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Scorpions – Taken By Force
Sirius
Eye In The Sky
Children Of The Moon
Gemini
Silence And I
You’re Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned
Psychobabble
Mammagamma
Step By Step
Old And Wise
Taken By Force was the final Scorpions album with guitarist Uli Jon Roth, and while it perhaps showed signs that the style which had helped them to break through internationally was becoming a little jaded, there were still some powerful moments, none more so than the mesmeric We’ll Burn The Sky.
The androgyny-celebrating He’s A Woman, She’s A Man and the driving opener Steamrock Fever both sum up the band in the year punk broke, with racing, surprisingly spiky riffs. Best of all, The Sails Of Charon was right up there with the best of the band’s output in this era.
Controversy raged over the album artwork, but that was almost the norm for this lot. The sleeve of Taken By Force showed two kids playing with guns in a graveyard, and was once again considered too distasteful for some territories, including the UK, where it was replaced by a plain black-and-white cover with five individual photos of the band members.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in December 1977
- Running on Empty – Jackson Browne
- Draw The Line – Aerosmith
- Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter – Joni Mitchell
- Life On The Line – Eddie and the Hot Rods
- The Alice Cooper Show – Alice Cooper
- Before and After Science – Brian Eno
- Eddie Money – Eddie Money
- Pink Flag – Wire
- Spiral – Vangelis
- Suicide – Suicide
What they said…
“Sure, there are some weak cuts, but there are plenty of strong ones to make up for it. Among the highlights of the disc are the energetic anthem Steamrock Fever and the growling song of androgyny He’s a Woman, She’s a Man. The highlight of the disc, though, is We’ll Burn the Sky. This one is lyrically quite similar to the Blue Öyster Cult classic Don’t Fear the Reaper, but the music is a wonderfully building anthemic ballad. It is arguably one of the finest songs the Scorpions have ever done. (AllMusic)
“In brief, this is not Scorpions’ most exhilarating release, nor probably their absolute finest, but creativity is at an all-time high and everything here certainly deserves the label of ‘interesting’ if not ‘amazing’. I’m beating round the bush I guess, but I like Taken by Force a fair bit and The Sails of Charon is perhaps the killer Scorps tune, even if there are a few oddities lurking around in its impenetrable depths.” (Encyclopaedia Metallum)
“Taken By Force immediately states its heavy metal purposes with Steamrock Fever: the sound of a jackhammer and pounding riff opens the album. Its anthemic chorus, melded with some Roth six-string trickery and that unrelenting jackhammer, will knock you down. The Scorpions are not winning any awards for lyrical poetry, preferring to take the sledgehammer route with their message too.” (Mike Ladano)
What you said…
Jon Peacock: Having not heard this album since I purchased and listened back in my teens back in 1977, after I had bought the great Tokyo Tapes, what a great cover that had. I thought I would give it a couple of listens, hoping it was better than I remembered, so here goes.
Steamrock Fever: Kicks things off well, a storming track that keeps building up to the point of each chorus, not quite a barnstormer as it doesn’t really go anywhere, but it sets out the stall well.
We’ll Burn The Sky. I like this track a lot, it’s probably my favourite on the album. I find it just works so well, suits Klaus Meine’s vocal style well, and feels like a style the Scorpions would visit a few times over their career. It’s definitely up there with their best.
I’ve Got To Be Free: I wasn’t keen on this at first, but after a couple of listens, it has really grown on me. Meine’s vocal work well, and the whole band feels gelled with the acoustic touches working really well.
The Riot Of Your Time. Another listenable romp, but I’m not keen on the guitar solo; I don’t feel it fits well. After it, the song feels like it is building up to something, then it just fades out, a disappointing end.
The Sails Of Charon: Roth finding his feet here, some great playing all-round and definitely a guitar track; however, I find Klaus Meine’s vocal struggle a bit to hit the mark and do the song justice. Could they have done more with this one?
Your Light: This is a song that suits Klaus Meine well, the sort of thing he has proved to be good at throughout their catalogue. Often, rock and metal bands do the slow numbers really well; this is no different. The underlying riff, with a touch of reggae strumming style, works well, with a well-balanced solo that suits it well to the close.
He’s A Woman, She’s A Man: Had this been released in the last few years, it may have been panned, but hopefully people aren’t bothered by such things. Nevertheless, it is a great fun riffing romp that worked well on Tokyo Tapes, where it really found its feet. Love it.
Born To Touch Your Feelings: Doesn’t really strike the right chord for me. It has the elements of a good song; however, I don’t feel it knows what it really wants to be, also not keen on the ‘Visage’ style talking, just feels like it drags the track out unnecessarily and finishes the album on a down note.
Well, there it is. I like this album and will definitely listen to it more often now, as well as dusting off Tokyo Tapes. You can hear the sound of the Scorpions really starting to come through, although in recent years, I found my interest in the Scorpions has waned. Wasn’t keen on the latest live album either, Meine’s vocals are really showing his age, unfortunately, but that’s to be expected.
Taken By Force isn’t my favourite Scorpions album; that will always be Lovedrive, which I prefer over the much-praised Blackout album. 8/10.
Evan Sanders: Having only been familiar with the Scorpions from their Rock You Like A Hurricane period, this album is an enjoyable surprise. The first four songs of Steamrock Fever, We’ll Burn the Sky, I’ve Got to be Free, and The Riot of Your Time set a rocking pace, a mixture of hard rock, pop, and metal, and not even hinting at the hair band style that would dominate the 80s.
I keep trying to figure out what bands sounded similar at the time, and my best comparisons are Joe Walsh’s The James Gang, as well as the harder rocking numbers by early 70’s Queen. Even though a few of the songs aren’t as strong, there really aren’t any bad ones on the album, which is a positive testament to the days when albums were about 40 minutes long, not 60+ minute CDs marred by filler. Too bad this didn’t get more airplay back in the day, as it would have been a regular on my turntable. 7/10.
Chris Downie: Conventional wisdom would say that German legends Scorpions only really hit peak form on their Lovedrive classic, which heralded the start of a string of top-notch hard rock / heavy metal albums from 1979-88 (yes, the timeline is being stretched one album, to include the divisive, slightly over-produced, but still well-written Savage Amusement) that saw them remain a dominant force throughout the 80s, until they encroached on David Hasselhoff territory with their Cold War ballad Wind of Change.
Nevertheless, for a small but dedicated minority, the pre-1979 material is criminally overlooked, not least Taken By Force. While Uli Jon Roth would go on to be a fine artist in his own niche, replete with skullet, headband and Teutonic moustache, his early work with Scorpions saw the band a significantly different beast than the one that later conquered MTV and rocked arenas (like a hurricane). For one thing, the sound and songcraft are more diverse and less immediate, except for the straightforward Steamrock Fever.
While it’s hard to argue that the band and Roth both found their true calling on Lovedrive and in an enduring solo career, respectively, this is a curious part of heavy rock history that deserves a listen for more than mere novelty factor. Taken By Force shows a band who could already walk, just before they learned to run. 7/10.
John Davidson: The album opens inauspiciously with the rather stolid Steamrock Fever, which, despite its driving riff, doesn’t really go anywhere. We’ll Burn the Sky, on the other hand, shows more promise, starting with a fairly traditional finger-picked melody for a minute or so before the hard rock riffage begins.
The next couple of tracks are decent but not outstanding, which just makes Sails Of Charon stand out as the masterpiece it is. The remaining songs are pretty good, with He’s A Woman… being the other standout.
Lovedrive is definitely a better album, as is Animal Magnetism, but Taken By Force has much to recommend it.
Greg Schwepe: A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to purchase and check out the early Scorpions catalogue with Uli Jon Roth. He had been name-checked in a bunch of guitar magazines and figured I’d travel backwards with their releases to see what the fuss was about.
And what I quickly found out was that this was not Rock You Like A Hurricane Scorpions. This was not Big City Nights Scorpions, and this was not Wind of Change Scorpions. This was full-fledged 70s Euro hard rock. And believe me, this is not a knock on the Scorpions that emerged with Love Drive (which was my first Scorpions purchase). Did Roth’s presence have that much of an effect on the Scorpions’ sound? Or was there a concerted effort to make themselves more radio-friendly after Taken By Force?
While Uli John Roth definitely has his own distinctive style, there’s a little Hendrix-ish flair in his playing. Add that to Rudolf Schenker’s Flying V rhythm guitar, and you have a formidable one-two punch found in Steamrock Fever, We’ll Burn The Sky, I’ve Got To Be Free, and He’s A Woman.
The Sails of Charon takes the Best Riff Award on this album, and is where Roth shines. Born To Touch Your Feelings could probably be about three minutes shorter (or four!) and without all the spoken word pieces. That’s the one that got “Is this over yet?” from me.
In a nutshell, Taken By Force totally surprised me when I heard it for the first time. There have been other bands where they made an effort to change their sound, and you listen to their prior output, and you know why they did it. It’s because the early stuff was not good. Definitely not the case here, early Scorpions output stands on its own. 7 out of 10 on this one for me. Jah, sehr gut!
Shane Reho: It’s easy to think of the Scorpions as an 80s band, as their biggest success was in that decade. Their 70s output is just as impressive, though. With the possible exception of Animal Magnetism, every album they did from In Trance through Love at First Sting is a winner, and Taken By Force is no exception.
It’s not perfect. At the very least, Steamrock Fever, Your Light, and He’s a Woman – She’s a Man could’ve used better lyrics, and Born to Touch Your Feelings shows that they hadn’t yet perfected their ballad game (they got there on their next, and best, album). Those first two songs still rock, though, and for a band like the Scorpions, that’s what counts.
As for the rest, We’ll Burn the Sky belongs on any best of the Scorpions list, even though I’d choose the Tokyo Tapes live version over the studio recording. I’ve Got to Be Free and The Riot of Your Time rock hard and well, and The Sails of Charon might be Uli Jon Roth’s best song. All due respect to Klaus Meine, but I wonder what that song would sound like sung by Ronnie James Dio?
Overall, this album shows Meine and Rudolf Schenker inching closer to what would become their definitive sound, which makes it make sense that this was Roth’s last album with the band. As great as at least three of the albums the three did together are, they were pulling in different directions, however great those directions are.
Adam Ranger: The last album with Roth, before Mathias Jabs. The album that followed was the much-lauded classic Scorpions Lovedrive, but in Taken By Force, you have a more varied-sounding album.
If you just listened to the opener Steamrock Fever you would probably think the album sucks. Steamrock Fever has no variation, just that one riff pretty much all the way through. Some songs (particularly punk style) can get away with this, but here it’s not angry or cheerful, just monotonous. Thankfully, the rest of the album is much, much better.
You have great riffs, with melodic lead over the top and some nice drum fills and vocals, that, whilst not always perfect, are varied enough to keep the interest. I could probably do without Born To Touch Your Feelings or at least have it as a shorter song.
A prototype of what their sound was to be. Not as polished as they were to become, but perhaps better for it? Apart from that first track, this is a very enjoyable listen, with a lot of variation. It may just be one of my favourite Scorpions records
Kenneth MacDonald: Hell yeah!
Marike Elzinga: Taken By Force is probably my favourite album of Scorpions’ Uli Jon Roth era. Of course, there is the epic The Sails of Charon, with one of the greatest intros ever. But my favourite track is We’ll Burn The Sky. The lyrics are amazing and written by Monika Dannemann, who was Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend at the time he died and later on married Uli Jon Roth.
Philip Qvist: Because the Uli Roth Scorpions era was over before I started to take a real interest in music, my focus on this band has always been on the six albums that followed Taken By Force, i.e. from Lovedrive until Crazy World.
So the era before Lovedrive has been largely ignored by me, although I was very familiar with songs such as The Sails Of Cheron and He’s A Woman – She’s A Man, and both of course appear on this album.
So what is my first impression of Taken By Force? It’s pretty good, and thanks to Klaus Meine’s distinctive voice and band leader Rudolf Schenker’s guitar playing, you can tell straight away that this is a Scorpions album. However, you can also hear that Uli Roth and his replacement, Matthias Jabs, are two distinct lead guitarists, and you can see why the band changed direction in the way it did after this record was released.
I see the bulk of the songwriting was done by the band’s singer and two guitarists, although my favourite track was We’ll Burn The Sky, which was based on a poem by Monika Dannemann. That said, the two aforementioned songs and Steamrock Fever also appealed to me. It’s a good album, and it will get a pretty good score from me, but I still prefer the likes of Blackout and Love At First Sting.
John Norris: It’s better than Lovedrive.
Mike Canoe: While I understand we are here to say goodbye to Francis Buchholz, I am excited that we have our first Scorpions album with lead guitarist Uli Von Roth, although I didn’t listen to the lineup with him in it until early in this millennium.
When I was a young teen, first getting into my own music, I would think I was onto some hot new band, only to find out that they had a big back catalogue. And so it was with the Scorpions – but they were usually in the cutout bin, and none of the songs from those albums ever got played on the radio. Additionally, Circus, my metal magazine of choice, described Uli Von Roth as a Hendrix-loving hippie – and he had the facial hair to prove it! – and that image didn’t jibe with the jackhammering riff rascals I fell in love with on Blackout and Love At First Sting.
Somewhere along the way in the ’00s, I picked up a CD of 1979’s Best of Scorpions for cheap. Holy maligned reputation, Batman! A lot of these songs were exactly what I liked about the Scorpions: punchy riffs topped with Klaus Meine’s incredible voice. Of course, it helped that Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine wrote most of the songs that made the best-of, but I really grew to appreciate Roth’s playing and songwriting as well.
That compilation had three songs from Taken By Force, powerful rockers Steamrock Fever and He’s a Woman – She’s a Man, and the Roth (and Meine and drummer Herman Rarebell) showcase, The Sails of Charon. I soon began to appreciate the version of We’ll Burn The Sky off Tokyo Tapes, which I began to play a lot. I guess the Hendrix connection wasn’t so bad after all.
So I’ve been primed to like Taken By Force – and I do. New-to-me favourites include Meine’s The Riot of Your Time and Roth’s Your Light. Only the closer, Born to Touch Your Feelings, is the kind of hippy dippy stuff that I feared as a teenager – and that was written by Riffin’ Rudi! As the old folks say, it goes to show you never can tell.
Godspeed, Francis Buchholz. I played air bass to The Zoo because of you.
Brian Anderson: This is my favourite Scorpions album. I loved it when I first heard it more than 40 years ago, and love it just as much today. It contains my favourite song of theirs, Your Light. That riff is breathtaking, and the outro solo is sublime. Klaus Meine is outstanding and brings to life even the simplest of songs. An easy 10/10 from me.
Final score: 8.00 (63 votes cast, total score 504)
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