I HAD AN AWESOME TIME: The Scorpions To Stop Stinging

When I first started really getting into hard rock and heavy metal in the late '80s, I remember thinking that the Scorpions looked positively ancient. 20+ years later and I still think they look positively ancient, but now I think they actually are which is perhaps why they made the following statement on their website over the weekend:

Important Message to our Fans

It was always our pleasure, our purpose in life, our passion and we were fortunate enough to make music for you - whether it was live on stage or in the studio, creating new songs.

While we were working on our album these past few months, we could literally feel how powerful and creative our work was – and how much fun we were still having, in the process. But there was also something else: We want to end the Scorpion’s extraordinary career on a high note. We are extremely grateful for the fact that we still have the same passion for music we’ve always had since the beginning. This is why, especially now, we agree we have reached the end of the road. We finish our career with an album we consider to be one of the best we have ever recorded and with a tour that will start in our home country Germany and take us to five different continents over the next few years.

We want you, our fans, to be the first to know about this. Thank you for your never-ending support throughout the years!

We uploaded the very first snippets from our new album for you.

And now… let’s get the party started and get ready for a “Sting in the Tail”!

See you on the world tour,

Yours

Scorpions

I was never a big Scorpions fan when I was younger, but in more recent years I've become a huge fan. A little while back I wrote about my fondness for their 1990 release Crazy World, but I've really yet to meet a Scorpions album I don't like (and I've heard almost all of them). From their 70's stuff like In Trance, Virgin Killer and Lovedrive through to 80's metal essentials like Blackout and Love At First Sting through to unfortunately and incorrectly critically and commercially ignored albums from the 90's like Face The Heat and from the first decade of the 21st century like Unbreakable, The Scorpions have stuck to their guns and kept on doing their thing through whatever musical trends were happening around them. And while that may not have allowed them to maintain their commercial success, it is certainly a better career move then trying to make a record that sounds like whatever is hip at the moment and alienating your core fan base. I'm fairly certain I'll like the new album, but we'll see. The fact that many of the Scorpions contemporaries from the 80's metal world are still putting out good albums these days gives me faith. Even if the new album is horrendous beyond belief, it won't stop me from going to see them on this tour (ie. Metallica's St. Anger tour cycle).

The "farewell" tour starts in Germany and is supposedly going to last a couple years, so I would assume they'll be hitting the US at least twice and I certainly plan on catching them live. I had an opportunity to see them in NYC a couple years ago from the third row or something like that and foolishly passed on it. Still kicking myself for that and will not make the same mistake twice.

"Still Loving You"