scorpions hand him the microphone?
Anyway, maybe a better title for this release would have been Moment of Uselessness, but on the bright side, there’s a funny photo of a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing jewelry on the cover.
More like A-CRAP-STICK-a if you ask me! As in, a stick of crap! Nah, it’s not that bad. It’s also not that good either. I think I said that about the last release as well.
Six years, two lousy studio albums, a collection of re-recorded songs backed by an orchestra, one longtime drummer, and the complete loss of commercial viability later, and the Scorpions are now left refurbishing their well-worn classic material and giving the perhaps false impression that it’s time to throw in the towel. Acoustica was recorded live and mostly acoustic in Spain with an extra guitar player, a keyboardist, and some broad on cello, probably because only Europeans and not “thick Americans” could truly appreciate the “brilliance” of doing an unplugged version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, cleverly retitled “Hurricane 2001”, which isn’t all that different from the previous year’s “Hurricane 2000”, that has those annoying “soulful” backup vocals that ruined the song the first time they were used.
But here we go again; you get one surprising cut from Virgin Killer, the two ballads from Lovedrive, one popular classic from Animal Magnetism, two predictable songs from Love at First Sting, the two ballads from Crazy World, one snoozer from Pure Instinct, three entirely new songs – although the VHS version has four new songs, and I’m not sure why “Back to You” was excised from the CD, but I don’t think I care one way or another – and three completely unnecessary covers. Were the Scorpions so demoralized by this point that they had to rely on covering popular songs by KANSAS, Queen, and the CARS? Seriously! I mean, I love all three of these bands, but the Scorpions were KINGS of their genre; so why are they acting like a glorified bar band? I mean, it’s just three songs, but the Scorpions have a FUCK TON of their OWN great songs! Plus, I never particularly liked “Love of My Life” in the first place.
On the plus side, the Scorpions now treat everybody in the band as an official member, rather than relegating the rhythm section to the “guest musicians” side of the credits. On the minus side, it would be the final Scorpions album for bassist Ralph Rieckermann. More like Ralph REEKermann if you ask me! Nah, I kid. Godspeed, Ralph!
On the double-minus side, you get to hear “Wind of Change”, “Send Me and Angel”, “Still Loving You”, and “Rock You Like Hurricane” all over again after hearing them on Moment of Glory less than a year earlier; and, other than ruining “Rock You Like a Hurricane” a second time, these new versions add nothing worthwhile to these flogged to death Scorpions classics. On the double-plus side, the Scorpions do some neat, weird, and, well, “interesting” things to other old songs.
For instance, they turn “The Zoo” into a smoky blues bar song with the keyboard playing the main riff, and they play “Holiday” as a sexy mariachi dance number, complete with bongo drums and female backup vocals, evoking the feeling of being on an expensive honeymoon excursion in some super-hot Latin American country or, I guess, Spain. Meanwhile “Catch Your Train” is turned into a twangy, country-ish honky-tonk number you’d expect to hear at a cowboy bar with line dancers. I suppose, if their point was to show the world that a good song is a good song no matter what style it’s played in, they accomplished that.
What they didn’t accomplish, sadly, was writing good NEW songs. “Life Is too Short”, “When Love Kills Love”, and “I Wanted to Cry (but the Tears Wouldn’t Come)” are all ass-boring ballads that are every bit as interesting as their titles suggest. And, given what these songs sound like, I have no reason to believe the one new song that was left off the CD is any better. I know; I could go on YouTube right now and end this mystery once and for all, but as Nigel Tufnel once said, “Best leave it unsolved.”
But would the Scorpions ever solve the mystery to making a good album again? Read on and see!
Oh great, with the Scorpions’ now having Polish bassist Paweł Mąciwoda in the band, I’ll have to resort to copying and pasting the way I do every time I mention Motörhead, since I have no idea how to manually create the umlaut over the second “o” in Motörhead or the “ą” character in Mąciwoda. Then again, in the Unbreakable CD booklet, the new bass player’s name is written as Maciwoda, so maybe I don’t need to type his last name with that funny “ą” character. Does the “ą” character even make a different sound than a standard “a”, or are Polish people trying to be clever, since everyone thinks they’re stupid?
Unbreakable is EASILY the best Scorpions album in fourteen years; or since Crazy World. Now, for people who stopped following the Scorpions around the time of Crazy World, that probably doesn’t mean much. But, for the hardcore fans who were open minded enough to embrace Face the Heat and Live Bites, only to be kicked in the balls with Pure Instinct and Eye II Eye, and then be given a weak pair of consolation albums in Moment of Glory and Acoustica, Unbreakable is the long awaited reprieve and sign of hope that maybe it’s not quite time for the Scorpions to hang up their guitars.
To make matters even more wretched, “Du Bist So Schmutzig” has new drummer James Kottak RAPPING. Yes, add the Scorpions to the list of classic bands and artists that embarrass themselves with that one song where they attempt to rap; others in this group include Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Accept, and former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno. No, I won’t tell you what songs. You’ll have to do your own research.
Other than the first two songs and the guitar solos, the only other bright spot on the album is a hard rock-ish song called “Priscilla”, in which Klaus Meine seems to be trying to sing like Alice Cooper. And then that’s ruined by a terrible chorus that goes, “Priscilla oh Priscilla, tonight I’m gonna kill ya.”
With fourteen tracks that span 63 painful minutes, it’s actually kind of impressive how far the Scorpions went to give the impression that Eye II Eye was the legitimate start of a new phase in their career, rather than just cheap cash-in.
Then you realize that they thought it was a good idea to dress like Bono.
MOMENT OF GLORY (2000)
Just when you thought the Scorpions could not do anything else to take a dump all over their legacy, they cover a song by the late 80s teen pop star TIFFANY.
Almost as if the 90s were a bad nightmare, the Scorpions got together with an orchestra and recorded an album of classic material, that features no songs from their 90s albums; yeah, yeah, I know that “Wind of Change” and “Send Me an Angel” are from Crazy World, which came out in 1990, but we all know that 1990 was still pretty much the 80s. Moment of Glory also includes two new songs, one of which is their Tiffany cover. And, yeah, the timing for this release is a little suspect, since METALLICA released S&M the previous year, and the Scorpions even tried to get Michael Kamen to conduct their rock-band-backed-by-an-orchestra release. But, apparently, the Scorpions had been talking about working with an orchestra since 1995, and their release is a studio album rather than a live concert. Also, for what it’s worth (probably nothing), they got Christian Kolonovitz to conduct instead of Michael Kamen.
More than anything, it seems like the Scorpions released Moment of Glory and its 2001 follow-up, Acoustica, to get fans’ and critics’ attention away from the abortion that was Eye II Eye. After all, they probably didn’t have time to sit down and write all new songs, but at the same time, felt if they just flooded the market with two more official releases, they could buy themselves time before writing all new songs in a style that their fans are more used to; ya know, a style called "rock."
What I wanna know is why the rhythm section was lumped in with the other “guest musicians.” I mean, I guess it makes sense to throw in the bass player Ken Taylor among the guests, since he’s not officially in the Scorpions. But that raises the question of why their actual bass player, Ralph Rieckermann, sat out these sessions. Meanwhile James Kottak had been drumming with the Scorpions since 1996, and he’d continue to do so until 2016, yet he gets treated like a hired gun. Furthermore, the DVD cover of Moment of Glory only shows Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, and Matthias Jabs, as if they’re the only official members of the band! What dicks!
But, hey, Moment of Glory isn’t that bad! I mean, it’s not that good either. But, as far as entertaining, one-and-done listens go, Moment of Glory is definitely fun, if pointless and silly. If anything, I’d have wished “Deadly Sting Suite” was the ENTIRE record, since it’s essentially symphonic, orchestral power-metal, even if the Scorpions had no idea they were dabbling in this genre! It’s a medley consisting of “He’s a Woman – She’s a Man” and “Dynamite”, two of the Scorpions most classic metal songs, embellished with strings, and could fit right in there with At the Edge of Time/Behind the Red Mirror-era BLIND GUARDIAN.
Sadly, the “Deadly Sting Suite” is the exception, and, for some reason, they focus mostly on ballads; there are six total! That’s more than half the album, and that includes the two new songs. With that said, the strings seem like a natural enough fit on “Moment of Glory”, “Send Me and Angel”, and “Wind of Change”, even if “Send Me an Angel” has annoying guest vocals from some guy named Zucchini. “Lady Starlight” already had strings on it, so the Moment of Glory version is essentially just a re-recording with some minor touches. But “Still Loving You” gets comically overbearing by the end.
They also could have recorded a few more obscure songs. Instead we get one from Animal Magnetism, four songs from Love at First Sting, two from Crazy World, two parts of old obscure deep cuts crammed into a medley, and two new songs that, thankfully, the Scorpions would never perform again. And, yes, I’m counting “Crossfire” as one of the Love at First Sting songs, even though it hardly resembles the original and is more like a new piece of classical music. While opening track “Hurricane 2000” actually sounds pretty cool at first, but is ruined by “soulful” female backup vocals. On the other hand, this new version of “Big City Nights” sounds like it could have been the catalyst for that Rock of Ages Broadway musical show-tune schlock. Klaus Meine doesn’t even sing on it! Who the hell is this Ray Wilson, and why did the Scorpions hand him the microphone?
Anyway, maybe a better title for this release would have been Moment of Uselessness, but on the bright side, there’s a funny photo of a Tyrannosaurus Rex wearing jewelry on the cover.
ACOUSTICA (2001)
More like A-CRAP-STICK-a if you ask me! As in, a stick of crap! Nah, it’s not that bad. It’s also not that good either. I think I said that about the last release as well.
Six years, two lousy studio albums, a collection of re-recorded songs backed by an orchestra, one longtime drummer, and the complete loss of commercial viability later, and the Scorpions are now left refurbishing their well-worn classic material and giving the perhaps false impression that it’s time to throw in the towel. Acoustica was recorded live and mostly acoustic in Spain with an extra guitar player, a keyboardist, and some broad on cello, probably because only Europeans and not “thick Americans” could truly appreciate the “brilliance” of doing an unplugged version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, cleverly retitled “Hurricane 2001”, which isn’t all that different from the previous year’s “Hurricane 2000”, that has those annoying “soulful” backup vocals that ruined the song the first time they were used.
But here we go again; you get one surprising cut from Virgin Killer, the two ballads from Lovedrive, one popular classic from Animal Magnetism, two predictable songs from Love at First Sting, the two ballads from Crazy World, one snoozer from Pure Instinct, three entirely new songs – although the VHS version has four new songs, and I’m not sure why “Back to You” was excised from the CD, but I don’t think I care one way or another – and three completely unnecessary covers. Were the Scorpions so demoralized by this point that they had to rely on covering popular songs by KANSAS, Queen, and the CARS? Seriously! I mean, I love all three of these bands, but the Scorpions were KINGS of their genre; so why are they acting like a glorified bar band? I mean, it’s just three songs, but the Scorpions have a FUCK TON of their OWN great songs! Plus, I never particularly liked “Love of My Life” in the first place.
On the plus side, the Scorpions now treat everybody in the band as an official member, rather than relegating the rhythm section to the “guest musicians” side of the credits. On the minus side, it would be the final Scorpions album for bassist Ralph Rieckermann. More like Ralph REEKermann if you ask me! Nah, I kid. Godspeed, Ralph!
On the double-minus side, you get to hear “Wind of Change”, “Send Me and Angel”, “Still Loving You”, and “Rock You Like Hurricane” all over again after hearing them on Moment of Glory less than a year earlier; and, other than ruining “Rock You Like a Hurricane” a second time, these new versions add nothing worthwhile to these flogged to death Scorpions classics. On the double-plus side, the Scorpions do some neat, weird, and, well, “interesting” things to other old songs.
For instance, they turn “The Zoo” into a smoky blues bar song with the keyboard playing the main riff, and they play “Holiday” as a sexy mariachi dance number, complete with bongo drums and female backup vocals, evoking the feeling of being on an expensive honeymoon excursion in some super-hot Latin American country or, I guess, Spain. Meanwhile “Catch Your Train” is turned into a twangy, country-ish honky-tonk number you’d expect to hear at a cowboy bar with line dancers. I suppose, if their point was to show the world that a good song is a good song no matter what style it’s played in, they accomplished that.
What they didn’t accomplish, sadly, was writing good NEW songs. “Life Is too Short”, “When Love Kills Love”, and “I Wanted to Cry (but the Tears Wouldn’t Come)” are all ass-boring ballads that are every bit as interesting as their titles suggest. And, given what these songs sound like, I have no reason to believe the one new song that was left off the CD is any better. I know; I could go on YouTube right now and end this mystery once and for all, but as Nigel Tufnel once said, “Best leave it unsolved.”
But would the Scorpions ever solve the mystery to making a good album again? Read on and see!
UNBREAKABLE (2004)
Oh great, with the Scorpions’ now having Polish bassist Paweł Mąciwoda in the band, I’ll have to resort to copying and pasting the way I do every time I mention Motörhead, since I have no idea how to manually create the umlaut over the second “o” in Motörhead or the “ą” character in Mąciwoda. Then again, in the Unbreakable CD booklet, the new bass player’s name is written as Maciwoda, so maybe I don’t need to type his last name with that funny “ą” character. Does the “ą” character even make a different sound than a standard “a”, or are Polish people trying to be clever, since everyone thinks they’re stupid?
Unbreakable is EASILY the best Scorpions album in fourteen years; or since Crazy World. Now, for people who stopped following the Scorpions around the time of Crazy World, that probably doesn’t mean much. But, for the hardcore fans who were open minded enough to embrace Face the Heat and Live Bites, only to be kicked in the balls with Pure Instinct and Eye II Eye, and then be given a weak pair of consolation albums in Moment of Glory and Acoustica, Unbreakable is the long awaited reprieve and sign of hope that maybe it’s not quite time for the Scorpions to hang up their guitars.
From the basic but effective metallic cover art to the normal and not embarrassing black and white band photos to the thirteen actual songs, which are either good or great, the Scorpions realize that their genre is heavy hard rock with distorted guitars; not trip-hop/techno/alternative, which should be nobody’s genre. Though, as good as Unbreakable is, it’s not exactly a complete return to the “classic” Scorpions sound either. In fact, as evidenced by the album opener, “New Generation”, Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs are now all about down-tuned, Sabbath-style, 70s metal riffing. Seriously! And the cross pollination of low-end blues metal with Klaus Meine’s emotive singing honestly sounds remarkably fresh and shows that the Scorpions can absorb new influences without entirely abandoning their signature sound; save for the annoying kids singing at the end of “New Generation.” I also really love James Kottak’s natural sounding, non-reverbed, and non-electronically enhanced 70s drum tone.
And, “New Generation” isn’t the only song on Unbreakable that sounds like 70s metal or doom metal. There is still plenty of that blues metal riffing sprinkled throughout the album; for instance, the superb “Love ‘em or Leave ‘em” kicks in with a total chugging 70s motorcycle riff before turning into an old school Scorpions party-metal anthem, and “Blood too Hot” is more Motörhead and AC/DC by way of Scorpions and might be the most ass-kicking song the Scorpions have done since the mid-80s. Hell, the piano ballad “Maybe I Maybe You” even ends with some really great and unexpected Sabbath-y riffs!
That’s the other thing that I love about Unbreakable; the ballads are kept to a minimum. Other than the one I just mentioned, there’s “Through My Eyes”, which is not a cover of the CREATION song, but a good semi-ballad that rocks during the choruses, and “She Said”, which is above average for ballad.
And, since it is still a Scorpions album, you get the sleazoid rocker “Deep and Dark”, which sounds like the spiritual brother of “Tease Me Please Me.” You also get the old school basic major chord “Borderline”, which might remind you of earlier basic major chord Scorpions songs like “Hold Me Tight” and “Falling in Love”, but with some weird effects on the vocals. You get the super happy heavy metal power-pop of “Someday Is Now.” You get the double-tracked electric/acoustic sentimental pop-rocker “My City My Town.” And you get another sentimental heavy pop-rock tune called “Remember the Good Times”, which is mixed like a demo on purpose, because it’s the “retro garage mix”, or some such silly nonsense.
Sadly there’s also some, sigh, nu-metal-ish, jugga-jugga-space-jugga-jugga riffing in the otherwise good ‘n’ catchy “Can You Feel It” and “This Time”, almost as if they couldn’t go without trying to appeal to KORN and DISTURBED fans. But, thankfully these moments are brief and don’t really ruin anything… too much.
What can I say? Unbreakable is a great, if not perfect, comeback from the brink of utter disaster. The question is, could they maintain this level of goodness, or would they screw up again by trying other dumb shit?
That’s a rhetorical question.
You know it’s a “serious” album, because the Scorpions didn’t even use their iconic logo, reverting back to the boring Times New Roman font that they hadn’t used since Fly to the Rainbow!
What the hell happened?!! The Scorpions had just got back on track with their strongest album in fourteen years, and they were in good company as the rock world seemed to be recovering from the damage done by the depressing, anti-fun, baggy pants wearing 90s. Judas Priest had reunited with Rob Halford and released their big comeback Angel of Retribution; Alice Cooper went back to his well-loved spooky hard rock style on The Eyes of Alice Cooper; Dio was doing epic, fantasy metal again; and new bands were coming out playing old styles of hard rock and heavy metal. So it makes no sense at all that the Scorpions would next release an album in 2007 that sounds like it should have come out in 1999; like it should have come out before Unbreakable, not several years after!
The person who advised the group to make an album of down-tuned industrial metal, nu-metal, and heavy alternative styles that became outdated THREE YEARS EARLIER, and to use photos of the members posing among gritty cyberpunk architecture and some cyborg android woman, like they’re POWERMAN 5000 or STATIC X, either is an idiot or maliciously trying to steer the group in a bad direction. I mean, I know who that person is; it’s Desmond Child. Why did he do this? Was he jealous that Alice Cooper didn’t hire him to produce Brutal Planet seven years earlier?
I ask because Humanity: Hour I seems to be directly inspired by, if not damn near ripping off, the 2000 Alice Cooper album Brutal Planet. Brutal Planet and its 2001 follow-up Dragontown are the darkest and heaviest albums in the Alice Cooper discography. They are also very “of the time”, incorporating the down-tuned, basic, blocky, “dah-dah, dah-dah” riffing and rigid, machine-like backbeat found in the industrial and alternative metal of ROB ZOMBIE, RAMMSTEIN, and HELMET; along with singing about a fallen world of vice, violence, war, death, destruction, and all other things that are not cute little puppies and kittens.
And I swear opening track “Hour I” uses the down-tuned, basic, blocky, “dah-dah, dah-dah” riffing and rigid, machine-like backbeat found in the industrial and alternative metal of Rob Zombie, Rammstein, and Helmet, and is also about a fallen world of vice, violence, war, death, destruction, and all other things that are not cute little puppies and kittens! I guess the big difference between the two is that the Scorpions blame all of the world’s problems on religion, where Alice blames all of the world’s problems on the lack of religion. Whatever, boomers.
Otherwise every track on Humanity: Hour I that isn’t a ballad tries to meld industrial metal, nu-metal, or alternative metal with the classic 80s Scorpions formula. “The Game of Life” sounds like a down-tuned, alt-metal, minor note version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”; “Humanity” sounds like PRONG playing “Rhythm of Love”; “321” is WHITE ZOMBIE-by-way-of-Scorpions with hilarious “SQUEE” pinch harmonics; “We Were Born to Fly” reminds me of (puke) LINKIN PARK; “You’re Lovin’ Me to Death” reminds me of (double puke) SMASHING PUMPKINS; and “The Cross” sounds like those really heavy riffs that play at the end of every Beavis and Butthead episode. Also, four of the twelve songs are ballads, which, as you could guess, are four too many.
And, I swear, it must have been tough for Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs, a couple of old school rock dudes, to play their guitars in such a stilted, robotic style. This is not like Face the Heat or Unbreakable, where they’re just playing in a lower tuning; they’re actively doing the mechanistic industrial metal/nu-metal, two/three chord thing that’s way below their skill level. Thankfully, at the very least, Klaus Meine just sounds like Klaus Meine, not adding any weird vocal effects or changing his singing style in any particular way, while James Kottak does a good job adapting to these newly chosen subgenres, and Jabs plays good ol’ fashion guitar solos; making sure people know they are, in fact, still listening to the Scorpions and not that goofy band that did Eye II Eye. Humanity: Hour I is at least better than Pure Instinct and Eye II Eye, which isn’t really saying much.
Also, while it would seem that Humanity: Hour I is a concept album, especially since the liner notes actually say so, the only real connecting theme I get from these songs is that they’re kind of dark and pessimistic; or, in the case of “Love Is War”, downright HATEFUL. Can you believe such a happy-go-lucky, peace-to-the-world-and-shag-every-girl band would write lyrics like “you were once a friend to me/ now you are my enemy/ I will re-write history/ and you will not exist to me”?
Brutal (planet)!
And, “New Generation” isn’t the only song on Unbreakable that sounds like 70s metal or doom metal. There is still plenty of that blues metal riffing sprinkled throughout the album; for instance, the superb “Love ‘em or Leave ‘em” kicks in with a total chugging 70s motorcycle riff before turning into an old school Scorpions party-metal anthem, and “Blood too Hot” is more Motörhead and AC/DC by way of Scorpions and might be the most ass-kicking song the Scorpions have done since the mid-80s. Hell, the piano ballad “Maybe I Maybe You” even ends with some really great and unexpected Sabbath-y riffs!
That’s the other thing that I love about Unbreakable; the ballads are kept to a minimum. Other than the one I just mentioned, there’s “Through My Eyes”, which is not a cover of the CREATION song, but a good semi-ballad that rocks during the choruses, and “She Said”, which is above average for ballad.
And, since it is still a Scorpions album, you get the sleazoid rocker “Deep and Dark”, which sounds like the spiritual brother of “Tease Me Please Me.” You also get the old school basic major chord “Borderline”, which might remind you of earlier basic major chord Scorpions songs like “Hold Me Tight” and “Falling in Love”, but with some weird effects on the vocals. You get the super happy heavy metal power-pop of “Someday Is Now.” You get the double-tracked electric/acoustic sentimental pop-rocker “My City My Town.” And you get another sentimental heavy pop-rock tune called “Remember the Good Times”, which is mixed like a demo on purpose, because it’s the “retro garage mix”, or some such silly nonsense.
Sadly there’s also some, sigh, nu-metal-ish, jugga-jugga-space-jugga-jugga riffing in the otherwise good ‘n’ catchy “Can You Feel It” and “This Time”, almost as if they couldn’t go without trying to appeal to KORN and DISTURBED fans. But, thankfully these moments are brief and don’t really ruin anything… too much.
What can I say? Unbreakable is a great, if not perfect, comeback from the brink of utter disaster. The question is, could they maintain this level of goodness, or would they screw up again by trying other dumb shit?
That’s a rhetorical question.
HUMANITY: HOUR I (2007)
You know it’s a “serious” album, because the Scorpions didn’t even use their iconic logo, reverting back to the boring Times New Roman font that they hadn’t used since Fly to the Rainbow!
What the hell happened?!! The Scorpions had just got back on track with their strongest album in fourteen years, and they were in good company as the rock world seemed to be recovering from the damage done by the depressing, anti-fun, baggy pants wearing 90s. Judas Priest had reunited with Rob Halford and released their big comeback Angel of Retribution; Alice Cooper went back to his well-loved spooky hard rock style on The Eyes of Alice Cooper; Dio was doing epic, fantasy metal again; and new bands were coming out playing old styles of hard rock and heavy metal. So it makes no sense at all that the Scorpions would next release an album in 2007 that sounds like it should have come out in 1999; like it should have come out before Unbreakable, not several years after!
The person who advised the group to make an album of down-tuned industrial metal, nu-metal, and heavy alternative styles that became outdated THREE YEARS EARLIER, and to use photos of the members posing among gritty cyberpunk architecture and some cyborg android woman, like they’re POWERMAN 5000 or STATIC X, either is an idiot or maliciously trying to steer the group in a bad direction. I mean, I know who that person is; it’s Desmond Child. Why did he do this? Was he jealous that Alice Cooper didn’t hire him to produce Brutal Planet seven years earlier?
I ask because Humanity: Hour I seems to be directly inspired by, if not damn near ripping off, the 2000 Alice Cooper album Brutal Planet. Brutal Planet and its 2001 follow-up Dragontown are the darkest and heaviest albums in the Alice Cooper discography. They are also very “of the time”, incorporating the down-tuned, basic, blocky, “dah-dah, dah-dah” riffing and rigid, machine-like backbeat found in the industrial and alternative metal of ROB ZOMBIE, RAMMSTEIN, and HELMET; along with singing about a fallen world of vice, violence, war, death, destruction, and all other things that are not cute little puppies and kittens.
And I swear opening track “Hour I” uses the down-tuned, basic, blocky, “dah-dah, dah-dah” riffing and rigid, machine-like backbeat found in the industrial and alternative metal of Rob Zombie, Rammstein, and Helmet, and is also about a fallen world of vice, violence, war, death, destruction, and all other things that are not cute little puppies and kittens! I guess the big difference between the two is that the Scorpions blame all of the world’s problems on religion, where Alice blames all of the world’s problems on the lack of religion. Whatever, boomers.
Otherwise every track on Humanity: Hour I that isn’t a ballad tries to meld industrial metal, nu-metal, or alternative metal with the classic 80s Scorpions formula. “The Game of Life” sounds like a down-tuned, alt-metal, minor note version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”; “Humanity” sounds like PRONG playing “Rhythm of Love”; “321” is WHITE ZOMBIE-by-way-of-Scorpions with hilarious “SQUEE” pinch harmonics; “We Were Born to Fly” reminds me of (puke) LINKIN PARK; “You’re Lovin’ Me to Death” reminds me of (double puke) SMASHING PUMPKINS; and “The Cross” sounds like those really heavy riffs that play at the end of every Beavis and Butthead episode. Also, four of the twelve songs are ballads, which, as you could guess, are four too many.
And, I swear, it must have been tough for Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs, a couple of old school rock dudes, to play their guitars in such a stilted, robotic style. This is not like Face the Heat or Unbreakable, where they’re just playing in a lower tuning; they’re actively doing the mechanistic industrial metal/nu-metal, two/three chord thing that’s way below their skill level. Thankfully, at the very least, Klaus Meine just sounds like Klaus Meine, not adding any weird vocal effects or changing his singing style in any particular way, while James Kottak does a good job adapting to these newly chosen subgenres, and Jabs plays good ol’ fashion guitar solos; making sure people know they are, in fact, still listening to the Scorpions and not that goofy band that did Eye II Eye. Humanity: Hour I is at least better than Pure Instinct and Eye II Eye, which isn’t really saying much.
Also, while it would seem that Humanity: Hour I is a concept album, especially since the liner notes actually say so, the only real connecting theme I get from these songs is that they’re kind of dark and pessimistic; or, in the case of “Love Is War”, downright HATEFUL. Can you believe such a happy-go-lucky, peace-to-the-world-and-shag-every-girl band would write lyrics like “you were once a friend to me/ now you are my enemy/ I will re-write history/ and you will not exist to me”?
Brutal (planet)!
STING IN THE TAIL (2010)
And, just like that, the Scorpions make it seem as though the last twenty years never happened!
If you’re one of those Gen-X guys who thought the party was over, and that all the trollops with teased hair started dressing in flannel or became “politically aware”, so you got married, started a family, and stopped paying attention to any music since 1992, and then you happened to hear the Scorpions’ 2010 album, Sting in the Tail, you would never think the Scorpions had dabbled in alternative metal, shitty ass boring pop rock, techno-alternative, symphony-backed re-recordings of old songs, unplugged versions of old songs, doom metal, or industrial/nu metal since Crazy World way back in 1990!
I don’t know if they realized that there were no new trends left to follow, or if they just saw their musical peers going back to the signature styles which made them all popular, but the bottom line is that, the Scorpions have RETURNED to the mid-80s hard rock and heavy metal with big hooks, catchy choruses, and melodic guitar solos that made them such huge stars in the first place. With Sting in the Tail, the Scorpions proudly declare that the world has gotten too damn serious, and that the groupies need to get shagged again!
You might be compelled to ask, but didn’t Unbreakable already do that? It KINDA did, but it still had the down-tuned 70s blues metal riffs and motorcycle chugalug that was atypical for the Scorpions; Sting in the Tail sounds like a long-lost album that should have come out between Blackout and Love at First Sting. Other than the cheesy Ed Hardy/Jersey Shore/Guido-bro tattoo art and a harrowing anti-war power ballad called “The Good Die Young”, which makes a reference to, I’m assuming, Islamic terrorism with lyrics like, “When the bomb went off at the side of the road/ sounds of breaking steel, windshields full of blood”, there is nothing on Sting in the Tail that doesn’t sound like an homage to Ronald Reagan’s non-PC, hedonistic yet reactionary, pro-Capitalist 1980s.
And make no mistake; when you hear Rudolf Schenker strumming the opening chords to the “Rock You Like a Hurricane” callback “Raised on Rock”, and you hear Matthias Jabs’ lovely guitar solo, and you hear James Kottak’s reverbed but still natural-sounding 80s drum tone, and you hear Klaus Meine singing, “I was born in a hurricane/ nothing to lose and everything to gain”, and you don’t notice Paweł Mąciwoda’s bass lines at all, you’ll know this IS your father’s Scorpions! In fact, if your old man hears you jamming Sting in the Tail, he’ll say, “gosh, I’ve never heard THESE Scorpions songs before! I must have missed them when I was a tail-chasing young whippersnapper before I met your mom!” And you’ll say, “Ohhh dad, this is the NEW Scorpions album! They’re playing in standard tuning again!”
Okay, you might say, it may sound like an early 80s Scorpions album, but it is it good? As Varg Vikernes would say, “Let’s find out!” You get songs with names you’ve heard a million times, like “No Limit”, “Rock Zone”, “Turn You On”, “Let’s Rock!”, and “Spirit of Rock”, along with a song with a HILARIOUS pun in the title. You get predictable rhyme schemes like “he’s an angel but no one can tell/ he might be from heaven might be from hell” and “so come on/ if you wanna feel that sting/ come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, baby shake that thing.”
You get mid-tempo, chugga-chugga metal with some neat use of the wah-wah pedal. You get a stomping Van Halen with double-entendre sleaze-rocker; that’s the one with the hilarious pun in the title. You get a few optimistic anthems with big, memorable choruses. You get a speedy cock-rocker. You get the slow and sexy Zeppelin-ish groove rocker designed explicitly for the purpose of being the music at a strip club. And you get some honestly pretty good ballads, particularly “Lorelei”, which is automatically classy and cultured, since it uses an old-timey name.
Oh, and the ballad “SLY” is allegedly about a girl named Sly, but the title is actually short for “Silly Little Yuppies”, and the song became the catalyst for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Okay, haha, no, it’s short for “Stupid Loud Yankees” and is actually the Scorpions’ thinly veiled attack on their American fans.
Haha, I kid again! The Scorpions love America. Nah, the truth is “SLY” is short for “Still Loving Yemen” and is another one of the group’s songs promoting world peace, particularly in Yemen, and signaling their support for an end to the Yemeni civil war.
In other words, HELL FUCKING YES, IT’S GOOD!!! Sting in the Tail has all the clichés of the 80s done with zero irony or self-awareness, and yet none of the twelve songs sound like a song you’ve actually heard the Scorpions do before; well, except for the opening track, but that was on purpose.
And the last song, “The Best Is Yet to Come”, is ruined by an annoying ass chorus that goes, “Hey-ah-eh-oh/ don't look now, the best is yet to come/ hey-ah-eh-oh/ take my hand, the best is yet to come.”
But, above everything else, you get proof that bands should pick the style that they’re best at and NEVER, EVER deviate from it.
COMEBLACK (2011)
“We can’t remember exactly the day, the month or the hour… but at some point during this tour we were simply overwhelmed by the success of ‘Sting in the Tail’ and our farewell tour. The idea to go back into the studio was born out of pure excitement… screaming fans wherever we went! You ask why? The answer is quite simple… this album is an encore for diehard fans, saying thank you for all the support for so many years.”I’m sure the “diehard fans” were pleased to have to shell out another ten to fifteen bucks to hear new recordings of “Rhythm of Love”, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”, “The Zoo”, “Blackout”, “No One Like You”, “Still Loving You”, and “Wind of Change.”
Like every other legacy band, the Scorpions did the album where they were backed by an orchestra, and they recorded an unplugged album, and now, they’ve put out an album where they’ve re-recorded a bunch of their old songs along with some covers you’ve heard fifty bajillion times. At least, in their case, they didn’t feel the need to release an album where they re-recorded old songs AND another album where they recorded covers; thankfully, they consolidated both of these pointless releases into a single CD.
But how does one even rate an album like Comeblack? I mean, it’s technically a brand new studio album, and if it was the first Scorpions album you’d ever heard, because you asked your mom to get you a Scorpions album, and she went to the CD store, and she picked out the one with the vintage car design on the cover, then you’d be introduced to seven of the best and most popular arena rock, pop-metal, and power ballads of the 80s, along with a diverse array of popular covers, and thus find plenty of enjoyment out of Comeblack. Hell, for some people who don’t care which version of the song they hear, Comeblack might be the only Scorpions album they even need! Otherwise, for most people who grew up listening to the radio or watching MTV and know both the Scorpions tunes and the cover songs, Comeblack will be a listen-once-and-sell-on-Ebay sorta deal.
The most annoying thing about Comeblack is that the band didn’t even dig deep into their catalog. It actually would have been kind of interesting to hear the Matthias Jabs/Paweł Mąciwoda/James Kottak lineup doing Uli Jon Roth era material like “Pictured Life”, “Top of the Bill”, “Dark Lady”, or “The Sails of Charon.” But, NOPE! You get seven of the group’s most popular songs, where the only differences I can hear between the original recordings and the new ones are slightly thicker and crunchier distortion and Klaus Meine singing some different vocal inflections in certain lines.
Two noteworthy exceptions are that “Rhythm of Love” has a more natural drum sound, since they didn’t use the overly-processed late 80s, “Mutt” Lange production, and “The Zoo” now has STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN-style bluesy guitar accents over the “chunga-chunga-chunga-DAH-DAH” part. Also, “Blackout” doesn’t end with glass shattering at the end.
As for the covers, the best and most interesting ones are “Tainted Love” done as a heavy metal song and “Children of the Revolution”, a 70s glam-rock classic which translates well to heavy metal; as proven nineteen years earlier when it was covered by Paul Di’Anno’s KILLERS. Otherwise, the Scorpions do faithful and not particularly interesting versions of 60s British favorites by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the KINKS, and the SMALL FACES. In fact, when I was listening to this CD with my girlfriend, we couldn’t help but notice that they actually managed to suck all the life out of “Ruby Tuesday.”
Also, I know that the Scorpions probably feel a certain kinship with their fellow Axis buddies in the Land of the Rising Sun, but I think it’s totally bogus how only the Japanese version of Comeblack has their cover of the YARDBIRDS’ “Shape of Things”, a song I actually would have loved to hear the Scorpions do!
And, one last thing; if the Scorpions put out an album with some 1960s songs that influenced them, couldn’t they have re-recorded or unearthed some of their OWN songs from that still apocryphal, mystery-shrouded seven year period before Lonesome Crow? I mean, they’re the ones who keep bragging about how they formed way back in 1965! So, like, what the hell, dudes! Give us some actual proof that you EXISTED in 1965!
THAT would have been a great “encore for the diehard fans.”
MTV UNPLUGGED IN ATHENS (2014)
Thirteen years, three studio albums that range from okay to fantastic, another studio album of re-recorded songs and covers, one expendable bass player, and the unfulfilled threat of retiring since the last “unplugged” album, and the Scorpions have been re-invigorated by a world that once again seems ready to ROCK. With the no-fun, overly serious, baggy pants and eyebrow piercing 90s now nearly a decade and half in the past, and rock spending the 00s recovering from the 90s and realizing that leather jackets, tight jeans, bullet belts, aviator shades, and sleeveless muscles t-shirt are actually cool and not dorky, the Scorpions seem re-invigorated---
--- there was an MTV that plays music and not just stupid reality TV in the 2010s??!! I mean, The Jerry Springer Show wasn’t cancelled until 2019, but still.
I know, this is MTV in a Hellenic country, where probably the culture and marketing is different from that of the United States, but it’s still surprising to see a band like the Scorpions release a CD with “MTV Unplugged” in the title in 2014! That’s such a 90s thing, when grunge bands like Nirvana and ALICE IN CHAINS had some of their biggest selling CDs with these acoustic live recordings; not to mention Kiss doing their famous MTV Unplugged live show which launched their whole reunion with Ace and Peter way back on Halloween of 1995!
Also, obviously, the Scorpions had already released Acoustica back in 2001. And, in a way, MTV Unplugged in Athens is kind of a redux of that. Probably the biggest and most obvious difference between Acoustica and MTV Unplugged in Athens is that the Scorpions aren’t doing stupid covers of well-known songs. The other is that, in the former case, the band didn’t play a single song from their latest studio album at the time, which they were probably ashamed of and wanted forgotten as quickly as possible; while in the latter case, they do two songs from Sting in the Tail, because they’re actually proud of it.
They also do three from Blackout, the three well-known songs from Love at First Sting, both ballads from Crazy World, one from their second to worst album Pure Instinct, and five new songs, two of which would be on their next studio album! In fact, how could one expect “Dancing with the Moonlight” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” to NOT be re-recorded with loud, distorted electric instruments? They rock too much to just exist in the unplugged world! The other three original tunes are more like solo showcase pieces for the three main Scorpions; a neat jam focusing on Matthias Jabs’ soloing called “Delicate Dance” and two ballads, one of which has Rudolf Schenker on lead vocals, cuz hey!
Holy shit, they turn “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Big City Nights” into serious epics with new arrangements, minor notes played on flamenco guitar and piano, and marching/galloping percussion. God, I love that the Scorpions are now engaging in SPINAL TAP levels of pretention! Seriously! And “Blackout” actually sounds bad-ass with the chorus riff played on strings! Also “Sting in the Tail” and “Can’t Live Without You” are given the folky, acoustic blues treatment, which is neat. There’s also piano on “Still Loving You” and accordion on “Wind of Change”; “The Best Is Yet to Come” is actually better than the studio version, since the “Hey-oh-eh-oh” part in the chorus is sung by the backup singers rather than Klaus Meine, and thus isn’t nearly as annoying; and “No One Like You” doesn’t get any great re-arrangement or special treatment, other than being played with hollowed out guitars, but sounds okay nonetheless on a CD and DVD set you’ll listen to and/or watch all of once. Yeah, unlike Acoustica, MTV Unplugged in Athens graciously also includes a DVD of the concert.
Like with Acoustica, the Scorpions are backed by a whole bunch of musicians. But – and you may want to sit down for this – MTV Unplugged in Athens features NONE of the guest musicians from Acoustica. That’s right, so if you went out and bought MTV Unplugged in Athens expecting to hear Christian Kolonovitz, Johan Daansen, Mario Argandona, Ariana Arcu, Hille Bemelmanns, Liv Van Aelst, and Kristel Van Craen, PREPARE TO BE DENIED!!!
But don’t break out the sleeping pills JUST YET; our boys Klaus, Rudolf, Matthias, James, and Pawel are backed by this NEW set of guest musicians and singers; Mikael Nord Andersson, Martin Hansen, Hans Gardemar, Ola Hjelm, Ingo Powitzer, Pitti Hecht, Iriena Shalenkova, Elena Shalenkova, Ewa Moszysnka, Katja Kaminskagia, Alexandros Botinis, Marsela Bassiou-Bineri, Lilia Giousoupova, George Gatanos, Morten Harket, Johannes Strate, CÄTHE, and Dimitra Kokkori. THAT’S RIGHT; all your favorites on extra guitars, pianos, violins, violas, accordions, and singing. Even if this second generation of backup musicians isn’t as good as the first generation, there are more of them. And more automatically means better.
Wait a sec. Maybe you should reconsider whether your life is worth living. CÄTHE isn’t on the CD, but only on the DVD! So, for all the CÄTHE fans, get ready to fire up the DVD player to hear her sing on “In Trance”! Actually, get ready to fire up the DVD player if you just want to hear acoustic versions of “Pictured Life”, “Speedy’s Coming”, and “Born to Touch Your Feelings”, because those aren’t on the CD either; nor is a “drum-off” between James Kottak and Pitti Hect.
YES, THAT PITTI HECHT.
First of all, let me make this clear; it’s absolutely beyond retarded, annoying, absurd, ludicrous, silly, and, above all, quite insulting to hardcore fans like ME, and possibly YOU, that, in an era when most people don’t buy new CDs, bands still release a whole bunch of different versions of the same album with different “bonus tracks.” The standard version of Return to Forever that you might have found at your local FYE has twelve songs on it. That’s a good amount of songs! If you bought and listened to it, and were satisfied with the brand spanking new, twelve-song, 48-minute-long 2015 Scorpions release Return to Forever, because it totally rocked your balls off and shows that age has no bearing on a band’s ability to unleash killer-ass hard edged yet melodic rock ‘n’ roll music, you’re in for surprise. You’re in for a SHOCK, ARRGGHHH!!!
There are FIVE OTHER versions of Return to Forever, all with different sets of bonus tracks! If you enjoy just HAVING a group’s entire discography, the Scorpions, or more likely their record company, just made doing so a much more cumbersome task. Fortunately for me, I got this stacked, comprehensive “tour edition” version of Return to Forever, which has all of the bonus tracks from every version -- seven extra tracks -- for a total of NINETEEN songs, or basically the equivalent of two full length Scorpions albums.
But, even still, which version do I even review? Do I talk about the standard twelve-track version as a separate entity APART from the “bonus tracks”, or do I talk about my fully intact, NINETEEN-song version, as if the “bonus tracks” are part of the main album? The fact that I even have to consider such a question diminishes the entire concept of the album being a complete work unto itself and reduces it to just being a randomly assembled compilation of songs.
I mean, why the hell weren’t “Dancing with the Moonlight”, “Crazy Ride”, “One and One Is Three”, and “Delirious” on the main album? They’re great songs that should not have been sent off to the “bonus tracks” shtetl! On the other hand, while I’m glad that my version of the album doesn’t end with the meh ballad “Gypsy Life”, the first “bonus track”, “The World We Used to Know”, is an acoustic/ electric pop-rock song which dredges up that Queen/ Michael Jackson “we are the world”/ world peace crap that the Scorpions throw on an album every now and then for some stupid reason.
Ugh, anyway, like with Sting in the Tail, the Scorpions are doing their good ol’ fashioned 80s style of catchy, hooky, melodic, eminently hummable hard rock and heavy metal, along with a few ballads and a sugary pop-rock number or two, like it’s still the early/mid 80s, and the band hasn’t progressed beyond Love at First Sting. I could easily imagine some baby boomer or older Gen-X’er, who was a huge Scorpions fans in the early 80s, mistaking “Rock My Car”, which has a chorus that goes, “rock-rock-rock my car/ let’s push the pedal down to the metal”, for something off of Animal Magnetism. It even has those great “woa-oh-oh” group vocals. At this point, the only really “new” influence comes in the form of some tasty bluesy licks in the opening track “Going Out with a Bang”, which seems to imply that Return to Forever would be the final Scorpions albums; as we all know, IT WASN’T.
And, also like Sting in the Tail, in spite the songs on Return to Forever being in the group’s tried ‘n’ true signature sound, not a single one sounds like a rehash or rewrite of an older song; okay, the ballads “Gypsy Life”, “When the Truth Is a Lie”, and “Who We Are” aren’t particularly remarkable. But the majority of the songs sound new, fresh, and original, with an insane level of consistency that should not be possible from men of such advanced age.
Granted, and I neglected to mention this in the Sting in the Tail review, the Scorpions had some help writing songs from their producers Mikael Nord Andersson and Martin Hansen, who helped again. And that’s perfectly fine if it keeps the Scorpions on track with terrific melodic 80s metal insta-classics like “We Built This House”, “Catch Your Luck and Play”, and “All for One”, along with the swinging, “Hit the Road, Jack”-inspired “The Scratch”, and even the sentimental power-pop ballad “Rollin’ Home” with its “We Will Rock You”-style drums and “woa-oh-oh-oh” group chants.
Holy shit, they turn “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Big City Nights” into serious epics with new arrangements, minor notes played on flamenco guitar and piano, and marching/galloping percussion. God, I love that the Scorpions are now engaging in SPINAL TAP levels of pretention! Seriously! And “Blackout” actually sounds bad-ass with the chorus riff played on strings! Also “Sting in the Tail” and “Can’t Live Without You” are given the folky, acoustic blues treatment, which is neat. There’s also piano on “Still Loving You” and accordion on “Wind of Change”; “The Best Is Yet to Come” is actually better than the studio version, since the “Hey-oh-eh-oh” part in the chorus is sung by the backup singers rather than Klaus Meine, and thus isn’t nearly as annoying; and “No One Like You” doesn’t get any great re-arrangement or special treatment, other than being played with hollowed out guitars, but sounds okay nonetheless on a CD and DVD set you’ll listen to and/or watch all of once. Yeah, unlike Acoustica, MTV Unplugged in Athens graciously also includes a DVD of the concert.
Like with Acoustica, the Scorpions are backed by a whole bunch of musicians. But – and you may want to sit down for this – MTV Unplugged in Athens features NONE of the guest musicians from Acoustica. That’s right, so if you went out and bought MTV Unplugged in Athens expecting to hear Christian Kolonovitz, Johan Daansen, Mario Argandona, Ariana Arcu, Hille Bemelmanns, Liv Van Aelst, and Kristel Van Craen, PREPARE TO BE DENIED!!!
But don’t break out the sleeping pills JUST YET; our boys Klaus, Rudolf, Matthias, James, and Pawel are backed by this NEW set of guest musicians and singers; Mikael Nord Andersson, Martin Hansen, Hans Gardemar, Ola Hjelm, Ingo Powitzer, Pitti Hecht, Iriena Shalenkova, Elena Shalenkova, Ewa Moszysnka, Katja Kaminskagia, Alexandros Botinis, Marsela Bassiou-Bineri, Lilia Giousoupova, George Gatanos, Morten Harket, Johannes Strate, CÄTHE, and Dimitra Kokkori. THAT’S RIGHT; all your favorites on extra guitars, pianos, violins, violas, accordions, and singing. Even if this second generation of backup musicians isn’t as good as the first generation, there are more of them. And more automatically means better.
Wait a sec. Maybe you should reconsider whether your life is worth living. CÄTHE isn’t on the CD, but only on the DVD! So, for all the CÄTHE fans, get ready to fire up the DVD player to hear her sing on “In Trance”! Actually, get ready to fire up the DVD player if you just want to hear acoustic versions of “Pictured Life”, “Speedy’s Coming”, and “Born to Touch Your Feelings”, because those aren’t on the CD either; nor is a “drum-off” between James Kottak and Pitti Hect.
YES, THAT PITTI HECHT.
RETURN TO FOREVER (2015)
First of all, let me make this clear; it’s absolutely beyond retarded, annoying, absurd, ludicrous, silly, and, above all, quite insulting to hardcore fans like ME, and possibly YOU, that, in an era when most people don’t buy new CDs, bands still release a whole bunch of different versions of the same album with different “bonus tracks.” The standard version of Return to Forever that you might have found at your local FYE has twelve songs on it. That’s a good amount of songs! If you bought and listened to it, and were satisfied with the brand spanking new, twelve-song, 48-minute-long 2015 Scorpions release Return to Forever, because it totally rocked your balls off and shows that age has no bearing on a band’s ability to unleash killer-ass hard edged yet melodic rock ‘n’ roll music, you’re in for surprise. You’re in for a SHOCK, ARRGGHHH!!!
There are FIVE OTHER versions of Return to Forever, all with different sets of bonus tracks! If you enjoy just HAVING a group’s entire discography, the Scorpions, or more likely their record company, just made doing so a much more cumbersome task. Fortunately for me, I got this stacked, comprehensive “tour edition” version of Return to Forever, which has all of the bonus tracks from every version -- seven extra tracks -- for a total of NINETEEN songs, or basically the equivalent of two full length Scorpions albums.
But, even still, which version do I even review? Do I talk about the standard twelve-track version as a separate entity APART from the “bonus tracks”, or do I talk about my fully intact, NINETEEN-song version, as if the “bonus tracks” are part of the main album? The fact that I even have to consider such a question diminishes the entire concept of the album being a complete work unto itself and reduces it to just being a randomly assembled compilation of songs.
I mean, why the hell weren’t “Dancing with the Moonlight”, “Crazy Ride”, “One and One Is Three”, and “Delirious” on the main album? They’re great songs that should not have been sent off to the “bonus tracks” shtetl! On the other hand, while I’m glad that my version of the album doesn’t end with the meh ballad “Gypsy Life”, the first “bonus track”, “The World We Used to Know”, is an acoustic/ electric pop-rock song which dredges up that Queen/ Michael Jackson “we are the world”/ world peace crap that the Scorpions throw on an album every now and then for some stupid reason.
Ugh, anyway, like with Sting in the Tail, the Scorpions are doing their good ol’ fashioned 80s style of catchy, hooky, melodic, eminently hummable hard rock and heavy metal, along with a few ballads and a sugary pop-rock number or two, like it’s still the early/mid 80s, and the band hasn’t progressed beyond Love at First Sting. I could easily imagine some baby boomer or older Gen-X’er, who was a huge Scorpions fans in the early 80s, mistaking “Rock My Car”, which has a chorus that goes, “rock-rock-rock my car/ let’s push the pedal down to the metal”, for something off of Animal Magnetism. It even has those great “woa-oh-oh” group vocals. At this point, the only really “new” influence comes in the form of some tasty bluesy licks in the opening track “Going Out with a Bang”, which seems to imply that Return to Forever would be the final Scorpions albums; as we all know, IT WASN’T.
And, also like Sting in the Tail, in spite the songs on Return to Forever being in the group’s tried ‘n’ true signature sound, not a single one sounds like a rehash or rewrite of an older song; okay, the ballads “Gypsy Life”, “When the Truth Is a Lie”, and “Who We Are” aren’t particularly remarkable. But the majority of the songs sound new, fresh, and original, with an insane level of consistency that should not be possible from men of such advanced age.
Granted, and I neglected to mention this in the Sting in the Tail review, the Scorpions had some help writing songs from their producers Mikael Nord Andersson and Martin Hansen, who helped again. And that’s perfectly fine if it keeps the Scorpions on track with terrific melodic 80s metal insta-classics like “We Built This House”, “Catch Your Luck and Play”, and “All for One”, along with the swinging, “Hit the Road, Jack”-inspired “The Scratch”, and even the sentimental power-pop ballad “Rollin’ Home” with its “We Will Rock You”-style drums and “woa-oh-oh-oh” group chants.
That doesn’t mean that Klaus Meine, Matthias Jabs, and Rudolf Schenker didn’t write a hefty share of material all by themselves…
… in fact the lovely retrograde gem of aggressive, major chord rocka-rolla called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band” is all by Klaus Meine:
A Hollywood stage, girls in a cage
Action, satisfaction, legs around a pole
Bang, I’m in the spot, give me that shot
We rock the night away and that’s the way it goes
You wanna know who I am
I’m in a rock ‘n’ roll band
She walks into the light looking hot
I love the way she moves, oh my God
Just another tune, her heart goes boom
Come on, little lady, show me all you’ve got
Geez, I can just feel the sweaty, fake double-D titties rubbing against my face! With lyrics like that, it’s hard to believe the 90s ever happened! And, GEEZ LOUISE, if Meine and Schenker are still capable of writing jah-jigga-jah crushers like “Hard Rockin’ the Place” or the sexy, strip-club groove with tribal drums “Delirious”, one wonders why the bloody, stinkin’ hell they even bothered hiring outside writers in the first place!
I just wish Rudolf Schenker wouldn’t always pose with his mouth all agape like that. It looks really stupid.
ROCK BELIEVER (2022)
In my original review for Rock Believer, I neglected to mention that the Scorpions named the album after a line in “Steamrock Fever”, the opening track from their 1977 album, Taken by Force, which should give fans a clue as to what direction the Scorpions were going in by this point.
I also forgot to really emphasize how insanely awesome and how much of an upgrade it was replacing longtime drummer James Kottak with MICKEY FUCKING DEE, who played with KING DIAMOND and was in Motörhead for nearly a quarter of a century before Lemmy left the building. Hey, I’m not sure why they fired Kottak after he’d been in the band for twenty years, but I’m sure glad they did…
If you even think of buying the standard version of Rock Believer, you’d best stop yourself before doing something foolish. I posted a link to a song called “Shoot for Your Heart” on a twitter thread, and minutes later, someone responded by saying that Matthias Jabs’ solo was so good, it alone was enough for him to go out and buy the CD. The only problem is that “Shoot for Your Heart” is only on the two-disc “deluxe version” of Rock Believer. In what I think is a truly idiotic move, the main eleven tracks of the album (the “official version” of the album) are on the first disc, which is 44 minutes long, and the five extra tracks, one of which is just an acoustic version of one of the songs from the first disc, are on the 19 minute long second disc. That’s 63 minutes of music that could all have fit on one CD; 67 if the American and European version included Japanese bonus track “Out Go the Lights.”
As janky as that sounds, I still spent $25 on the “deluxe version” only to find out that the paltry three panel foldout digipak didn’t even put the discs on trays but in little slits in the foldout, which increases the chances of scratching up the CDs every time you remove them to play if you’re not extra careful. The packaging itself doesn’t include anything other than a chintzy lyric book with a few band photos and the Scorpions logo stretched across the three panel foldout. How lame. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I LOVE THE ALBUM AND PLAY IT OFTEN!!!
That’s right; I enjoy Rock Believer a lot. First of all – and this cannot be overstated – at the advanced age of 73, Klaus Meine sounds exactly like the young man who sang the lead vocals on Lonesome Crow way back in 1972. He still has all of the charisma, exuberance, and ability to flawlessly hit the notes that he did when he first sang “I’m going mad!” fifty years ago; and he’s still got the adorable, right-off-the-boat German accent as well.
Secondly, Meine, Schenker, Jabs, the Polish guy, and MIKKEY FUCKING DEE have jettisoned the two outside writers on Sting in the Tail and Return to Forever, and the Scorpions seem to have gone back to their pre-arena rock, pre-pop-metal, 70s-hard-rock-bordering-on-metal-style of the Uli Jon Roth and early Matthias Jabs era; especially if you compare it to their previous two albums, which are fulla big choruses and pop hooks, and have that big 80s sound. I’ll even go so far as to make the bold claim that, song for song, Rock Believer is more enjoyable than classic Scorpions albums like In Trance or Lovedrive, which are marred by either too many ballads or a couple pointless filler tracks.
The only ballad on Rock Believer is “When You Know (Where You Came From)”, which unfortunately is included twice, in its regular and acoustic form. Otherwise the album knocks out three energetic rockers in a row before it even thinks of slowing down; at which point, the energy is sapped by a title track which is enough to make me a rock nonbeliever and thus shall never be mentioned again. On the other hand, the opening track, “Gas in the Tank”, has a righteous Motörhead reference (“we’re born to lose, we live to win”), probably as a way to welcome new drummer Mikkey Dee, who, among other things, has one of the best drum sounds in metal.
What’s really a trip, though, is how “Shining of Your Soul” is another Police-style reggae/rock hybrid in the style of “Is There Anybody There?” from Lovedrive, and “Seventh Sun” evokes the heavy and plodding “China White” from Blackout with a thumping “Runnin’ with the Devil”-style bassline and dark, eerie, cosmic mood. Then you have a lotta rockers, such as the swingin’ “Roots in My Boots”, which opens with a BO DIDDLY-style drum beat, “Hot and Cold”, which is just your classic “jah-jigga-jah-jigga” galloping metal tune, “Call of the Wild”, which sounds like a MONTROSE song, “When I Lay My Bones to Rest”, which kicks my ass through my face with its punky three minute CHUCK BERRY boogie rock and lovely chorus, and “Out Go the Lights”, which is only on the Japanese version GODDAMMIT!!!
Sadly “Peacemaker” is not a tribute to the Colt brand revolver that was so popular with cowboys, but is yet another song about bringing peace to the world or some shit. Thankfully “Crossing Borders” isn’t a political statement about immigration but just a metaphor for doin’ it with a chick!
Is it the chick on the cover? I dunno. Other than better production, Rock Believer easily sounds like vintage Scorpions, and a less schooled ear wouldn’t even be able to pick out the new tunes from ones from four to five decades ago. It took the Scorpions seven years, the amount of time between when the Scorpions formed and released their first album, to put out Rock Believer. And some think, due to this lengthy gap and the group member’s ages, that it might in fact be their final album.
While that’s certainly plausible, I’d like to think the Scorpions will release an album that sounds like Lonesome Crow in 2029.
Edwin Oslan
Revenge of Riff Raff
16th April, 2023
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