Scorpions Best Ever Albums

[Mireille Duhon]

Earlyalbums such as Lonesome Crow and Fly To The Rainbow (the latter featuring Jimi Hendrix- inspired hotshot Uli Jon Roth in place of the departed Michael Schenker) created a buzz in their native Germany.

The band might have seen a decline in their record sales since that high-water mark, but they remain a hugely successful touring act, and 2022's Rock Believer is less of a return to form than an exuberant reminder of what makes the band at their best so exciting.

The Scorpions found themselves out of step with prevailing trends in the 90s, and floundered as a result. But the low point of their career came just nine years ago, with this misguided attempt to contemporise their sound.

Bringing in Midas-like songwriter/producer Desmond Child is understandable, although why they thought it necessary to enlist the help of Smashing Pumpkins mainman Billy Corgan and ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist John5, only Rudolf Schenker knows. The upshot was a chaotic, mess. If the plan was to prove their relevance, it backfired badly. The sole saving grace is that they never made Humanity: Hour 2.

A pop rock mess. While this band have always written huge anthems and intensely melodic songs, here they abandoned their well-honed approach, and the result was disastrous. This was a lightweight release, with scarcely any sign of riffs or guitar solos, and a strange reliance on keyboards, provided by producer Peter Wolf.

A more thoughtful approach meant they kept the best elements from the 80s and finessed these. The Good Die Young featured a sparkling duet between Klaus Meine and Tarja Turunen, and the whole album hummed with purpose.

In many respects Savage Amusement was the end of an era for the Scorpions, in that it was the last of their albums to be produced by Dieter Dierks and also their final album for the Harvest label. Released four years after Love At First Sting, it was a surprisingly low-key affair.

When the Scorpions announced they intended to revisit old ideas abandoned in the 80s and work them up into songs for a new album, it sounded very desperate. But against all expectations, the plan worked brilliantly.

Return To Forever was the Scorpions returning to what they do best, and coming up with a triumphant set of songs. The band sounded energised and excitable once more, and through We Built This House, House Of Cards and Going Out With A Bang, they roared again.

At the time, the controversy surrounding yet another provocative cover distracted from the music. Animal Magnetism also suffered from being sandwiched between their standout albums, Lovedrive and Blackout.

Exit Uli Jon Roth, enter Matthias Jabs for the album which found the Scorpions embracing the slick hard rock approach with which they made their name. With Jabs on board (and, on Coast To Coast, Michael Schenker guesting), the songs were sharper and shorter, as well as a little less reliant on extensive guitar solos than during the Roth era.

Love At First Sting is packed with high-quality songs that struck a chord with the US market but retained their European roots, and the party metal of Bad Boys Running Wild, fan tribute Coming Home and the heartfelt ballad Still Loving You proved to be winners not only on record but on stage as well.

After half a decade on the cusp, this was the album that marked the band becoming major international players. As they eased into the 80s, the Scorpions became confident and comfortable with the demands of the era.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term \"thrash metal\" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021. ","contributorText":"With contributions from","contributors":["name":"Fraser Lewry","link":"href":"https:\/\/www.loudersound.com\/author\/fraser-lewry","name":"John Aizlewood","link":"href":"https:\/\/www.loudersound.com\/author\/john-aizlewood"]}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Malcolm DomeSocial Links NavigationMalcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.

It might not be their best album, but it has some great moments and I still find it enjoyable overall. The first half of the album is actually great and the back half only has a couple stellar moments. The problem is the album is filled with filler and a lot of ballads even though they are some of the best moments of the album. This will never be considered a top Scorpions album, but a band and their 17th album, it is still a respectable piece. And if this is how they were going to go out, not a terrible way to end..but thankfully we know they can come back and do better. My Overall Score is 3.5 out of 5.0 Stars.

And there you have it, Scorpions studio albums in order of how I rank them from the worst to the best. Let me know what you think. Where did we differ and where did we agree. What is fun about these list is how differently each album impacts people. What I like, you might not, but we like the same artist and that is all that matters really. And if as a result, you find something new, then my job is done!!!

My first exposure to Uli Roth and the 70s version of the Scorpions came after hearing the 80s version and several albums of killer stuff, and naively assuming all their albums were like that, so I stupidly bought their earlier discs and was in for a surprise. I never made that mistake again, for the band was basically a different band altogether.

Uli has a huge reputation as a guitarist partly for helping pioneer the neoclassical movement of guitarists adding classical phrases, scales, and other ideas to rock music. His physical technique was arguably ahead of his time and later players like Yngwie Malmsteen.

Roth and schenker are great technical guitarists , not great song writers. There is hardly a memorable signature riff from either one . you have technical guitar players and you have song writers , then you have technical guitar players who can write great signature riffs like Edward van halen , Alex lifeson , two of my favorites.

It was the album art that drew me to this particular Scorpions album at first. Yeah, the sticky finger one. Of the guy who wanted to go a-touching, and paid the ultimate price. In a truly adolescent setting to boot.

These were the times of all kinds of surreal shit on album covers. And much more provocative ones than this one, too, yet sometimes of a deliriously tasty kind. This delicious rebel streak is long gone, unfortunately. Most of it got replaced by whitewashed rosiness of uniform political correctness. This goes so far that the bad boys of rock and metal scare nobody anymore with their carefully manicured marketing message.

And then there is this production thing. At least in the early days of the Scorpions, I often find myself in treble hell. Every time Lovedrive fires up on the RMR sound machine, my ears kinda give up the ghost and leave the building. I am really unsure what got into the sound engineers of that time. Even for the equipment of some 40 years ago, this sounds terrible.

But in the end, Lovedrive nonetheless is the beginning of a new era. One of those cornerstones that let the Scorpions drive on to great success. One that continues to this day. And with all the drama, new directions, and frankly a cool tune, Lovedrive is and will remain one of the best albums Scorpions ever produced.

Drake albums just keeping getting longer. His latest Scorpion is two sides and 25 tracks long and while it's contributed to him breaking streaming records, it's a marathon that just runs too slow at points. As with always Drake projects, there's plenty of gold there but he needs to know how to edit himself.

If this album is going to be remembered for anything, it's going to be Drake admitting that he has been hiding a child. Over a Mariah Carey sample, Drizzy gives us what we've been waiting for. "I wasn't hidin' my kid from the world/I was hidin' the world from my kid," he raps. That needed to be on the album.

Drake's at his best when he finds the perfect mid-way between his boastful, self-indulgent raps and his in-his-feelings singing. Mob Ties is the only song on the first side of the record that successfully finds that. It hits hard but it's also gently melodic.

Drake albums can feel shallow at the best of times but when he's rapping over chopped-up soul samples, he sounds like he's got depth. Sandra's Rose feels expensive, hearty and passionate (from miles away).

This is the big pop track on the record and we don't even care that it sounds like it was stolen from the Drive soundtrack. Drizzy sounds great, the '80s synth-sounds are a refreshing change on the record and the beat reminds us of Take Care.

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