Shred XLIX: And then the North Koreans attacked

True Scott....I swear Christmas was 5 minutes ago and here it comes again

HolyMoly wrote: I still sometimes quote the Scorpions' "World Wide Live" album, where Klaus screams "CALIFORNIAAAA!!!" every two minutes.  God I love those guys.  I became a fan with "No One Like You" and the Blackout album, but Lovedrive and Animal Magnetism are my favorites from that period.   They're all good.  My overall favorite is probably "Virgin Killer" (an early one with Roth) - man does that album kick butt. Actually I've heard their last album from just a couple of years ago, it's pretty good.

Sting in the Tail was a nice return to form.  Comeblack is kind of enjoyable too.  They rework some of their hits and then the rest of the album are covers.  It is kind of neat to hear Klaus sing these cover songs.  Kind of a sad way for them to end their recording career, but I enjoyed it.

It's only rock and roll, but I like it
Yes, it's only rock and roll, but I like it...

I used to be a really big fan of the Scorpions, but I am a Rock You Like A Hurricane era fan.   Fly To The Rainbow is the only album that I don't have from them, but I have a couple of compilations that have some of the songs on it.  I'm not as familiar with their older, proggier stuff.

For a good chunk of their history, yeah, they were phenomenal.  They started in the early 70s with a 16 year old Michael Schenker (later with UFO) on lead guitar, and his older brother Rudolf on rhythm. The first album (Lonesome Crow, fairly unknown to most people) kind of sounds like a jazzier Black Sabbath. After that, Michael left, and they developed a more stable style/lineup, with a Hendrix-inspired lead guitarist named Ulrich Roth.  Made several cool 70s metal albums not too dissimilar from Judas Priest's concurrent efforts, just more psychedelic.  In the late 70s they got a new lead guitarist after Roth went solo, and the band started veering more into a pop metal direction, and started racking up a lot of hits, the biggest of which was "Rock You Like a Hurricane".  I kind of lost track of them after that, but they continued to put out commercial metal albums that generally did pretty well.

Metal's come a long way, no doubt.  Say, are either of you fans of Scorpions?

rushfan4 wrote: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden etc... all did things that laid down the foundation for prog metal.  Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax came along and thrashed it up and added time signature changes.  Throw in some Rush influence, and wa-la you have prog metal.

That's about as succinct  and spot-on as one can put it.

Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden etc... all did things that laid down the foundation for prog metal.  Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax came along and thrashed it up and added time signature changes.  Throw in some Rush influence, and wa-la you have prog metal. 

Edited by rushfan4 - November 16 2012 at 13:01

HolyMoly wrote: The Bearded Bard wrote: rushfan4 wrote: That was '85 so it definitely pre-dates Mindcrime. Queensryche's The Warning was '84 and it has some progressive elements. Haven't heard that one, so you might be right about that. Fates Warning began producing prog metal albums pretty early too, weren't they? I think I read that somehwere. Led Zeppelin II is commonly thought of as the first prog metal album. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Not

Not so much a prog metal as proto-metal perhaps? IDK.

Edited by The Bearded Bard - November 16 2012 at 12:53

Schizoid Man was probably the most heaviest thing at it's time, but Helter Skelter isn't any proggy at all.