Wednesday, 25 October 2017
728 Goodbye Scorpions - Send Me An Angel
Chart entered : 30 November 1991
Chart peak : 27
Fairly uniquely, the German metallers disappear immediately after their two biggest hits. Most of the preceding eight were very minor hits until "Wind of Change" caught the zeitgeist in the wake of the Berlin Wall coming down and reached number 2.
This was the follow-up from the same "Crazy World" album , surprisingly not their biggest album here, peaking below its last four predecessors. Like the previous hit, "Send Me An Angel" is a stately power ballad marked by Klaus Meine's earnest vocals and a scorching guitar solo from Matthias Jabs. Klaus's cosmic lyrics about self-improvement read like he's been watching too many Kung Fu repeats but it's a good tune and, corny as it is, I do quite like it.
Scorpions' subsequent commercial decline was partly due to the challenge presented by grunge and partly because the band couldn't hold together. There was one more single from the album, the gonzoid metal of "Hit Between The Eyes" which flopped despite being used in the film Freejack,. After that , bassist Francis Bucholz quit the band in a dispute over bad management.
To mark time the band released a compilation of their ballads "Still Loving You" in 1992. Neither the album nor the singles "Still Loving You" and "Living For Tomorrow" charted in the UK.
Their next album, featuring new bassist Ralph Riekermann , came out in 1993. Face The Heat saw a return to a heavier sound with even the obligatory ballads "Under the Same Sky" and "Lonely Nights" sounding pretty crunchy. The former was one of two singles along with the rocker "Alien Nation" whose lyrics are certainly open to a racist interpretation but neither charted . The album stalled at number 51 and it would be 17 years before they returned to the chart.
Prior to the next album they suffered another departure when drummer Herman Rarebell quit to set up a record label in 1995. Their subsequent album "Pure Instinct" eschewed the rockers for power ballads and metal-flavoured pop. Their popularity in mainland Europe held up but the album only made a very minor impact in the US and didn't chart here.
Their next album "Eye II Eye" suggested that they'd been listening to Radiohead with drum loops and electronica pushing the guitars out to the margins. It's also notable for "Priscilla", a tongue in cheek ode to a cockroach with a chorus lyric of "Priscilla oh Priscilla, tonight I'm gonna kill ya". Their existing audience didn't like it and it's their lowest seller worldwide.
The following year they collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on an album Moment of Glory , mostly reworking old material. The Abba-ish title track was the official anthem for the EXPO 2000 exhibition in Hanover. The album reached number 3 in Germany and number 70 in France.
A return to a classic rock sound on 2004's "Unbreakable" did not bring about a change of fortunes. For their next album "Humanity : Hour I " they decided on a science fiction concept but more tellingly selected Desmond Child as producer. Child and ex-Hooter Eric Bazilian had a hand in writing most of the songs. Their fairy dust had the desired effect of restoring Scorpions to the US album chart where they peaked at number 63.
In 2009 Scorpions announced that their tour the following year and their forthcoming album would be their last. 2010's "Sting In The Tail" is an accomplished pop metal album with good songs which reached number 23 in the US and scraped to 96 in the UK. On the tour they changed their minds about retiring. To mark the change of mind they released the "Comeblack" album of re-recordings and covers , including a version of "Tainted Love" , the following year. It reached number 90 in the US. Over the next three years they trawled their archives for unreleased songs from the seventies and eighties and found they had enough for an album. After buffing them up in the studio they released "Return To Forever" in 2015 which got to 65 in the US and more surprisingly 31 in the UK.
Francis has toured with former Scorpions Michael Schenker and Uli Roth.
Herman has been busy with his label including working on dance material with his wife Claudia Raab. He now lives in Brighton and joined Francis and Michael Schenker on their Temple of Rock Tour starting in 2011.
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