November Record Day – 2nd Nov – Favourite “Sophomore” album

This album was commented in 2008. CLICK HERE (in Malay)

SCORPIONS debuted the rock scene with Lonesome Crow. Though the album strongly stands with the contribution of the renowned guitarist Michael Schenker (later joined UFO), it was not really the rock we know as SCORPIONS, rather a mixture of kraut-space-rock which was a big thing at that time in Germany.

It was on the 2nd album at which Uli Jon Roth joined to replace Michael Schenker that SCORPIONS really put its own identity. The music can be safely now be called as hard rock but in a different way. Roth took a considerable limelight in this album with his fiery and shredding guitar solo and even took the position of a lead vocal in the song Drifting Song. It was not a surprise considering that Roth was hugely influenced by Jimi Hendrix.

Collectively, this album was my favourite sophomore album due to the strength of each of the songs. Half of the album was filled with mid-tempo but complex rock tunes such as They Need A Million, They Need a Million and Drifting Sun and supported by the more ballad-sy Fly People Fly and This Is My Song. The crushing starter, Speedy’s Coming was simply neck-breaking (guitar-wise) at which Roth put his gritty solo. And finally, the epic Fly To The Rainbow that was put in the last track – prog-influenced, emotionally-filled with the combined vocals of Roth and Meine.

While I mentioned about Roth all the time, one should not ignore the vocals of Klaus Meine who basically moulded the rock-singing technique for the world to copy. Rudolf  Schenker as the wall-strength ryhthm guitarist who was also the backbone of the band by writing most of the songs in the album. This was the only SCORPIONS album where drummer Jurgen Rosenthal played (later joined prog-rock band, Eloy).

Fly to the Rainbow is the second studio album by the German hard rock band Scorpions, released in 1974.