Scorpions Discography

Scorpions - Lonesome Crow
Released Feb 1972
Track List:

Side one
"I'm Goin' Mad" – 4:53
"It All Depends" – 3:30
"Leave Me" – 5:06
"In Search of the Peace of Mind" – 5:00

Side two
"Inheritance" – 4:41
"Action" – 3:56
"Lonesome Crow" – 13:31


Scorpions are the most successful German metal band ever, in terms of album sales (Reports say over 100 Million) and concert attendance. I remember my first exposure to the band was hearing "The Zoo" on the radio and thinking "that's a cool new band" and having no idea they had been around since the mid 60's!!!!!! Of course by 9th grade (the next year) everyone had copies of "Black Out" and "Love At First Sting" was a day one buy. I remember hearing "Love Drive" and "Animal Magnetism" and thinking "wow, so that's what OLD scorpions sound like." Of course, I then discovered the Uli Jon Roth era and my education was complete.

A young guitar player named Rudolph Schenker formed the band in 1965. This Scorpions was much different than the band we would come to know and love. Rudolph played guitar and sang. In 1969, the core of the band began to take its shape, with Klaus Meine joining on vocals and Rudolph's younger bother, Michael Schenker joining on lead guitar. Lothar Heimberg (Bass) and Wolfgang Dziony (Drums) rounding out the rest. As a band, they were trying to figure out what they wanted to play and be. In October on 1971, they entered the studio to record their debut album, 'Lonesome Crow'.

The album itself does not sound like anything else in the band's discography - it is a trippy, psychedelic early 70's hard rock album. The album doesn't really have a standout track. It is more of a curious listen - you can tell the band is talented, Michael Schenker plays some cool leads, but don't expect the Metal that the Scorps would become know for in the future. It is still a cool listen, but not a repeat player for me.

The biggest thing that would happen to the start shaping the sound was during the tour for 'Lonesome Crow'. An up and coming English band recruited Michael Schenker from Scorpions to join them. As many of us know, that band was UFO. One of Rudolph and Michael's friend's, Uli Jon Roth, completed the tour. Afterwards, Scopions wanted Uil Jon to join the band. He declined, preferring to stay in his band at the time, Dawn Road. This lead to the end of the Scorpions. Rudolph decided he wanted to work with Uli and joined Dawn Road, which also consisted of Francis Buchholz on bass and Jurgen Rosenthal on drums. Achim Kirschning was also in the band on keyboards. Uli and Frances asked Rudolph to invite Klaus in for the lead vocal spot. At this point, the band featured 2 Scorpions and 4 Dawn Road members. The band decided to call themselves Scorpions instead of Dawn Road because Scorpions was a better known name at the time and had already released 'Lonesome Crow". The band would enter the studio in 1974 to record the second Scorpions album, but the debut release of this new band. To be continued.......

I have this album on cassette and have not bothered to upgrade but I will sometime this year.

The first time I had heard this album I was very disappointed, I excepted to sound like classic Scorpions and UFO, I was also very disappointed because Michael Schenker is one of my favorite guitarist but his and Scorpions style is nowhere to be found on this album.

Now that I am older I do like the album but this album as Jokerman states, it is more atmospheric listen, moody, dark, almost like the Scorpions version of a Pink Floyd album.

It is a good album not a great album, and like other metal artist such as Alice Cooper, Judas Priest this album is an oddity in their discography not really fitting in with the rest of the albums that followed.

I'm a casual fan of the Scorpions at best. I think too many years of working in the sports arena entertainment industry has made me numb to 'Rock You Like a Hurricane'. For the longest time, their Best of Rockers & Ballads was all the Scorps I ever needed. But as I started reading Ult's site and coming here, I began re-thinking my stance on their music and decided to dig deep into their back catalog looking for hidden gems. And where better to start than at the beginning...

Lonesome Crow is definately the odd-man out in relation to what the Scorps would become. But you know what? I like it. Allot. It's a little spacey and certainly not the radio-friendly, MTV-era arena rock we've heard time and time again. And I think that's what appeals to me the most about this album. No hits here. Nothing that would get played on classic rock radio. Heck, even places like sattellite radio that goes out of their way to dig deep into an artists back-catalog won't touch this album with a 40 foot pole. And that's just fine with me. My Scorpions discography may be severly lacking for now, but this album gets plenty of spins from me.

You can hear the talent but it's almost hard to believe this the Scorps. I had it on tape, not sure where it went and it won't get replaced.

Never heard LONESOME CROW (or any Scorps pre-VIRGIN KILLER) but I've always been interested in checking it out. The comparison to Judas Priest's ROCKA ROLLA has me intrigued, as I dig that record a lot.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Never heard LONESOME CROW (or any Scorps pre-VIRGIN KILLER) but I've always been interested in checking it out. The comparison to Judas Priest's ROCKA ROLLA has me intrigued, as I dig that record a lot.

It is nothing like Judas Priest's Rocka Rolla, it is more like a Pink Floyd type of album, if that makes any sense. I compare them only because they both are so different from what they released afterwards,

manny wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Never heard LONESOME CROW (or any Scorps pre-VIRGIN KILLER) but I've always been interested in checking it out. The comparison to Judas Priest's ROCKA ROLLA has me intrigued, as I dig that record a lot.

It is nothing like Judas Priest's Rocka Rolla, it is more like a Pink Floyd type of album, if that makes any sense. I compare them only because they both are so different from what they released afterwards,

Ahh, I gotcha. Well, one of these days I'll probably get around to it one way or the other. My Scorps collection is pretty much complete from ANIMAL MAGNETISM onward so my completist/geek nature will eventually compel me to seek out the oldies I'm missing.

This'll give you a taste. It's far out, man!!

Groooooovy man! That made me wish I was back in college with my black light and an ounce or three of the kind stuff.

That's probably the most far-out tune on the album, but it's all sorta like that. Not "metal" in the least bit. It's certainly an acquired taste, but I like it.

Klaus Miene looks downright uni-bomber/Ted Bundy type scary in that video!

Lonesome Crow is a bit of a strange album, some decent moments of 60's type stuff but very directionless. The fact that the Scorpions werent an overnight success actually worked better for them in the long run, i.e. slowly building up a fan base not based on one hit wonders.

Quote :

The fact that the Scorpions werent an overnight success actually worked better for them in the long run, i.e. slowly building up a fan base not based on one hit wonders.

Those are the groups with staying power. So many groups shoot their wad on one of two hits and are gone.

Man I knew early Scorps was bad but not that bad. Geez that's terrible. Well, I'll just lurk about til we get up to what I'm really familiar with.

That's one of my favorite tunes off of that album. I have the lp version with the Rodney matthews cover:






It's pretty typical Krautrock from that time period.

Funny, I am totally unfamiliar with BOTH of those album covers.

The cover in the first post is the one I'm familiar with, but I've never seen that second cover before either. How many different covers does this album have?? I found two more variations....

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/9bfbae4321af9bc0e86fd39fcdd017e2/1093292.jpg
(for some reason this image won't post, click link to see)


Note the newer logo and '80s era band photos in the "film strip" on this one. False advertising anyone?

Then there's this one, which is just a "cropped" version of the one shown in the first post.

Just to add to the confusion, there's also a version of "LONESOME CROW" floating around under the title "THE ORIGINAL SCORPIONS" with this cover:



Is it just me, or does that bass player look like he just wandered into the photo shoot from off the street?

Scorpions - Fly To The Rainbow
Released Nov 1, 1974

Track List:

Side one
"Speedy's Coming" (Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine) – 3:36
"They Need a Million" (R. Schenker, Meine) – 4:50
"Drifting Sun" (Ulrich Roth) – 7:42
"Fly People Fly" (R. Schenker, Meine) – 5:03

Side two
"This Is My Song" (R. Schenker, Meine) – 4:18
"Far Away" (R. Schenker, Michael Schenker, Meine) – 5:38
"Fly to the Rainbow" (M. Schenker, Roth) – 9:40

I will be moving along with these early releases as quickly as possible, since not everyone is familiar with the early releases.

After the band disbanded following the "Lonesome Crow" tour and Michael Schenker joining UFO, Rudolph and Klaus joined Uli Jon Roth's band, Dawn Road, who changed their name to Scorpions because the name was better known and they had already released an album and had toured. The new band hit the studio to record the 2nd Scorpions album (or the "new" Scorpions debut release.)

The album, "Fly To The Rainbow" shows an evolution of the band's sound towards Hard Rock/Metal while still keeping a little of psychedelic sound. Right of the bat with the first song you can tell a BIG difference between 'Lonesome Crow" and 'Rainbow' - Speedy's Coming is more of a rocker. You can also tell the stylistic difference between Uli and Michael Schenker, where Uli has a huge Hendrix influence along with the neo-classic influence. It should also be mentioned that this was the world's introduction to the awesome Uli Jon Roth on guitar. Uli had a huge influence on a young Yngwie Malmsteen during the mid 70's. For those that don't have the album, here's the first track performed live in 2006 with Uli on guitar:


[youtube][/youtube]

Another interesting factoid on this album is that Uli sang lead vocals on "Drifting Sun", Rudolph sand lead vocal on "They Need A Million" and they shared lead vocals on "Fly To The Rainbow". As for the album cover, Uli is on record as saying he hates it and has no idea what it means.

This album, while better than "Lonesome Crow" is not as good as the Scorps we will soon know. The best part of it was the debut of Uli on guitar in a band named Scorpions.

I have never owned this album and the only song I am familiar with is 'Speedy's Coming' which is a great song, and this another album I plan to add to my collection by the end of this year

Like Manny, "Speedy's Coming" is the only song I've ever heard off of this one.

Terrible album cover by the way. I found this little comment on how the band feels about it on the album's Wiki page:

When asked to comment on the cover art to the album, the band's former lead guitarist Uli Jon Roth said "Don’t ask me what that cover means… I disliked it from the beginning. It looked ludicrous to me back then and looks just as bad today. It was done by a firm of designers in Hamburg, who had actually done a good job on the Lonesome Crow album before, but I think that time they failed miserably. As for the meaning, I can only guess, but I’d rather not…"

Fat Freddy wrote:

Like Manny, "Speedy's Coming" is the only song I've ever heard off of this one.

Terrible album cover by the way. I found this little comment on how the band feels about it on the album's Wiki page:

When asked to comment on the cover art to the album, the band's former lead guitarist Uli Jon Roth said "Don’t ask me what that cover means… I disliked it from the beginning. It looked ludicrous to me back then and looks just as bad today. It was done by a firm of designers in Hamburg, who had actually done a good job on the Lonesome Crow album before, but I think that time they failed miserably. As for the meaning, I can only guess, but I’d rather not…"

I saw that too!!!! LMAO!!!!! Here's one the title track with some really cool guitar work from Uli:

[youtube][/youtube]

This is the cover I have. Never saw any of the others.

As for Fly To The Rainbow, it's on my want-list. I want to acquire all of their 70's stuff first and then decide if I want to move on to the more well known 80's albums.

I like Speedy's coming and the title track is pretty good but it's still so far from what I knew The Scorps to be it's hard for me to get into it.

Speedy's Coming is a great rocking lead off song and the rest is a pretty mellow affair. I believe that this album was a gateway album for me for liking Prog.

Funny Story:
A buddy and I were watching the 49ers/Bengals Superbowl, "under the influence", on a small black & white TV and I was playing this album. After that was over, I put on Night Rangers Dawn Patrol and around that time the Niners started their Super Bowl winning drive.

Coinkidink or just stoned?

I wouldn't argue that it's a great album or anything, but i absolutely love Lonesome Crow. It's easily my favourite Scorpions album. It's just so weirdly atmospheric and absolutely over-loaded with just amazing licks and throw-away bluesadelic solos.

Anyone know what the actual band think of the album these days?.