SCORPIONS – Sting In The Tail

It’s hard to believe, but Germany’s most successful band of all time, Scorpions, are celebrating their 45-year anniversary! It’s been a truly amazing ride for this crew of krauts since emerging back in 1965 from Hannover, and the band’s core members — Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine, and Matthias Jabs — have certainly “Done It All,” as the phrase goes. They’ve sold over 100 million albums worldwide, played live in front of millions of fans from Berlin, to Moscow, to New York, to Tokyo, and all points in-between … and from top to bottom they’ve etched a deep, indelible, and meaningful mark on both Hard Rock and Metal, as well as the entire music industry. They’ve ROCKED macho Metalheadz with some of the genre’s most monumental albums of all times, such as Blackout, Lovedrive, and Love At First Sting … and they’ve drawn buckets of tears from those suffering through the anguish of a broken heart by feeding their innermost dreams, yearnings, and hopes via some of the best ballads ever written … timeless classics such as “Still Loving You,” “Holiday,” and “Send Me An Angel.” Still going strong, Scorpions latest offering is an album entitled Sting In The Tail… marking the band’s 17^th studio release (holy crap!).

What’s Good

The literary quality and imaginativeness of Scorpions’ song lyrics will never be Pulitzer Prize worthy, but this album again shows the band’s uncanny ability to drive their point across with extraordinarily catchy choruses and lyrical patterns. The first 3 tracks out of the chute (“Raised On Rock,” “Sting In The Tail,” and “Slave Me”), along with pretty much all of their up-tempo counterparts, simply ROCK in a fun way, and combine a good mix of memorable hooks, riffs, and solos with easy-to-listen-to and sing-along-with choruses and verses. Even more impressive, though, are the ballads. There are 3 (almost 4) ballads woven into Sting In The Tail, and 2 of them, “Sly” and “Lorelei” (perhaps better entitled “Lore-lie”), are as good as any of the earlier-mentioned yesteryear classics. Check ‘em out sometime when a box of Kleenex is handy. Also of note, estranged ex-Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen makes a backing vocal appearance on “The Good Die Young” … a nice and unexpected twist, to be sure.

What’s Less Than Good

Although all the songs on Sting In The Tail are solid musically, Scorpions could have been a bit more creative at times topically… “Raised On Rock,” “Rock Zone,” “Spirit Of Rock” … almost as bad as when Judas Priest wrote “We don’t need no… no, no, no… Parental Guidance here” as the Turbo “anthem” when they were in their mid-30’s. You get the point…

Also, there’s really nothing “new” offered here… Scorpions stay with a proven formula and appear to want to please the masses amid no controversy and without alienating anyone. Not a “bad thing,” per se, but how well this album will stand the test of time may be in question.

In A Nutshell

With all of their deserved accolades and decades of success, few outfits can raise their tails as high as Scorpions can… but, as with everything in life, there comes a day when all things come to an end in one way or another. For this band, this 2010 release is proclaimed to be their last… and after what is sure to be a canvassing (and memorable) farewell tour, Scorpions will disband, move on, and indeed hope the “best is yet to come” for one and all. After a moment of silence at the thought of the music industry losing one of its most prized treasures, there’s at least some satisfaction in knowing this band exited while still at the top of their game…

Do check out Sting In The Tail… it’s an album that should be included in all Traditional Metal/Hard Rock fans’ music collection.