The newly reformed band's first album in 1972 sounded more like the merging of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix than the Yard Birds, a sound that would develop into something the band could call their own in the years to come. The band wasn't interested in just making it big in Germany. Klaus Meine wrote all of the bands lyrics in English and all four members had their eyes on the top of the international hard rock music scene from the very beginning.

Their third album “Trance” (1975) caused an outbreak of Scorpion mania in Japan that year. Their fourth album “Virgin Killer” (1976) won album of the year in Germany and went gold in Japan. Japan was/is one of the world's largest markets for music and, when the Scorpions toured there during the late 1970s, they got their first taste of what it was like to be a superstar. However, Ulrich Roth left the band, after their 1978 Japanese tour, to be replaced by Mathias Jabs - one of 140 hopefuls who tried out for the position in London.

Today, Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, and Mathias Jabs form the musical backbone of the band, along with bass player Francis Buchholz, who joined with Ulrich Roth in 1973, and drummer Herman Rarebell, who joined in 1977. Van Halen launched the Scorpions musical career in the United States, by performing Scorpions cover music in the 1970s and the year 1979 saw the Scorpions first major American tour.  This was the market the Scorpions had always been waiting for, but there were troubles ahead.

In 1981, Klaus Meine – singer and guitarist - lost his voice and prepared to leave the band for its own good. The band would not hear of it and stood by their singer through the operation on his vocal chords and, arguably, their support enabled the almost impossible to happen. Klaus Meine recovered, using his new metal vocal chords to create an even wider range of sounds with his voice. In the 1980s, the Scorpions won the admiration of hard rock fans worldwide and. in 1989, Klaus Meine wrote their big hit “Winds of Change.”

To US audiences, the SCORPIONS, with their polished, hard-edged "melodic rock" and Klaus Meine’s dramatic power singing with its dizzying top notes, came to epitomise the best in heavy rock. Groups like Bon Jovi, Metallica, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard, later to become mega bands, were support acts on the SCORPIONS’ worldwide tours, learning what it meant for a band to hold its own in the rock arena in front of an audience of millions. Love at First Sting became one of the most successful albums in rock history.
- Scorpions Official History

In 1988, the Scorpions became the first international hard rock band to perform in the former USSR, with ten performances for 350,000 fans in Leningrad. The following year, the success of that concert encouraged the authorities to allow the legendary Moscow Music Peace Festival, where the Scorpions performed with other international hard rock acts, such as Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Skid Row, Cinderella, Ozzy Osbourne, and Gorky Park in Moscow’s Lenin Stadium. Yet, according to the Scorpions own website the high point of their musical career came with an invitation from the family of Elvis, namely Lisa Marie Presley and her then-husband Michael Jackson in 1994 to perform at the Elvis Presley memorial.

Are the Scorpions still the heroes of hard Rock that they were in the eighties and early nineties? Their performances with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra received mixed reviews from Rolling Stone Magazine, a publication that once lauded them as heroes.

Links:

• Official Site
• The Rolling Stone - Scorpions and Orchestra
• A Review of “Unbreakable” (2004)