Review Summary: With Roth’s departure, Scorps finally decide to direct their sound towards more commercial paths, ultimately becoming the band we all know.
Back in the late 70’s, Rock music was under construction. Punk evolved and dominated the scene for almost 3 years. The big three of England’s Hard Rock (Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple), were slowly declining or, in Deep Purple’s case, had splited. NWOBHM was under it’s way. Motorhead and Judas Priest had already showed up, making it perfectly clear that they had the potential to lead the way for all the possible newcoming bands.You could smell the upcoming 80’s eruption in the air. Then in 1978, Van Halen arrived and with their stunning debut everything changed. Rock music became faster, more technically demanding in some sort of way and more flashy than ever before.
Scorpions changed dramatically as well. Uli Roth wanted to pursue an adventurous, ambitious musical career filled with experimentations. Soon, it became perfectly clear that his success-driven bandmates could not tolerate another failure, as their previous releases hadn’t achieve commercial success. Their separation was inevitable. Roth was replaced by Matthias Jabs, thus completing the classic Scorpions line up that would achieve all the success and popularity, they were all dreaming of, in the decade to come. Jabs’s technique was unequal compared to Roth’s sheer prolific playing, lacking in imagination and having a style being less ambitious, but more straightforward. Still, despite the fact that he wasn’t as accomplished as a guitarist, with him in the lead guitars, Scorps became the no 1 German Rock band. This detail, is one of the secrets that explain Scorpions's new-found success. The fertile partnership of Jabs with Scorpions is something that shouldn't be overlooked. His collaboration with Rudolf Schenker was also nonetheless magnificent. Without having to suffer from conflicts or any other misconception and having a similar playing style, they developed their ideas smoothly and eventually they led the band to worldwide recognition.
Lovedrive is by far the most accessible, straightforward album that Scorpions made in the 70’s and fortunately it doesn’t disappoint. At first it may sound as a shot to mainstream acceptance, but in fact, this album doesn’t offer the cheesy foamed power ballads of their latter 80’s material. As such, here you will discover that their sound is still harsh and contains an aggressive edge similar of it’s precursor
Taken By Force. But make no mistake,
Lovedrive is written by a band with a restructured career philosophy. The lyrics and the melodies are somewhat different compared to the ethereal, mystical compositions of the Roth era. That of course doesn’t mean we don’t have some noteworthy music over here. This album contains some of the greatest hits that Scorpions ever wrote. The catchy
Loving You Sunday Morning, the beautifully rude
Cant Get Enough, the timeless and fan favorite
Holiday, are all instant classics. The experimenting Reggae – influenced
Is There Anybody There? is a refreshing experience after all the rotation between the Hard Rock anthems and the power ballads, a reminder that the band is still capable of experimenting a little bit and eventually it will be the last track in which Scorpions will choose to go out of the ordinary in an album of theirs.
Always Somewhere is a sweet ballad that may remind you of Skynyrd's masterpiece
Simple Man.
Rudolf’s younger brother the prodigy guitarist Michael Schenker makes a return to write some music for the sake of his old band. In addition, he offers his immeasurable lead playing skills in these three songs which are,
Another Piece Of Meat,
Coast To Coast and
Lovedrive. His participation is more than welcome and his contribution is more than enough to make the album sound better in every possible way. Without his ideas and his valuable help this album would have been completely different, as Jabs hadn’t yet fully developed his skills. Scorpions also, continue their long tradition with the bizarre, sexy album covers, with this one being the rule rather than the exception. Meine’s vocals are at very good shape and, if we can make such an assumption, in this album his signature voice is sounded for the very first time.
To conclude,
Lovedrive is an excellent album. It is packed up with wonderful ideas, great vocal melodies, screaming solos and beautiful ballads. The musical simplicity and the rough energy along with all the aforementioned points makes it one of the finest albums in Scorpions’s rich discography. What will follow is more or less common knowledge. A story of success, wealth and fame will begin to unfold as the Germans will become one of the biggest - selling acts in the entire world. A band, which stared as a Pop covering act 14 years ago, had undergone significant changes in their style by adapting Progressive, Blues, Jazz and Krautrock influences, finally found their formula and were on their way to conquer the summits of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Recommended tracks:
Loving You Sunday Morning
Always Somewhere
Lovedrive
Holiday
