The Scorpions: The CIA and the most controversial album cover ever
If you were to know the German rock band Scorpions, you would likely know their hit song ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’, a track that appeared on one of the earlier versions of Guitar Hero. Scorpions were formed in 1965, and their sonic output primarily comprises hard rock and heavy metal.
However, there are several controversies surrounding the band, and the first comes from their track ‘Wind of Change’, which was released from their 11th studio album Crazy World. The song became a protest song towards the end of the 20th Century as the Cold War finally began to die. It served as a rallying cry to Eastern Europeans as the grip of the Soviet Union started to lessen in intensity.
However, within the song lies an alarming conspiracy theory. Some have suggested that the CIA had actually written the song to help destabilise the Soviet Union. Journalist Patrick Radden Keefe explored the idea in his podcast named after the song. Keefe “imagined it being like some big international spy thriller if it had been directed by the Coen Brothers.”
He chased down the clues and tried to get the secret intelligence agency to open up about whether someone within the CIA had indeed written the song. Keefe noted that the Soviet Union had a suspicious eye on rock music, as they knew it had the power to incite social dissent. He said: “Soviet officials had long been nervous over the free expression that rock stood for and how it might affect the Soviet youth. The CIA saw rock music as a cultural weapon in the cold war. Wind of Change was released a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and became this anthem for the end of communism and reunification of Germany.”
While the mystery as to whether or not someone in the CIA wrote ‘Wind of Change’ remains just that, embroiled in a hall of mirrors, Keefe finds it hard to believe that they would not have used rock music to aid the global political tug of war. He said: “I don’t think the CIA confected the sentiments in Wind of Change; there was a sense of exhaustion within the Soviet bloc, which helped bring about the change. The song reflected that and also intensified that emotion, which is what the CIA would have wanted.”
Yet the ‘Wind of Change’ conspiracy is not the only controversy surrounding Scorpions. Their fourth studio album Virgin Killer features one of the most (if not the most) controversial album covers of all time. It depicts a naked prepubescent girl with her genitals only covered by a shattered glass effect. It led to much uproar in many parts of the world, including the UK and the US.
Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker claimed that the cover art was not the band’s idea but rather their record label. Commenting on the situation, he said: “The record company guys were like, ‘Even if we have to go to jail, there’s no question that we’ll release that.’ In the song ‘Virgin Killer’, time is the virgin killer. But then, when we had to do the interviews about it, we said, ‘Look, listen to the lyrics and then you’ll know what we’re talking about. We’re using this only to get attention. That’s what we do.’ Even the girl, when we met her fifteen years later, had no problem with the cover.”
However, since then, Schenker has also admitted to being embarrassed and regretful about using the image on the album cover. “Looking at that picture today makes me cringe,” he said. “It was done in the worst possible taste. Back then, I was too immature to see that. Shame on me – I should have done everything in my power to stop it.”
Evidently, the album’s lyrics were not as powerful as its image, leading to Scorpions being considered one of the most controversial rock bands of all time. Even the follow-up album Taken By Force continued the controversy, as its original artwork depicted children playing with military assault rifles in a cemetery. Thankfully, these ideas would not run by today’s standards.