Fly to the Rainbow by Scorpions

Fly to the Rainbow, the Scorpions' second album, hit the racks on RCA on 1 November 1974, and it's the sound of a Hanover band regrouping. Michael Schenker, who'd played lead guitar on the 1972 debut Lonesome Crow, had split to join UFO, so his big brother Rudolf, who founded the group back in 1965, brought in Uli Jon Roth to take over the fireworks. Francis Buchholz arrived on bass at the same time, Jürgen Rosenthal sat behind the drums for this record and no other, and Achim Kirschning added keyboards.

Klaus Meine wails over the top, Reinhold Mack produced, and what comes out is hard rock with real heavy metal muscle and a very German stubbornness about volume. "Speedy's Coming" is the one that turned up on the countdowns. Roth would stay for three more studio albums, and the band was only getting warmed up.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.