This is my experience with Scorpions and how their music has affected
my life
Beginnings
Back in May 1993 when I was a mere Freshman in high school, I had just
begun my CD collection when I had received a CD player for Christmas. I
had only 4 or 5 CDs at the time, and I was ready for some more music, and
so I thought to myself, "I want another CD." So I looked through a
magazine at a Columbia House selection sheet, and I looked over all the
various bands. R.E.M. looked sort of promising, and then I ran across
Scorpions--Crazy World. I remembered the song "Wind of Change"
which
came out a few years previous, and it still appeared on MTV once in a
great while. I liked the song "Wind of Change" and so decided to go and
buy the album Crazy World(1990). I still remember buying it, when
it came in
a cardboard box (remember those?) and having it with me when I went over
to a friend's house. When I finally got home I put the CD in, and it was
magic from the very first moment. Love at first sting, I could say. I
just loved the entire album, the sound of it. It was so strong, so
awesome. From the very first chord on "Tease Me, Please Me" to the fading
singing of "Send Me An Angel" it was just pure musical delight. I think I
may have heard "Send Me An Angel" on the radio or MTV but didn't
explicitly remember it, but when the song came on, I knew enough of the
words that I could partially sing along with the lyrics.
Exploring Further
In the summer of 1993 I was on vacation and saw a jutebox which had two
Scorpions songs: "Wind of Change" and "Rock You Like A Hurricane". I
wasn't sure if I had heard the latter song before, but then someone played
several songs on the jutebox, and I just knew it when "Rock You Like A
Hurricane" came on....I wasn't quite sure how I knew it was Scorpions,
maybe because it was Klaus Meine's (lead singer) voice which I recognized,
or something else, but the song rocked! I went to a music store and
looked for that song, but I could only find it on World Wide
Live(1985)
at the
time, and I didn't know that the song was on the album Love At First
Sting(1984). So I later joined Columbia House that summer, and
World
Wide Live was the album I got. Originally I wasn't too thrilled that
it was a live album, but things changed. The album was at first difficult
to listen to because it was so long (15 songs). After a few months of
listening to the album I became much more used to the songs. WWW
even convienently labeled which songs are on which albums. [Note:
The song "Dynamite" is labeled to be on Love At First Sting, but it
is really on the album Blackout(1982).] After two months of owning
WWW, Scorpions were my third favorite band. After listening to
some of the songs on the live album, I went out and bought Love At
First Sting and Blackout. I wasn't entirely thrilled with some
of the other songs off of Animal Magnetism(1980) and
Lovedrive(1979)
yet, and at the time, I didn't think I would ever buy Lovedrive.
This certainly turned out to be wrong. Eventually I bought those two
albums to add to my collection.
The Story Continues...
Face the Heat came out around October 1993, but at that time I
wasn't a huge Scorpions freak yet, and I was actually patient enough to
wait several months before I bought the CD. I was waiting for Columbia
House to get Face the Heat so I could buy a CD to help fulfill my
purchase agreement with the record company. Unfortunately when I finally
got this album, my stereo was being 'fixed' by Sears, and it took them 12
WEEKS to determine that the stereo was so broken that it would be more
expensive to repair the stereo than to give me a new one. In the
meantime, I went to stores and played Face the Heat. "Alien
Nation" was very cool, and the song "Nightmare Avenue" surprised me
because it was so hard and fast of a song. Eventually I got a new stereo.
In mid-April of 1994, close to the same time that I got Face the
Heat, I started to get my first tastes of 70's Scorpions. I got the
albums Virgin Killer(1976) and Savage Amusement(1988). For
a few years
I didn't listen much to either of these albums, but as time progressed I
began listening more and more to these albums to truly discover how great
of music that these albums had. I cannot remember exactly, but around
1994 I bought cassette versions of two other 70's albums, Fly To the
Rainbow(1974) and In Trance(1975).
On and On and On...
On the 15th of January 1995, I completed the writing of my first novel
(which is happily collecting dust right now because it sucks), I rewarded
myself by going out and buying the live album Tokyo Tapes(1978). I
remember listening to that awesome drum solo on "Top Of The Bill" and
freaking out and just feeling really good. This album also contains my
favorite song of all time--"We'll Burn the Sky". Hey, I'm a sucker for
epic songs, especially if there are 2-3 long minute guitar solos.
In the Spring of 1995 a friend had asked me if a new Scorpions album was
coming out, and I didn't know, but I was certainly hoping one would come
out soon (as always). As I was browsing a local music store, I looked
through the Scorpions albums as I always do and was very shocked and happy
to find Live Bites there. At first I was hoping the title meant
that live shows 'bite', and it was an actual album, but that was not to be
the case when I saw that it was indeed a live album. I looked at the back
and recognized quite a few of the songs, but was quite pleased to see that
there were five songs on the album which I did not know. When I went to
buy the album, the cashier actually knew who they were and she told me
that she had seen them in concert during their Blackout tour, and that was
cool talking with her. I also remembering at this time I was on a big
70's Scorpions kick, really listening heavily to their older stuff at the
time Live Bites came out. During the summer of that year I was
finally able to land my hands on a copy of Taken By Force(1977),
and I was a bit disappointed that it had only 8 songs, 7 of them which
I've already heard. I had paid $19 for the CD, mostly for the song "Your
Light" it seemed, but it was also kind of interesting to hear the studio
version of "We'll Burn the Sky" which pales in comparison to the Tokyo
Tapes version.
Back to the Scorpions page
Edenwaith:
The Return
Originally written on 24. June 1997
Modified last on 13. June 1998