Scorpions were and still are one of the most important bands and performers of the twentieth century. They were worshipped in the Soviet Union. Then, in the newly independent countries, which had changed their political orientation, they were much loved too – all very much in the past tense.
Scorpions greet the fans
As far as one can tell from the crooked post-Soviet canned music market, the love and reverence for the Scorpions has now taken a partly archival form and partly gone to the level of genetic memory: the generation that was supposed to follow the stages of the Germans’ great journey with rapt attention, but preferred just to sigh nostalgically, is responsible for it.
Scorpions at the height of their fame
Scorpions and Gorbachev in 1991 (photo) “Perestroika” and Scorpions coincided – so much so, that they became mutual symbols: Mr. Gorbachev had his photo taken with Scorpions in Kremlin, where they were given a sign “music of new thinking”, and Scorpions willingly sang about wind of changes and apologized for ancestors who had fought with such nice people.
But by and large, all this is nonsense – Scorpions had their biggest success in the period from 1984 (when “Love At First Sting” with the outstanding hits “Rock You Like A Hurricane” and “Still Loving You” was released) till 1990, which was marked by the last in a row very strong album “Crazy World”.
Six years as a “decent world-class band” and that was it. Or almost that’s it.
But what to do? Forget and recognize the right to exist only those who measure music by the number of records sold? And allow only those who “produce results” to be respected? And so our people’s love for Scorpions has the same nature as fools and roads, and that love is sacred.
The unexplainable love for Scorpions music
In a way, Scorpions became, as psychoanalysts say, a “projection” or “sublimation” for our listening public: People projected their aspirations to see the home band in a halo of international success onto these German rockers, and having projected, sublimated in “Scorpions”, as if they were that mythical “our” band, with which the giants, titans and other oversized heroes of the epic are honored to play on the same stage.
It was impossible to be sublimated in the Beatles-rollers: a midget might as well imagine himself as a basketball player.
Scorpions became the first band to break through the language barrier and, leaving it behind, to cross the sound barrier as well: as soon as the foreign language became native and close, the bar, over which serious people in places with the highest concentration of serious music, ceased to seem unattainable.
This time the Germans succeeded in “conquering the whole world.”
Klaus Meine told what difficulties Scorpions had to face in his homeland, when the homeland understood, that songs in English were the repertoire of Scorpions and they would never sing in German:
Our concerts were ignored, and at the ones they didn’t, they threw all kinds of nastiness on the stage. Germany turned away from us, and that was a bit offensive – a bit, because Germany wasn’t our target: the Scorpions had the whole world in their sights.
That’s right, if Scorpions had sung in German, only Austria and Switzerland would have sung under them, but this was a chance to fight for something more substantial in the territories, where before, having seen a living German, citizens usually didn’t calm down until he was a bit dead.
All the books about the Scorpions say that in 1984 they conquered America – meaning that MTV started the “heavy rotation” of the video for the single “Rock You Like A Hurricane”. This single reached double platinum, and Scorpions spent a part of the US tour as a headliner – in total, out of 25 millions of CDs they sold there almost ten million.
Previously, no German band had ever closed a concert after a Kiss! This was a success, even though no Kiss, let alone Scorpions, no other Iron Division band, not even their whole cavalcade in America had ever grossed more than a million spectators on a concert tour. With the exception of Metallica, but that is another story.
The leader of legendary band Scorpions, Klaus Meine, said, that their hour had come in the Soviet Union. In spite of the fact, that those, who forged their success, knew for sure: they would never see Scorpions band live.
Well, Soviet people in 1984 had no idea that everything would change! And here was a success, impossible in any other country, because it’s impossible to imagine any other place in the world, where a hysteria around music begins to unfold in the absence of a performer playing music!
You might say that this was how hysteria around any other band in the USSR arose, but there were not many such “other” bands, or, rather, almost none at all. “The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Uriah Heep were always loved, and loved with the smooth and gentle flame of a country fireplace.
Because they loved each in his or her own little den. The eternal lights in the squares with a large gathering of people began a little later, and one of the first to be lit was the torch in honor of the Scorps. To be fair, though, it should be noted that the very first torch was lit in the name of Rainbow – not Deep Purple or Mr. Gillan and his band, but exactly Rainbow. Why? And then why Scorpions, and then Queen? That is a question for a psychiatrist.
The leader of legendary Scorpions is more alive than ever!
In editorial offices of magazines were pouring letters with one demand: “Tell me about Scorpions!” And as a consequence, then came the letters demanding to declassify the burial place of the beloved Klaus Meine – that he died in terrible convulsions, singing “Still Loving You”, no doubt almost one and a half million domestic readers!
That’s the kind of success almost no one else had in the USSR! And if one were to compile an absolute Top-5 of “eternal lights” (celebrities that our fans had for some reason “buried alive”), it would look like this:
- Rainbow (because readers buried Richie Blackmore most often).
- The Beatles (Paul McCartney “notoriously” died back in ’66, and who was there in his place is unknown).
- Damis Roussos.
- The Scorpions (goodbye, Klaus!).
- Elvis Presley (because every fool knows he’s alive).
In this Top-5 is hidden not only answer to the question “why Scorpions?”, but also to the most important one about “mysterious post-Soviet soul”: Scorpions – because it is beautiful.
And in this Top-5 everything is beautiful, and everything is in its place: Ritchie Blackmore – the most beautiful guitar, Damis Russos and Elvis – the most beautiful voices. Not something expedient, necessary and relatively important, but “beauty as we understand it.”
That’s why Scorpions is both beautiful and understandable: Klaus Meine’s voice is not the primal fear of the Earth that Ian Gillan was the conductor of. And therefore not Deep Purple, but Rainbow – beautiful and far more understandable.
And the place in the heart of a special nation between the Beatles and the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll is the very precise place of Scorpions on the, as it is now fashionable to put it, cultural space of the countries that appeared on the ruins of communism.
In fact, the rumor about legendary Scorpions leader’s death – incomparable Klaus Meine came after 1980, when “Animal Magnetism” was released – some of our especially closely connected with world cosmos compatriots had a vision that Klaus not only played in a box, but the penultimate will of the dead band was to appoint Don Dokken from Dokken to his place.
Klaus Meine, say “thank you” to our pirates!
What’s 25 million CDs sold?!
Who counted how many “pirated” “scorpions” CDs came off the presses of all the Russian and Ukrainian filibusters, who estimated how many CDs back in draconian times were replicated and sold in the most illegal, but most necessary way? Even if the piracy fully touched all our revered bands, and it touched Scorpions proportionally, it turns out that it is not 25 millions, but two or three hundred millions already! And this is already the reason for full-flowing love.
Scorpions forever!
All of us dissolved in Scorpions a bit, and if that part, which never dissolved, understands with some analytical organ, that this process is some strange and inexplicable, but the souls, merged with their music, are not thinking too much about what happened: it could be worse, the “strange” could be not so worthy.
Klaus Meine once said that they like it that we love them so madly, but such love must make a normal person a little uncomfortable: what would happen if I did something wrong and they hated me a little?
They don’t understand that here they are given an indulgence for any stupidity, here they will be forgiven everything, not even realizing that they are forgiven, and that there was something to forgive. This is the love of one’s idol.