Last but not least, "Stranger Things" showed: The Scorpions were the biggest German band of the eighties.
Now their poignant and controversial albums are reissued on colored vinyl.
The horror epic "Stranger Things" on the Netflix streaming service was not just one of the biggest series hits in recent times.
The action also takes place in the USA in the 1980s, which is why the soundtrack washed songs into the playlists of young music listeners that the older generation had long since put away in the oldies compartment.
Kate Bush, for example, earned $2.3 million because her "Running up that Hill" climbed the charts again.
Metallica's "Master of Puppets" was also honored again.
The spotlight for the Scorpions doesn't shine quite as brightly in the series - but still: Rudolf Schenker's guitar riff mills nasty as "Stranger Things" villain Billy parks his Ford Mustang with screeching tires and swings his cowboy boots out of the driver's door.
Three Hubba Bubba-munching permed graces lust after the muzzle-wearer with the perky mullet curls.
"Rock you like a hurricane"!
Then you realize again: The Scorpions were damn the biggest German band.
At that time.
You kind of forgot that after the Hanoverians whistled us to sleep at the turn of the century and the nineties weren't as good to them artistically as they were to any other hard rock band apart from Rammstein.
But now there is an opportunity to listen to the matter more closely – and to look at it.
Because BMG is bringing out the old Scorpions records again this Friday, on differently colored vinyl.
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The Scorpions reissues on colored vinyl
© BMG
The look of their LPs was important to the Scorpions anyway - and they themselves were notorious for it.
On the one hand, they engaged Helmut Newton for the cover photo of “Love at first Sting” from 1984 (they later regretted that Andy Warhol was too expensive for them for the successor “Savage Amusement”).
On the other hand, the original cover of Virgin Killer - the image of a naked prepubertal girl - was quite rightly withdrawn in 1976.
It's not included in the re-releases either.
But the original cover of "Taken by Force" (1977), which the label nervously prevented after the experiences of the previous year and only released in Japan - the photo of two boys playing robbers and Schandi in a military cemetery is quite successful.
Hipgnosis designed the slipperiness “Lovedrive” (1979) and “Animal Magnetism” (1980) skilfully staged old man humor.
Most famous is probably Gottfried Helnwein's self-portrait as the Man of Sorrows on "Blackout", the breakthrough of 1982.
That was ten years after the band's debut.
And so the Scorpions - to come to the music - stand for one thing in particular: In contrast to today's pop musicians, they were allowed to develop.
What makes the Hanoverian warhorses interesting are the phases they went through.
The beginning as a Krautrock plant, the strong time with lead guitarist Uli Roth in the seventies - a Hendrix admirer who sometimes sounds really "funky".
Matthias Jabs, who was more trained on Eddie Van Halen, with whom they became stars.
At the end there is the realization that the Scorpions grew up because of their possibly German characteristics: They did their thing thoroughly and with full enthusiasm.
And they may not have got everything right - but in the end they did very little wrong, too.
The Scorpions will play in the Olympic Hall on June 5th.
Remaining tickets at eventim.de.
The limited vinyl editions are available at
https://www.artofthealbum.store/pages/scorpions.