Album Lookback: Scorpion’s Sensational ‘Love At First Sting’ Turns 40 This Year…Metal Masterpiece

I’ve spent the last few weeks really locked into a late 60s, early 70s rock n roll bender. Since I saw the Stones a few weeks back they’ve been in high rotation. I’ve been fixated on Let It Bleed… I’ve also been listening to a lot of Little Feat (Feats Don’t Fail Me Now) and previously unreleased Neil Young & Crazy Horse from 1969 (Early Daze). Between all of that I’ve been listening to some classic Memphis Soul after watching the recent doc on Stax Records…Otis Redding, yes please. I have literally been awash in great music albeit great music that was made over 50 years ago. It’s been great listening but every now and then…I just need some metal. I need something that I can crank up and rattle the fillings in my teeth. While I was considering which metal band to turn to, it dawned on me that it was 40 years ago this March that the Scorpions released what many would describe as their masterpiece, Love At First Sting. Suddenly, it was pumping through my speakers, filling all my metal nutritional needs. There may have been more than one set of “air drums” played in my house recently…but I’ll never admit to it.

I did a post recently on my favorite “Hair Metal” bands. The Scorps weren’t on the list as I never did consider the Scorpions a Hair Metal band. First and foremost, they formed in 1972 long before the whole Hair thing started. I always thought of them more like Aerosmith and Kiss. All of them were veteran bands who adopted some of the Hair Metal look, sound and video style – look it’s a post apocalyptic world where hot “chicks” are chasing us – rather than consider them actual Hair Metal. Sure they started wearing spandex and leather, but who amongst us wasn’t wearing that in 1984? I attended the Van Halen show on the 1984 tour wearing multiple bandanas… not a proud sartorial moment for me. Hopefully those photos have all been lost under the sands of time…or in some house fire.

Oddly enough I don’t remember hearing a lot of Scorpions on my local rock n roll station when I first got into rock n roll. When I got into music their then current album would have been Lovedrive. Sure I’d like to tell you that as a youngster I was cranking up Taken By Force, but mom probably wouldn’t have let me bring an album by that name into the house. She was freaked out enough by the cover art for Mob Rules. I do have a memory of an interview I heard with lead singer Klaus Meine about the song “Lovedrive.” He said, in that spectacular German accent, “The term “Lovedrive” of course means making love in the car while you are driving, but it is also about the drive we all feel for love.” I don’t know about you but as a 14 year old I was certainly feeling the “drive we all feel for love.” Klaus Meine, singer/philosopher.

No, it wasn’t until 1980 that I discovered the Scorpions. They were second on the triple bill of my first ever rock concert. Def Leppard opened, they were on their first tour and were only slightly older than me. Then the Scorps came out and they attacked the stage like they were going to take it with them. I’d never seen a band that hyper on stage, but then again I’d only seen one band ever at that point (the aforementioned performance by Def Leppard only moments prior). The only song of theirs that I knew was “The Zoo,” and I loved that song. I thought they rocked but when you’re young it’s hard to appreciate a concert when you don’t recognize or aren’t familiar with any of the tunes. They must have made an impression on me, because shortly thereafter I picked up the album, Animal Magnetism. Another questionable album cover… I prefer to keep the doberman outside in the yard while I enjoy a… beer.

It was when I was in college that the Scorpions had their big  breakthrough, the rocking Blackout. I’ve mentioned that Klaus is the lead singer and he’s awesome but they also had two great guitar players, Rudolph Schenker who had replaced his brother Michael in the band and Mathias Jabs who I always thought was taller. Rudolph mostly played lead and wrote the music but Mathias was good for a solo or two as well. They were a little like Thin Lizzy with two lead guitar players. The rhythm section was drummer Herman Rarebell who also helped write some of the lyrics and Francis Buchholz on bass. One of my roommates came home with Blackout and we’d just crank that thing. “No One Like You” and “Can’t Live Without You” were in high rotation… as was the title track which described our usual condition when we drank. “You Give Me All I Need” was also a personal favorite.

I think the album went platinum within a month or two of it’s release. There were nights in the room where this big guy from Western Kansas would wander into our room. Typically we’d all have been in there studying and he had been out drinking. He’d come wandering in with a tennis racquet and request Blackout. We’d put it on, and he’d stand on one of our chairs and “play” along with the band. I don’t know if that influenced me but I remember liking the Scorpions but I just didn’t take them seriously yet. I was friends with a lot of serious music people, you know how they are in college, and they frowned on such frivolous music…When I think about it now, it was probably that goofy West Kansas guy that kept me from truly considering the Scorpions a great metal band. It’s not that I wasn’t seriously into metal. I loved Sabbath, Judas Priest and Zeppelin. We considered Van Halen to be metal. We all loved music that rawked! But I stayed slightly aloof from the Scorpions. I didn’t buy Blackout, I taped my roommates copy. I did buy it years later on CD… I’m still looking for a clean vinyl copy, but I digress.

If I had been a casual fan of the Scorpions up to that point, that all changed in March of 1984. As so often happens after a band releases a great album, they reload and release a classic which is exactly what the Scorpions did. When I heard “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” and I probably heard it for the first time on MTV, I knew the Scorpions had made a momentous jump forward. The slashing guitars, Klaus’ menacing vocal, they’d put it all together. I remember I went out and bought the album immediately. I actually got the original album art with the picture of a couple in an embrace taken by Helmut Newton before the Puritans down at Walmart complained and made the record company change the cover art. Censorship is never a good thing. Love At First Sting may have been more polished than say, In Trance but it was a perfect heavy metal album for 1984.

I remember coming home for Spring Break… I never went anywhere fun… and singing the lyrics to “Bad Boys Running Wild” and my “serious” music friends were all giving me shit. That only made me sing the lyric “and you better get out of the way” with even more gusto… I would pronounce “way” in the same accent as Klaus, with apologies to my German readers, and I’d scream, “better get out of the weeee.” After “Hurricane” and “Bad Boys” the third track on the album is a more midtempo “I’m Leaving You” and it’s just a great song. I loved that the “home” in “Coming Home” was the stage. These guys were true rock n rollers. “The Same Thrill” ends the first side on a perfect note, “to get the same thrill like rock ‘n roll.” Oh hell, yes!

The second side has no drop off and starts with “Big City Nights” another personal favorite. The lyric “When the sunlight is rising up in my eyes and the long night has left me back at somebody’s side,
It feels alright for a long sweet minute…” pretty much encapsulates how I was living at the time. “As Soon As The Good Times Roll” is solid, if not spectacular. “Crossfire,” an actual political anti-war track – it was still the Cold War and Germany was a divided nation – was a complete surprise and a great song to throw at my “serious” music friends. Great lyrics on that song. The final track on the album was the vaunted power ballad, “Still Loving You.” I loved that it was from the perspective of a jilted lover who was… well… “still loving you.” I think all of us could relate to that in college.

Love At First Sting is not only a great metal album, it’s just a great album. It’s hard rocking but it’s melodic. The Scorpions just kill it on this album. There was a rumor that went around back then that Robert Palmer (the suave, sartorially impressive singer) wanted to make an album with a heavy metal band. After listening to a number of metal albums, including this album, he decided he really wanted to record with the Scorpions. Alas, that never happened. I, for one, would have loved to have heard that collaboration. If you’re like me and you haven’t given this band the respect they deserve, you might want to re-look at this album as a jumping on point.

I’ve been a Scorpions fan ever since this album came out. I picked up a number of their albums that had come before the 80s and have occasionally picked up some of their more recent albums. I still love these guys. I picked up Sting In The Tail and it was a great throwback to their glory days. Even better was 2022’s Rock Believer which made my list of “Best of 2022.” I’ve only seen the Scorpions twice in concert and I regret the second time was with the Rock Chick and the evening was cut short by a couple of my drunken buddies. She’s still pissed at me for leaving early. Those same drunken idiots were late and prevented me from seeing Dio… sigh. I’ve got to get her to a Scorpions’ show before these guys decide they don’t want to do it anymore… In the meantime, I’ll just crank Love At First Sting and hope for the best.

Cheers!