Why YouTube is great

Since 1984 when I was 13 and I discovered popular music on the radio, thanks to one Brian Gardner, I have had an ear for a band called "The Scorpions". They remain my "favorite" band, although that doesn't mean I claim they are the best band or the most talented or most important or any of the things people often think you mean when you say "favorite". I just mean that I have an emotional response to the band and I still listen and enjoy.

After hearing them on the radio, I obtained a vinyl copy of "Blackout," and crossed out the lyrics to the naughty songs and was in music heaven. Only a few weeks later I was sitting in the hall of my parent's house looking at the album listening to a rock radio station. I remember thinking very distinctly that it had been two years since they produced an album and that they were due.

Literally, no sooner did I think that than the DJ said on the air, "Here is a new one from the 'Scorpions'," and he played "Rock You Like A Hurricane," for my first listen. I am mostly sick to death of hearing that particular song now, but it gave me a jolt that I still recall clearly. My stomach tightened, my pulse raced, I jumped up, sat down, jumped up, turned up the radio and listened. What a moment!

The band is still popular in some spots of the world but these days in the U.S. they are mostly remembered for that one song and a whistler about the Berlin Wall falling. My appreciation for the band spans a much bigger time frame and I found that in the band's "pre-hit" days the produced some very interesting music with thoughtful if unremarkable lyrics that were pretty good for guys not versed in English. They were a German band that knew English was the language of "rock 'n' roll" and they liked the early greats in rock including Elvis.

I have interviewed the band on the phone, photographed the band (somewhere in boxes of negatives) and reviewed the band live and have appreciated them for many years but these days, they aren't popular like they once were and they get lumped in with a lot of what I consider weak 80s "heavy metal" bands. (Which isn't to say I don't like some of those bands, just definitely not all of them.) Meanwhile the atrocious band Poison and others like them ride a surge of dirt-bag sentimentality.

So, YouTube allows me to see Scorpions footage that isn't widely available, and some of it is pure gold. The greatest treasure is a song from the 1972 album, "Lonesome Crow," which sounds very little like the group most people know and has a lot in common with more experimental musicians of the time. Michael Schenker was in the band, at all of 16 years old, and was already an astoundingly good guitarist. He went on to play for "Rainbow," and his own group and make his own legend while his brother Rudolf stays in the band even today.

YouTube is great because I can view this little glimpse of a German rock band in 1972:


Just since we are here, here is another pre-popular YouTube cut, played in this century with the Berlin Philharmonic. Yup, I am a geek but hey, it is my blog after all.



And, a commercial from 1988:


From what I consider a great album that didn't sell well. A song written about the love of playing live: