Record vinyl LPs 11 Albums Scorpions Crow Rainbow Trance Virgin Taken Blackout
$
185
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Description
Scorpions are a German rock band. Since the band's inception, its musical style has ranged from hard rock to heavy metal.
Rudolf Schenker, the band's rhythm guitarist launched the band in 1965. At first, the band had beat influences and Schenker himself handled the vocals. Things began to come together in 1970 when Schenker's younger brother Michael and vocalist Klaus Meine joined the band. In 1972 the group recorded and released their debut album Lonesome Crow, with Lothar Heimberg on bass and Wolfgang Dziony on drums. During the Lonesome Crow tour, Scorpions opened for upcoming British band UFO. Near the end of the tour, guitarist Michael Schenker accepted an offer of lead guitar for UFO. Uli Roth, a friend of Michael's, was then introduced to the band and he helped them to finish off the tour.
The departure of Michael Schenker led to the breakup of the band. In 1973, Uli Roth, who had helped Scorpions complete the Lonesome Crow tour, was offered the role as lead guitarist, but turned the band down, preferring instead to remain in the band Dawn Road. Rudolf Schenker eventually decided that he wanted to work with Roth, but did not want to resurrect the last Scorpions lineup. He attended some of Dawn Road's rehearsals and ultimately decided to join the band, which consisted of Roth, Francis Buchholz (bass), Achim Kirschning (keyboards) and Jürgen Rosenthal (drums). Uli Roth and Buchholz persuaded Rudolf Schenker to invite Klaus Meine to join on vocals, which he soon did. While there were more members of Dawn Road than Scorpions in the band, they decided to use the Scorpions name because it was well known in the German hard rock scene and an album had been released under that name.
In 1974, the new line-up of Scorpions released Fly to the Rainbow. The album proved to be more successful than Lonesome Crow and songs such as "Speedy's Coming" and the title track established the band's sound. Achim Kirschning decided to leave after the recordings. Soon after, Jürgen Rosenthal had to leave as he was being drafted into the army. In 1976, he would join a German progressive rock band called Eloy recording three albums. He was replaced in July 1974 by Jurgen Fechter. In 1975 Rudy Lenners from Belgium became the next drummer.
That year (1975) the band released In Trance, which marked the beginning of Scorpions' long collaboration with German producer Dieter Dierks. The album was a huge step forward for Scorpions and established their heavy metal formula. It garnered a fan base at home and abroad with cuts such as "In Trance", "Dark Lady" and "Robot Man".
In 1976, Scorpions released Virgin Killer. The album's cover featured a nude prepubescent girl behind a broken pane of glass. The cover art was designed by Stefan Bohle who was the product manager for RCA Records,[22]their label at the time. The cover brought the band considerable market exposure but was subsequently pulled or replaced in other countries. The album itself garnered widespread praise for its music from select critics and fan base. In 2008 this image was blacklisted from the English wikipedia by the Internet Watch Foundation, see Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia.
The following year, Rudy Lenners resigned for personal reasons and was replaced by Herman Rarebell.
For the follow-up Taken by Force, RCA Records made a determined effort to promote the album in stores and on the radio. The album's single, "Steamrock Fever", was added to some of RCA's radio promotional records. Roth was not happy with the commercial direction the band was taking. Although he performed on the band's Japan tour, he departed to form his own band, Electric Sun prior to the release of the resultant double live album Tokyo Tapes. Tokyo Tapes was released in the US and Europe six months after its Japanese release.
...so here's their first 10 albums (1 repeat)
- Lonesome Crow (1972) rare early import on Brain Records.
- Fly to the Rainbow (1974) German import.
- In Trance (1975) German import, original cover (nice shading)
- Virgin Killer (1976) German import, rare original cover, lyric insert...bonus second copy just gets by.
- Taken by Force (1977)
- Tokyo Tapes (1978) live double album
- Lovedrive (1979) rare import from Great Britain... did not come with insert
- Animal Magnetism (1980) with lyric insert.
- Blackout (1982)
- Love at First Sting (1984)
