Scorpions "Humanity: Hour I (Mexico, Sony BMG 828767141923)"

Humanity: Hour I is the sixteenth studio album by German hard rock band Scorpions, which was released in Europe on 14 May 2007 and in the United States and Canada on 28 August 2007. Humanity: Hour 1 is a concept album based on a loose storyline by Desmond Child and futurist Liam Carl, which predicts a world torn apart by a civil war between humans and robots. This apocalyptic nightmare serves as a warning shot to all humanity, whose only hope of survival is to reclaim our humanity.

The album was produced by James Michael and Desmond Child, who also provide backing vocals. The song "Humanity" was performed for the first time by Scorpions on 24 March 2007 in Brussels, Belgium and released as the first single from the album.

Also of note is the band's logo on the album's cover: the text font is similar to their first two albums, as opposed to the band's more famous logo. This marks only the third time in the band's career (and the first time in 33 years) the less familiar font has been used. However, if one looks closely, their more familiar logo can be seen on the back of the neck of the gynoid.

The opening track "Hour I" has been used as the intro of the NHL's Minnesota Wild since the 2007–08 season.

Humanity: Hour I is a concept album based on a loose storyline by Desmond Child and futurist Liam Carl, which predicts a world torn apart by a civil war between humans and robots. It's a concept album where songs are connected under the global theme of humanity.

Speaking of the album sound, frontman Klaus Meine said: "We wanted to make an album that was up to date, with a more modern sound to it without losing the Scorpion signature and I think it's still there. A lot of people feel it's a very good connection between the typical Scorpions sound but in a new way. It wasn't so much that we were trying to experiment; we still wanted a Scorpions record but not so much a classic rock album like going back to the old days, the 80's. We really wanted a record that would sound like 2007". Guitars on songs on this album are in drop D, drop C and drop C sharp tunnings and those tunings were chosen depending on the Meine's vocal ranges on the songs. Matthias Jabs explained: "Sometimes if you play the guitar riff dropped to a D, it will not only sound different but play different. But what ever was the best for the vocals is how we proceeded. It is no point in recording something if it is too stressful for the singer to sing properly".

The album title and artwork were first released through the official French Scorpions fan club Crazyscorps in February 2007. The album artwork is featuring a human robot with the Scorpions logo on the back of its neck. However, after nearly two months since the fan club released the artwork on its website, they received information from the webmaster of the official Scorpions website about the illegal leak of that material and that the band disclaimed Crazyscorps for posting the artwork without authorization. The fan club website was closed soon after.

The album was released in May 2007 in Europe and in August 2007 in North America. Delay of the album release in North America happened because the band had changed their US management and also because Desmond Child was afraid of the album leaking on the Internet.

Track listing

1. "Hour I" Rudolf Schenker, James Michael, Desmond Child, John Lowery 3:26
2. "The Game of Life" Klaus Meine, Child, Mikael Nord Andersson, Martin Hansen 4:04
3. "We Were Born to Fly" Matthias Jabs, Eric Bazilian, Marti Frederiksen 3:59
4. "The Future Never Dies" Meine, Child, Bazilian, Jason Paige, Russ Irwin 4:03
5. "You're Lovin' Me to Death" Schenker, Child, Andreas Carlsson, Bazilian 3:15
6. "321" Schenker, Child, Frederiksen, Paige 3:53
7. "Love Will Keep Us Alive" Meine, Child, Bazilian, Frederiksen 4:32
8. "We Will Rise Again" Jabs, Michael, Paige, Child 3:49
9. "Your Last Song" Schenker, Child, Bazilian 3:44
10. "Love Is War" Jabs, Michael, Child, Frederiksen 4:20
11. "The Cross" Jabs, Michael, Child, Frederiksen 4:28
12. "Humanity" Meine, Child, Bazilian 5:26

Recording information:

Recorded at:

- Little Big Guy Studios

- The Gentlemen's Club

- Glenwood Place Studios

- Track Record

- The Village

- Record Plant (orchestra only)

Mixed at The Nook in Studio City, California, USA.

Mastered at Marcussen Mastering.