Scorpions: Love At First Sting [DEF JAM]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 180g pressing gives the German band's biggest US album some extra weight. It hit No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and went triple platinum, and it holds three of their most famous songs.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered

About the album

By 1984 Scorpions had been grinding away for over a decade, and the band from Hanover decided it was time to conquer America properly. Love at First Sting was the record that did it, a lean nine-song set with the riffs sharpened and the choruses built for arenas.

Producer Dieter Dierks recorded it at his own studio in Stommeln, West Germany. "Bad Boys Running Wild" kicks things off, "Rock You Like a Hurricane" became their signature anthem and a Hot 100 hit, and "Big City Nights" is pure Sunset Strip swagger. Klaus Meine's voice carries the power ballad "Still Loving You," which went top three in France and Switzerland, while Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs trade guitar parts and Francis Buchholz and Herman Rarebell lock it all down. The cover photo is by the celebrated German photographer Helmut Newton. Early sessions in Stockholm with two ex-Rainbow players were set aside, and the classic lineup cut the album in Germany.

Four decades later, "Rock You Like a Hurricane" still blasts out of hockey arenas and classic rock radio. Meteorologists have, to their credit, never once complained.

Also at Kops: more Scorpions on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Mercury (cat# B0023893-01), a reissue of the 1984 album.