Doubtable Scorpions album cover removed from the Swedish online marketplace ‘Tradera’

A very unpleasant incident happened in the Scorpions community: as Aftonbladet states Scorpions album’s “Virgin Killer” advertisement got classified as child pornography and appeared for 24 hours on the popular Swedish online marketplace Tradera. Luckily, the false advertisement has now been removed.

In 2015 Swedish court stated that an image of a naked girl on the Scorpions 1976 album “Virgin Killer”, found at the home of a 53-year-old pedophile, can be considered as pornographic material.

In the recent ad’s description the seller pointed out that it was an uncensored copy of the original album cover. Ten offers were made to purchase the album including one for 352 Swedish kronor (approximately 34 eur) before the ad was removed. Now the advertiser is at risk of being reported to the police.

Talking about the specific album, former Scorpions guitar player Uli Jon Roch has blamed the band’s record label and said the following:

“Looking at that picture today makes me cringe. It was done in the worst possible taste. Back then I was too immature to see that. Shame on me, I should have done everything in my power to stop it.”

Uli Jon Roch

Scorpions guitar player Rudolf Schenker has also told that the idea behind the album’s artwork was that of the record company. He stated the explanation of “Virgin Killer” as follows:

“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. 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.”

Rudolf Schenker