The Scorpions really had three phases:
- The trippy Krautrock one with Michael Schenker and still keyboards, with Conny Plank (he of Can fame) producing, that was ended when a UFO abducted their still teen blond lead guitarist and took him to the Doctor, Doctor.
- The Uli Roth one with its Hendrixisms (Uli even married Hendrix' last female partner and stayed together with her until her premature death from I believe cancer) and esoteric leanings, but Roth was the last guitar hero/artist on the instrument they had, this Scorpions Mk II was de facto a new band out of the merger of the Roth trio Dawn (he brought the bassist and drummer - later of the classic Eloy line up - in tow) and the Rudolf Schenker/Klaus Meine remnant of the first Scorps line up.
- The conscious move to get with Mathias Jabs someone in, who is a proficient player, but won't raise eyebrows, won't mess with Rudold Schenker's and Klaus Meine's compositional steering of the band (as Uli Roth had done), but will "work out" on a human level.
And this Jabs did- he's been with the band for 32 years now unflinchingly, shouldering the "he's neither Michael nor Uli" chip on his shoulder and even being asked out of the band and then invited back in for the short stint of Michael Schenker returning to the Scorps for Lovedrive. In a way, Jabs (technically no worse than either Michael Schenker or Uli Roth, but lacking the inspiration and idisyncratic handwriting of both) is to the Scorpions what Ronnie Wood is to the Stones. He is never gonna be Mick Taylor, but he does just fine.
The Scorpions doggedly planned on becoming a stadium act, People laughed about it in Germany. Their original producer Conny Plank did and I rember an article in the late seventies in Germany's largest muso mag which said "the Hannover boys have come a long way and are sincere in what they do, but the thought of them filling US stadiums is just laughable, the competiton is too great in the US and let's face it, Klaus Meine can't speak or write English, their plan to crack America in the next few years is doubtful at best".
Well, Ze Scorps persevered, dumbed down their music to stadium usability and have become - bad English or not - the only German band ever successful on the US stadium trek selling more than a 100 million records and CDs which puts them in Deep Purple territory as regards commercial success.
And maybe, just maybe, that unnamed ex-Pretty Things guitarist who auditioned with them after Uli Roth and turned down their offer to join because he "couldn't get over those awful lyrics and the horrific accent" sometimes does wonder whether he didn't make a serious mistake.
I've made my peace with the Scorpions. Yes they can be embarrassing and regularly were. Yes, their music is simplistic, even cardboardish, next to them Golden Earring are The Beatles. But then they write something like Still Loving You which whether you think its corny or not defies all power ballad clichées of the time and becomes an international hit. Or, already beyond the peak of their career, a romantically naive folksong like Winds of Change which touches the hearts of millions in the East. Today I regard them as a German institution. And if you listen closely, their specific sound has not been copied that often and they always had the musical respect of their peers (Deep Purple, Rainbow, Judas Priest, Kiss, Saxon, Van Halen etc). Plus they are also the only German band ever covered by Mammoth in their pre-Van Halen days, so they must have done something right.
From the Uli days, the (again Hendrixy) Your Light is one of my favorites, here at 23.44:
PS: But I never thought any of The Scorps' music "gay", they are way too heavy-handed and workmanlike, if anything their music is mindnumbingly hetero, I fail to hear anything effeminate in it!
