Virgin Killer
| Virgin Killer | ||||
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The original album cover. The cracked-glass effect is part of the original image.
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| Studio album by Scorpions | ||||
| Released | 9 October 1976 | |||
| Recorded | 1976 | |||
| Studio | Dierks Studios, Cologne, West Germany | |||
| Genre | Hard rock, heavy metal | |||
| Length | 34:45 | |||
| Label | RCA | |||
| Producer | Dieter Dierks | |||
| Scorpions chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Virgin Killer | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
The replacement cover used in some countries
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Virgin Killer is the fourth studio album by German heavy metal band Scorpions. It was released in 1976 and was the band's first album to attract attention outside Europe. The title is described as being a reference to time as the killer of innocence. The original cover featured a nude prepubescent girl, which stirred controversy in the UK, US and elsewhere. As a result, the album was re-issued with a different cover in some countries.
The success of Virgin Killer was similar to other Scorpions albums featuring Uli Jon Roth as lead guitarist; it "failed to attain any serious attention in the United States" but was "quite popular in Japan" where it peaked at number 32 in the charts. The album was another step in the band's shift from psychedelic music to hard rock. Critic Vincent Jeffries of Allmusic contends in hindsight that the album was "the first of four studio releases that really defined the Scorpions and their urgent metallic sound that was to become highly influential". He also counts the title track and "Pictured Life" among the "all-time Scorpions standouts". Among the band members, Uli Jon Roth considers Virgin Killer and the previous release In Trance as his favourite Scorpions albums.
The original cover art for the album depicted a nude ten-year-old girl, with a shattered glass effect obscuring her genitalia. The image was designed by Steffan Böhle, who was then the product manager for RCA Records.Francis Buchholz was the bassist for the band and, in an interview conducted in early 2007, recollects that the model depicted on the cover was either the daughter or the niece of the cover designer. The photograph was taken by Michael von Gimbut. The band's rhythm guitarist Rudolf Schenker offers the following description of the circumstances behind the album cover:
We didn't actually have the idea. It was the record company. The record company guys were like, "Even if we have to go to jail, there's no question that we'll release that." On 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. Growing up in Europe, sexuality, of course not with children, was very normal. The lyrics really say it all. Time is the virgin killer. A kid comes into the world very naive, they lose that naiveness and then go into this life losing all of this getting into trouble. That was the basic idea about all of it.
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Wikipedia