Wind of Change: The Scorpions Story

by Martin Popoff

No question Scorpions, Germany's loudest and proudest rock band ever, have been one of that country's most successful musical exports. Wind of Change documents the band's career with analysis of every song on every album the Teutonic tone-masters ever crafted.Beginning with Lonesome Crow back in '72 through to the triumphant "retirement" album Sting In The Tail, and beyond into Comeblack - the stories of their making are all here. Wind of Change draws on the authors interviews with all of the principals and beyond, including Klaus Meine, Uli Jon Roth, Herman Rarebell, Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs, along with the likes of legendary manager David Krebs, Ralph Rieckermann and Francis Buchholz.

Genres: Music, Biography

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 20, 2016

About the author

At approximately 7900 (with over 7000 appearing in his books), Martin has unofficially written more record reviews than anybody in the history of music writing across all genres. Additionally, Martin has penned approximately 85 books on hard rock, heavy metal, classic rock and record collecting. He was Editor-In-Chief of the now retired Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, Canada’s foremost metal publication for 14 years, and has also contributed to Revolver, Guitar World, Goldmine, Record Collector, bravewords.com, lollipop.com and hardradio.com, with many record label band bios and liner notes to his credit as well. Additionally, Martin has been a regular contractor to Banger Films, having worked for two years as researcher on the award-winning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, on the writing and research team for the 11-episode Metal Evolution and on the ten-episode Rock Icons, both for VH1 Classic. Additionally, Martin is the writer of the original metal genre chart used in Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and throughout the Metal Evolution episodes. Martin currently resides in Toronto and can be reached through martinp@inforamp.net or www.martinpopoff.com.

Reviews

[Nicolas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing for me. Most of this is made of interviews, and I mean long, totally unedited paragraphs. It's hard to read and very repetitive (I don't need to hear every current and past member of the band explain how they had to find their own sound after Uli Jon Roth left. Come on, explain it once, quote one interview and move on!)
It's just lazy, and lacks the depth of analysis that I expect from a biography (just compare this to "Pink Floyd: all the songs" which I read last year... it's night and day).

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read, I read it in one day.

This is a great deep dive for any Scorpions fan interested in the band’s history.

[Toby Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

In all honesty, I expected this book to be different to what it actually was. I expected a fairly detailed analysis of each album in turn, instead this follows a series of interviews (generally) with members of the band, and sometimes those connected to the band which are relevant to each album being discussed.

It was enlightening and I learned a fair amount about the Scorpions story, but maybe a little disappointed that this was effectively a set of interviews rather than Martin’s opinion, or a panel of experts similar to the Album by Album series.

Still worth a read, however, for Scorpions fanatics.

[Pr-Ricardo Castro Ibve]

Excelente livro, como todas as obras de Martin Popoff. Só achei desnecessário que no fim do livro repita-se a resenha de cada álbum, já que eles foram resenhados durate todo o livro.