October 2009: The Scorpions

Oct 01

Posted by: Motley lamb in 2009, Blog, Tributes

The Scorpions: a hard rock band from Hanover, Germany that sold over 75 million albums worldwide has been pronounced “Germany’s No. 1 Rock Export” and reached the peak of their fame with their monster ballads ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane”, “Still Loving You”, “Holiday”, “The Wind of Change”. And still it is strange that and in most of the English-speaking countries they are a relatively unknown or non-signinficant band. It definitely is an underrated band and at the same time there are other musicians/bands that are wildly successful but musically speaking, inferior to the Scorpions.

Their first two albums sound completely different comparing to the Scorpions we know today. Lonesome Crow and Fly to the Rainbow have nothing to do with their subsequent material due to the lineup changes. These two albums are the hidden treasures of their career. Michael Schenker was the lead guitar in “Lonesome Crow” and in the second album Uli Roth’s guitar and makes it sound great.

Comparing the albums Taken by Force, In Trance and Virgin Killer (with very provocative artwork and title indeed) to “Fly to the Rainbow” I would consider the latter as the best thanks to Uli’s unique contribution. “This is My Song” and “Far Away” are the key-songs of the album followed by a lot of psychedelic moments and melodies that could be described as epic-rock. Uli shows the way a new, promising band should sound. The next three albums sound faster and even heavier and clearly show that the band is on a new track, more commercial which disappoints Uli and later leaves the band. Before these bad news came, The Scorpions stroke with a massive live album Tokyo Tapes 1978 which has been described as Uli’s last farewell with the band.

The band will change again under the influence of Matthias Jabs. It becomes very commercial and with the 1978 lineup it is one of the most successful non-native English-singing bands. Lovedrive, Blackout, Love at First Sting are albums distinguished for their ballads like “Holiday”, “Coming Home”. The strong guitar riffs, the harmony up front and the liberal use of the harmonic/melodic minor scales (a very characteristic element of central-European music) especially in their ballads make these albums sound unique. All those albums have a satisfying diversity of compositions, just like the reggae-influenced “Is There Anybody There?” and “Scorpions” first real power-legend-ballad, “Always Somewhere”. The album Animal Magnetism sounds more mediocre in my opinion. Although the speed and heaviness are still there the compositions are not so well constructed but still show high performance skills. Matthias has proven that he is an part of the band, even the other half of Klaus. I would not agree with the 3 to 5 stars rating by the “Rolling Stone”. How can we underrate it like that when the album contains songs like “Bad boys running wild”, “Coming home” “Big city Nights”, “Rock you like a Hurricane” I would describe it as a killer hard-rock 3-chord album with aggressive lead riffs. It is an important station in their career and time has proven it.

We should not also ignore the “Send me an Angel” from the Crazy World EP and of course the very famous “Wind of Change” which was inspired by the political climate during the fall of Communism, the liberation of the east-European countries and the uniting of the West and East Berlin and Germany. It is NOT a love song as many people think. Apart from those two historical ballads, I would describe the album as nothing more than a hit-and-miss. The rest of the songs are mediocre compositions played by a highly skilled band. But even after admitting this, we still value the bright side of their career vastly more than their negative aspects. This band gave us many treasured songs and has inspired a large number of rockers.

What makes the Scorpions one of the most famous, not appreciated bands? Indeed there is a flavor of German accent in the singing of Klaus Meine. For this reason they became more famous in the Middle East, Europe and Spain rather than in the English-speaking countries, especially the UK and Ireland. Of course the super hit “Winds of Change” has helped a lot to that but I have witnessed a couple of times when I was asked the people’s opinion about the Scorpions, answers like “I don’t understand what they are singing” or “they have a weird interpretation and pronunciation that sounds strange to me”.

However it would be unfair to judge the band because of the accent. Meine is a very distinguished singer and the fact that he has a German accent, makes the singing sound different and unique. After all these years that I have been listening to the great Scorpions songs I feel that if there is something that makes the band even greater is Klaus’s accent and vocal color. It is understandable that for some people, especially for the native English speakers it would be a second choice. Nevertheless to me the accent sounds so original and fits perfectly with the German approach in his interpretation which gives to the band a unique identity. Apart from that, this is the main reason I consider the band so important. The German-European influences are present and loud in their compositions as well, in the guitar solos, in the arpeggios and the way they arrange the songs, especially the ballads.

The music fans should try to adopt and embrace the different and not just in the case of The Scorpions. More should be done to discover the depth of such important music works instead of criticizing negatively due to nonsense stereotypes.

Their latest album Humanity: Hour I which has been released in the spring of 2007 received very good reviews. If we compare it with their previous albums we see that this one is much more interesting than the Eye II Eye where I can distinguish only the song, “A Moment in a Million Years” and the mildly interesting Unbreakable. In “Humanity” the band has changed a lot. James Michael and Desmond Child as the main producers undoubtedly have done an excellent job. The differences comparing to their older albums are vast as this is a more mid-tempo, American production. The album starts with “The Hour I” accompanied by a fantastic video clip. From the first guitar notes we see how The Scorpions, even after 30 years or so are capable of creating an album that sounds very fresh and modern. The song “We were born to fly” contains calmer passages, great leading riff and solos. The ballad “The Future Never Dies” is not a typical old-style Scorpions ballad. Instead of repeating themselves, as a lot of the bands do, the Scorpions expanded more their composing skills and influences as in the “The Future Never Dies” which has a lot of Queen elements. The song “Love Will Keep us Alive” is also significant. I could definitely say that this album is one of the best releases for 2007. Most of the fans of the band would be very skeptical in buying another new Scorpions album but “Humanity” came as a surprise. Apart from that, Scorpions did not have any such big, concept album before. Indeed, The Scoprions should be considered as a very important band, because after all, there is no one like them!?