Biography
Scorpions is a German rock band formed in 1970 in Hanover by Rudolf Schenker.Since the band’s inception, its musical style has ranged from hard rock to heavy metal.The lineup from 1978–92 was the most successful incarnation of the group, and included Klaus Meine (vocals), Rudolf Schenker (rhythm guitar), Matthias Jabs (lead guitar), Francis Buchholz (bass guitar), and Herman Rarebell (drums). The band’s only constant member has been Schenker, although Meine has been the lead singer for all of the band’s studio albums, and Jabs has been a consistent member since 1979. During the mid-1970s, with guitarist Uli Jon Roth part of the line-up, the music of the Scorpions was defined as hard rock.After the departure of Roth in 1978, Matthias Jabs joined and, following the guidance of producer Dieter Dierks, the Scorpions changed their sound towards hard rock/heavy metal, mixed with rock power ballads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpions_(band)
Album & Cover
Lovedrive is the sixth studio album by German band Scorpions, released in 1979. Considered by some critics to be the pinnacle of their career, Lovedrive was a major evolution of the band’s sound, exhibiting their “classic style” that would be later developed over their next few albums. Lovedrive cemented the “Scorpions formula” of hard rock songs combined with melodic ballads. Lovedrive was the band’s first album to be released by Harvest Records in Europe and Mercury Records in the United States and Canada following the band’s departure from RCA. It proved to be a major commercial breakthrough, reaching No. 55 on the Billboard Top 200, which none of their previous five albums had dented at all. The RIAA certified the record as Gold on 28 May 1986 and the album also proved a breakthrough in the United Kingdom where it was the first Scorpions album to chart and peaked at No. 36.
It didn’t hurt that Lovedrive boasted an attention-getting cover, designed by the brilliant Storm Thorgerson, depicting a rather unorthodox limousine ride during which a man ends up pulling an alarming length of chewing gum off of his date’s exposed breast. Banned in the United States, it proved so provocative that Thorgerson was still answering questions about it decades later, as when he told one interviewer, from a DailyMotion video “I always imagined that the drive — they were on their way to the opera, and he has this fetish about bubblegum and she lets him do it because she doesn’t give a s***. But I think it’s also a bit silly. I quite like it, yeah.” http://ultimateclassicrock.com/scorpions-lovedrive/
Cover Location: Back seat of a limousine somewhere in London, England.
Who Did What: Photography – P. Christopherson/S. Thorgerson.
Label: Mercury SRM-1-3795(US), Harvest SHSP4097(UK)
Source: Vinyl. Album. Cover. Art, The Complete Hipgnosis Catalogue: Aubrey Powell
Tracklist
| Side One Loving You Sunday Morning Another Piece Of Meat Always Somewhere Coast To Coast |
Side Two Can’t Get Enough Is There Anybody There? Lovedrive Holiday |
Credits
Bass Guitar – Francis Buchholz
Drums – Herman Rarebell
Guitar – Matthias Jabs, Rudolf Schenker
Producer – Dieter Dierks
Vocals – Klaus Mein
