Music

The realisation that pop music and youth culture influence each other is not exactly new. Any description of laboured search for an identity in both parts of post-War Germany would be accurately illustrated by Elvis in Bremerhaven, the Beatles in Hamburg or the Lipsi, the GDR's odd variation on the twist.

The phenomena that have been devotedly accepted or copied for decades are imports - no wonder, as the originals came from Memphis, Liverpool or New York. The scene is also dominated by a controversial struggle for German as a valid language for pop music, alongside a debate on the quality of German bands who for a long time were seen as mere copycats of international trends.

Music styles influenced everyday life

>Ever since Peter Kraus gave the Federal Republic of Germany its own sanitized version of Elvis and his more notorious yobbo contemporaries smashed up the seating in West German concert halls to the tune of Bill Haley's Rock around the Clock, there have always been music styles that left their mark on the younger generation's later view of the world. In this context, the sub-cultures and their respective musical backdrops took the lead. Insiders had nothing but healthy contempt for the youth mainstream, the world of 'Schlager' and soft-focus copies of the real thing. It was only in the 1960s that the first acknowledged beat bands started to make a name for themselves in Hamburg's Starclub, among them the Rattles and the girl band Liverbirds. These were the very early days of pop made in Germany.

For decades teds, mods, hippies, rockers, punks, skins, B-Boys and ravers - some more influential than others - decided what got into the German charts, albeit usually involuntarily, as their membership in a certain pop-culture clan by necessity involved a distance between their world and that of the masses. Thanks to the pop avant-garde, for instance, the German language underwent a boost during the punk and New Wave revolution. During the following Neue Deutsche Welle frenzy it entered the mainstream, yet lost much of its artistic value in the process. This mainstream-underground split gradually disappeared in the mid-Eighties as the various styles and sub-trends rapidly became too numerous to count. At some point even the smallest identifiable trend had been analyzed and brought to market. Producers picked and chose from among various original features to stage constant 'comebacks' and 'retro' phases. On its 25th anniversary in 2002, punk (rock) suddenly appeared as a Nihilist feature of exhibitions and symposia, reproduced as a shrill design element in glossy fashion magazines, and instrumentalized by modern-day nomads armed with beer cans and dogs on strings on the periphery of German pedestrian zones. What were once youthful sub-cultures have left a prominent mark also on the world outside the music business. For the younger generations, originality and clear outlines have become more difficult to discern.

Globalised trends

The Magdeburg teenage band Tokio Hotel ("Durch den Monsun") therefore practically deserves gratitude for directing public attention to a new underground movement by the name of "Visual Kei". While contemporary pop critics have no doubt that the lacquered spiky hairstyle and Khol-shaded eyes of lead singer Bill Kaulitz in 2005 were created by a professional stylist, below the general schoolgirl hysteria surrounding the band an until then unknown sub-culture was discovered. Visual Kei, which translates roughly as 'visual system', is a Japanese export and a quasi-dramatic variation on hard rock with frequent rhythm and harmonic shifts. The obligatory look sported by Visual Kei fans is highly reminiscent of the manga movement, with glamorous transvestite features thrown in for good measure. The mostly female fans' interpretation of the style is reminiscent of that of a Gothic Lolita. The (as yet) moderate number of Visual Kei fans in Germany - reported to be around 30,000 - discovered their cult without the previously so essential Anglo-American intervention. In this globalised context, it is easy to overlook the fact that German bands and artists sing in German, too - including 2raumwohnung, Wir Sind Helden, techno bands, and singer-songwriters. Even chart productions such as Tokio Hotel interpret their wannabe Asian-style cross-over numbers in their mother tongue.

Kiddie punk and gangsta rap

Pop music has always seen both pioneers and copycats of whatever styles were in at the time; the latter were (and still are) often more successful than the real thing. For a long time the commercial pop market was all about polishing off the rough edges of the raw and unrefined blues, soul and rock'n'roll originals; however, in the course of pop history young audiences' tastes have become a lot more discerning. Even uncompromising variants have been tested and (in some cases) became established. To succeed in the pop world - at least in the Western hemisphere - rebellion is no longer necessary, on the contrary. Newcomers today can choose from a rich arsenal of styles and associated attitudes that need nothing more than a personal tweak. While the original 1970s punk bands played to moderately sized fan communities in the big cities, their US reincarnations of the late 90s managed to fill major arenas. That said, their music did not necessarily acquire a softer edge - instead, the bands' demonstrative 'hardness' became a valid source of entertainment. 'Kiddie punk' was the name given by veteran punk bands to the spectacles put on by newcomers such as Blink 182 - naturally, nothing but a derogatory put-down from the mouths of middle-aged, now respectable men anxious to put some distance between their own era of rivet belts and leather jackets and the young 'uns. Rebellion on the pop vehicle has become a difficult albeit profitable business. In the case of the wildly popular gangsta rap, it is the supposedly dangerous and politically incorrect messages that take care of deliberate taboo violations and ultimately, immense sales. With Aggro Berlin and other labels, Germany has naturally followed suit with its own very successful German-language hardcore hip-hop production culture.