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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Germany

  • Happy German Unity Day…

    Happy German Unity Day…

    I am old enough to remember when East and West Germany reunited. And now that I live in Germany again, happy German Unity Day!

    Maybe it seems odd to write about a political event on a blog that is supposed to be about music. But as of today, I’ve been living in Germany again for two months. I had forgotten that today is a public holiday in my current home. However, as a person who came of age in the 70s and 80s, I remember when Germany was divided. I was eighteen years old in 1990, when the two sides formally reunited. This holiday is not actually about the reunification of Germany, but rather it’s about the “unity” of Germany.

    I notice a bunch of my neighbors are home today, which is why it’s probably better if I write rather than work on any musical projects. And given that I remember when Germany was divided into the Eastern and Western portions, maybe it’s good to reflect. I bet I can tie this to music, too.


    A 1990 era news broadcast about Germany’s reunification…


    Germany’s lovely national anthem…

    Actually, as I sit here thinking about October 1990, I suddenly feel very old. At that time, I was a college freshman. The music that was popular in October 1990 didn’t appeal to me that much. I also went to college in a rural town in south central Virginia which really didn’t get very many radio stations. So I kind of quit listening to radio at that point, except what was played on our college station which had all of ten watts of power. I eventually became a disc jockey there, but not until the following year.

    But what I do remember about that time was that songs like “Close to You” by Maxi Priest were popular… Egad.


    Damn, this makes me feel old.

    I did like James Ingram’s “I Don’t Have The Heart”, which was popular around the same time period. I always thought it was a pretty ballad.


    Of course, now that I listen to this now with its many electronic keyboards, I’m reminded a little of the soundtrack for Saved By The Bell. But it also has nice strings, which gives it sort of a majestic air.

    Another popular song in October 1990 was Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby”, which ripped off a vastly superior collaboration between Queen and David Bowie.


    I never cared for this song, but I have to admit Vanilla Ice is sort of a guilty pleasure for me. He won me over when he was on The Surreal Life with Tammy Faye Messner and Erik Estrada.

    I’m not sure if the Germans were into these songs, but they were kind of the soundtrack for this American in October 1990. And October 1990 is when Germany officially started to celebrate its unity, although it’s not the day when the Berlin Wall started to crumble… That event occurred on November 9, 1989.


    This was very exciting news at the time…

    I think we need to make a point of visiting Berlin while we’re here. I have been to so many European capitals, but I have yet to see Berlin, other than the airport. Berlin’s airport, as I remember it, sucked… though I understand a new one is either in the works or already constructed.


    This report has footage as the Wall started to fall…

    My husband, Bill, was in Germany when this was going on. He was on his first Army tour here. I remember the last time we lived here, from 2007-09, we visited the Czech Republic a few times. He always marveled as we approached the border, remembering that he was here when that border was off limits and guarded by very large female Czech guards. It turned out the Czech Republic was happy to abandon communism and quick to bounce back. It remains one of our favorite European destinations for the beer alone. Hungary runs a close second, especially since there’s some great music coming from Hungary.

    David Hasselhoff was once much loved in Germany. He was at the Berlin Wall on New Year’s Eve in December 1989 and here he is, rocking out with revelers celebrating the new freedom for East Germans!


    I want to hassle the Hoff!

    Anyway, since it’s Friday and the weather is fine, I imagine we will celebrate too. Maybe we won’t party like the Germans on Unity Day, although it is pretty exciting to be here now that the whole country is united.

    Have a great weekend, y’all!

  • Germany!

    Germany!

    Moving is becoming an annual ordeal for my husband and me. Less than a year after our move to Texas, we’re moving to Germany!

    And since we’re moving to Germany, I thought today’s post should focus on music associated with that awesome country. I am actually quite delighted that my husband Bill got a job offer in Germany. We’ve lived there before and we loved it, even though the whole process of moving– especially internationally and with pets– is an enormous pain in the ass. Besides the fact that we love Germany, Germany seems to be the only place that wants Bill. He has had just one job interview in over two months of sending out resumes and applications. He had another one scheduled for next week, but it was for a job he wasn’t terribly interested in doing and it was in a different city. So this is a great thing and the timing is perfect, except that we have to move our dogs, which will be more of a challenge during the summer months.

    The last time Bill and I moved to Germany, it was 2007. I distinctly remember landing in Frankfurt, picking up our dogs (different ones than we have now), and driving a rental car to Stuttgart. I turned on the radio and could only find German pop music. In my exhausted, sleep deprived state, it was kind of like this.


    Seriously, every song I heard on the radio reminded me of a 90s era Mentos ad…

    I would have been happy if I’d heard this classic hit by German singer and actress, Nena.


    I could at least dance to this and maybe keep my eyes open as we cruised down the autobahn.

    British band After The Fire recorded another 80s anthem called “Der Kommissar”. Anyone my age remembers this song because it was a huge hit in the United States. Here’s a bit of trivia I just learned this morning; “Der Kommissar” was reworked by the late Laura Branigan, of all people, in 1983. This song was originally written and recorded by Falco, an Austrian man whose real name was Johannes (Hans) Hölzel. Falco was also responsible for the 80s hit, “Rock Me Amadeus”. Sadly, he died on February 6, 1998, having sustained catastrophic injuries in a car accident in the Dominican Republic. He was only 41 years old. Yes, I know he was Austrian, not German… but I still think of Germany when I hear his tunes.


    After The Fire’s version of “Der Kommissar”.


    Falco’s version of “Der Kommissar”. I think I like his version better than After The Fire’s.


    “Rock Me Amadeus” performed by Falco. Music starts after 26 seconds.

    When we were in Germany last time, I relied a lot on iTunes for new music. This time, maybe I will attempt to broaden my horizons a bit. A friend of mine who is European says I should listen to Herbert Grönemeyer. He actually says it in a derisive way, but in the interest of expanding my musical repertoire, I’m going to listen to a song by him right now…


    Not too bad… may be a bit of an acquired taste?

    There’s always Wolfsheim, a synth pop band from Hamburg. They haven’t been active since the mid 2000s, though they never officially disbanded. I kind of like this track I found on YouTube, though…


    I could get into Wolfsheim…

    There’s also Rammstein, a band that has been around since 1994 and still continues to make music today.


    Kind of a somber sound to this pop song… I might need to learn German so I can sing along.

    Frankly, the one thing I’m really looking forward to is Eurovision, the annual European pop contest that takes place every May. I like it because the acts are often very silly, which makes them equally entertaining. I like to see the different songs put out by countries in Europe. Oddly enough, a lot of the songs are sung in English, even when the contestants hail from a country where English is not the official language.


    Here’s Germany’s entry in the 2014 Eurovision Contest.

    If I have to choose the most impressive German music I’ve discovered recently, it’s Salut Salon, a quartet of German women who have a most amazing knack for performing great music while contorting themselves.


    These women are incredible! And they hail from Deutschland!

    I just have to keep my mind on all the awesomeness about to come my way by Europe… and not the pain in the ass of moving! Germany, here we come!

  • Big In Germany – Idol Edition: “Superstars” Mark Medlock and Mehrzad Marashi Are On A Boat

    Back around maybe the second or third season of American Idol, when the show was becoming the established pop cultural phenomenon it is today, we started hearing about similar shows being developed by Lord of the Idols Simon Fuller and 19 Entertainment in other countries like Sweden and Poland and Indo(friggin)nesia. To date, there have been approximately 30 various Idol-esque franchises created around the world. I remember reading around that time about Kurt Nilsen, the first-season winner of Idols Norway – just how cool he seemed. He was a guitar player and unlike earlier seasons of American Idol, he could actually accompany himself on the show. I don’t remember that I ever heard him sing until he did a duet with Willie Nelson on the song “Lost Highway” in 2008 (at which point I was duly impressed), but I remember thinking that he sounded like – well, like an artist. Specifically, the kind of singing-songwriting-guitar-playing artist that our own American Idol showed seemed to hold in contempt.

    It’s easy to trash the pop we Americans produce because we’re fairly buried in it. And just like any landfill, you can bet that there are a few treasures in that giant mound of refuse (future ski-hill?), but the smell from the rest of it is way too powerful – even if we thought the Hope Diamond were buried in it, would that be enough for us to throw on the haz-mat suits and go digging? Instead, we see from a distance pretty flowers growing on what looks like a majestic purple mountain shrouded in the soft fog of an early spring morning, and we think: All those international Idol competitions are actually producing, real, good, legitimate stuff. Or at least better than that awful Kelly Clarkson that we’re stuck with. She’s never gonna last. (Editorial Note: This is my 2003-4 self speaking. In gross ignorance. I didn’t watch any of Season 1, and Clarkson hadn’t put out Breakaway yet, which I contend is one of the best start-to-finish pop records of the last decade. Carry on.)

    But maybe that majestic purple mountain is really just another gigantic, disgusting, depressing landfill, and maybe its shroud of early morning spring fog is really just a cloud toxic fumes rising out of it.

    Maybe it’s just my deeply ingrained musical Europhilia, but I think it’s always easy to fall into thinking that Europeans are just naturally more artsy than we are; that they’re more willing to hear songs in languages other than their first, more open to genuine weirdness in the name of art; and thus, easier to romanticize their Idols – Kurt Nilsen, for instance – as more talented, more legitimate, more worthy. But in 2010, American Idol‘s metamorphosis from mere singing competition to artist farm team is complete, a metamorphosis that probably began around the time of Taylor Hicks‘s win in Season 5 (the show’s peak ratings season, by the way) and has culminated with the coronation of an Idol, Lee DeWyze, not so very dissimilar from that chunky (for a Scandinavian) blonde troubadour from Norge; and this against Crystal Bowersox, a very white girl from Ohio, with white-girl dreadlocks, a serious Janis Joplin jones, a long-standing residency at one of her local pubs, and really bad teeth, who not only writes her own songs, but writes them well enough that one of them was actually featured in an Idol video package last week. American Idol has become the very epitome of the Idols I’d always imagined all those Euro Idols to be. (And yet, this season, I couldn’t have been less interested in watching it.)

    Meanwhile, the most recent winner of the German Idol equivalent Deutschland sucht den Superstar , 29-year-old Iranian-born singer Mehrzad Marashi has just released the follow-up to his debut, show finale single “Don’t Believe”, which is still charting in Germany’s Top 10 this week. The song, “Sweat (The A La La La La Long Song)” is a pop-reggae duet with openly gay former Superstar winner Mark Medlock, the German franchise’s most successful winner to date. If you are still harboring any romantic notions about the presumed artistic superiority of the artists developed by international (read: non-American) Idol franchises, let the video you’re about to see be your reality check.

    BTW: Marashi’s the one whose ridiculous, Guido-er-than-thou facial hair doesn’t form the weird trident points on his chin. And did I mention Medlock’s gayness? Also: Andy Samberg should sue.