Robbed Hit of the Week 7/2/12 - The Scorpions' "No One Like You"...

The Scorpions - "No One Like You"

from the album Breakout (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #65

This Week's "robbed hit" that unjustly missed the top-40 is by the purveyors of German heavy metal, the Scorpions. Before there was Poison, before there were Bon Jovi, hell before there was Quiet Riot, rock music heavier than the arena stylings of Journey and Boston was relegated to the true (and mostly male) fanatics, and the Scorpions were part of that guitar-worshipping crowd. The group formed in the mid 60s under guitarist Rudolf Schenker and added vocalist Klaus Meine in 1970. However, their first album didn't come out until 1972, and it took until 1979 for them to catch speed, with the release of Lovedrive, which reached the top half of the American charts, while making the top-40 in Sweden and England, top-20 in Germany, and top-10 in France. It also scored the band a British top-40 hit with "Is There Anybody There?"

In 1982, the band put out their eighth studio set, Blackout, which was a huge seller in the record stores, becoming a top-10 album in the US and Germany, and a #1 record in France as well. The first single, "No One Like You", written by Schenker and Meine, was their first big radio hit in America. The group at the time also put out a music video for the track that included band and the guy doing the album artwork (performance artist Gottfried Helwein) in Alcatraz....

The song was big on rock radio, becoming their first and so far only #1 hit on that format, but stalled on the pop charts in the lower half, since radio wasn't ready for this type of rock as yet. The album, though, has since sold over two million copies, and is one the best of early 80s metal LPs out there.

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"No One Like You" has also been a concert staple for the band....

Of course, the band would go on to conquer the top-40 on their next LP with "Rock You Like A Hurricane", as well as make the top-10 with the Berlin Wall-inspired "Wind Of Change"...

.....As a postscript, the song I originally chose for this week's "robbed hit" was the San Diego band The Monroes with "What Do All The People Know?" which I adore: while the band made the rock top-40, they checked out at #59 on the pop chart. But in doing research I came across an awesome writeup by Larry Carta at coolalbumreview.com that I couldn't possibly do any different or better.. Check it out, along with the other cool writeups there. But in the meantime here's the money shot clip - the group appearing on the Merv Griffin show...

beard-acious!