Scorpions: 35 Years Since The Release Of "Virgin Killer"

"Virgin Killer" is the fourth studio album by Scorpions. It was released in 1976 and was the first album of the band 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 reissued with a different cover in some countries.

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."

Among the band members, Uli Jon Roth considers "Virgin Killer" and the previous release "In Trance" as his favourite Scorpions albums