A Swedish Scorpions may become the target of a police investigation after posting an advertisement for the censored cover of the album Virgin Killer (1976) on a local sales website.
The rare item was available for 24 hours for potential buyers, but the listing was quickly taken down from Tradera on charges of promoting child pornography. Before the product was removed, 10 offers were made to purchase the album, the highest of which was around R$ 213 at the current exchange rate.
According to the website Aftonbladet , Tradera's head of security explained that the album had appeared in advertisements before, but all of them were removed as soon as the team became aware of the prohibited content.
Regarding the possibility of reporting the seller, the website assured that it formalizes complaints "in cases of suspected violations of the law," but will still "examine this specific case more closely" and is in direct contact with the seller. A new attempt to sell the item was made, this time with adhesive tape covering the cover, but the item was removed once again.
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Since its release, the original cover of Virgin Killer has become a problem for the Scorpions , and new controversies surrounding the photograph of a naked child arise from time to time. In 2008, the original photo was banned from Wikipedia, but it has since returned online.
The idea for the cover came from the German band's record label at the time as a strategy to attract the attention of the press outside the country – and it worked. To sell the album in the rest of the world, alternative covers were necessary, or the record had to be sold sealed in black plastic.
“Today I wouldn’t do it, but at the time we had no alternative. There were thousands of bands fighting for attention,” Dieter Dierks , the band’s former producer, Scorpions News in 2016. “When the guy showed up to present cover ideas, we were all very shocked, but this controversial cover was what we needed. Suddenly, we had media attention that we didn’t have before. We have some criticism for it, but all promotion is good promotion. The director of RCA Japan spent a night in jail because of that cover.”
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