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Love at First Sting

1984 studio album by Scorpions

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ161194
Source-derived summary

Love at First Sting is the ninth studio album by German hard rock/heavy metal band Scorpions. It was released in February 1984 by Mercury Records in the US and in March 1984 by Harvest Records in the UK. The album contains "Rock You Like a Hurricane", "Still Loving You", and "Big City Nights", three of the band's most famous songs.

Music

The album's music has been described as heavy metal, hard rock, and glam metal.

Background and recording

The album was recorded at Dierks Studios in Stommeln, West Germany. Initial sessions took place in Stockholm's Polar Studios in the Summer of 1983 with ex-Rainbow members Jimmy Bain on bass and Bobby Rondinelli on drums, but nothing made it to the final album.

It became the group's most successful album in the US, where it peaked at number 6 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1984, and went double-platinum by the end of the year, reaching triple-platinum status in 1995. The song "Rock You Like a Hurricane" reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the same year; "Still Loving You" reached number 64 on the same chart, number 14 in Germany, and number 3 in the French and Swiss single charts.

Artwork

The original cover art was created by Kochlowski, which is a German graphic design company, and features a photo shot by renowned German photographer Helmut Newton. Despite the record company having shown the original cover art to retailers without any concerns, a complaint by Walmart in the US after the album was released resulted in PolyGram Records issuing a "clean" cover for use in several department store chains. The alternative cover was designed to be less controversial by simply showing a photo of the band members, which was the same photo as the one on the inner sleeve.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Love at First Sting” as 1984 studio album by Scorpions. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Love, First and Sting.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1984, 1983, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1984-03-27. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Love, First and Sting providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Love at First Sting”, the useful work is to connect “1984 studio album by Scorpions” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q161194. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1983 and 1995.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Love at First Sting”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Love at First Sting primary sources, Love at First Sting archive and Love research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Love at First Sting”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Love at First Sting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.