Tag: Pure Instinct

Scorpions – The Albums Ranked Worst to First (The Scorpions Collection Series)

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It started back on August 1, 2022 and it ends today. The Scorpions Collection Series has been a run ride and after 40 posts, we come to the conclusion. And that conclusion will take the 19 Studio albums and 1 compilation and rank them from the best album to the worst. The 1 compilation is really a studio album. ‘Comeblack’ is 1/2 re-recorded hits and 1/2 covers so in my book, it is a studio album.

Scorpions started way back in 1965, but their first album after many ups and downs finally came out in 1972. It was ‘Lonesome Crow’. There are two classic line-ups of the band in my book. You have the 1st with Rudolf Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Klaus Meine, Francis Buchholz and Rudy Lennars. Then their heyday of the 80’s saw Rudolf Schenker, Klaus Meine, Francis Buchholz, Mathias Jabs and Herman Rarebell. Yes, Micheal Schenker was in the band and there have numerous drummers and the like, but I would say these two were my favorite line-ups. The final album came out in 2022 and it was called ‘Rock Believer’, so we have 50 years of albums and over 50 years of the band and it was a hell of a ride going through this series.

Now, let us get to the brass tacks here and start this ranking…and away we go….

THE WORST – ‘EYE II EYE’ (1999):

I think it is fair to say this might be the worst Scorpions album of them all.  And since I’ve heard them all, I think I’m qualified to make that statement.  I am all fine with experimenting, but with such a drastic change, it is a little too much all at once.  The techno sound, the rapping, the almost full album of ballads was too shocking for most humans to handle.  Now, there are a handful of great tracks on here, but not enough to save this pile of garbage (though good enough for a Scorps playlist).  My Overall Score is a 1.0 out of 5.0 Stars as the Scorpions are not a boy band, they are not a pop band and they are definitely not a techno band.  They are a hard rock, heavy metal giant that got lost in the 90’s like a lot of 70’s/80’s bands did.

#19 – ‘COMEBLACK’ (2011):

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Scorpions – ‘Pure Instinct’ (1996) – Album Review (The Scorpions Collection Series)

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We are to the band’s 13th Studio album now in the series, however, 13 isn’t really their lucky number with this one. First off, longtime Scorpions drummer, Herman Rarebell, left the band to go start his own record label. They didn’t replace him right away and used a session drummer, Curt Cress, to handle the daunting task of following Rarebell’s footsteps. The band did replace the role with James Kottak who ended up being in the band longer than Herman was as he lasted almost 20 years before he was fired in 2016. The rest of the band was in tact with Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Mathias Jabs and the newest member Ralph Rieckermann. And for this album, they brought back as producer, Keith Olsen, who helped produced the album ‘Crazy World’. He produced the first seven tracks while Erwin Musper and the Scorps did the rest.

‘Pure Instinct’ followed in the footsteps of several Scorpions albums and showed nudity. My CD has the original nude cover of the humans in the cage being watched by the animals instead of the other way around. For those parts of the world that had issues with the cover, there was an alternate cover of just the band which is what I am showing as the header as I don’t want to be flagged on Facebook or any site for the so called offensive cover. But what I find offensive is the music on this album. This is not a rock album by any stretch of the imagination. Instead we get an album that is mostly ballads and then heavier songs that are more pop than hard rock except maybe for the opening track.

They released several songs as singles and the only one to chart in the U.S. was “Wild Child” which went to #19 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. All the other singles charted, just not in the U.S. as the album didn’t do well at all not even reaching Gold. The album only went to #99 on the Album Charts which is not good for a Scorpions record. There isn’t anything else I want to add at this point so let’s get in to the meat of this album and the music.

The album starts off with what sounds like bagpipes before the full band kicks in with the heavy drums on the verses and riffing guitars throughout and a solo that is so high pitched the dog howled! Klaus vocals are as perfect and classic sounding as ever. The chorus is catchy and sounds like Scorpions through and through. “Wild Child” is a great opening rocker to kick things off.

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