Scorpions are Pretty Amazing

When I was about thirteen years old I figured I'd start listening to the radio. I'd been corrupted years ago by George Goodfield's KISS albums, but I needed something contemporary (I'd been teased about my KISS record--it couldn't be danced to). So I latched onto the first few songs I heard on the radio when I finally got it working. Here are my first efforts:

The Cars - You Might Think

Huey Lewis and the News - I Want a New Drug

Styx - Mr. Roboto

Scorpions - Rock You Like a Hurricane

But this was about 1983, and the coolest song--the Scorpions-- wasn't matched for years. Eventually they became the soundtrack for the collapse of the Iron Curtain. And that's how I left them in my memory. A killer band who flattened out to become pop chaff.

Then I started hearing older Scorpions (they aren't "The Scorpions"--just "Scorpions"). Anyway--those songs kick ass. Where Klaus Meine's voice had always been great, and where their musical inventiveness was unexpected, all of a sudden they became elements of art--something more than elements of a commercial vehicle. This is most evident in the song "Sails of Charon," from the 1970s. Great stuff.