Music

They take place annually: Germany’s TV casting shows. Popstars, the next top model, a super-talent and – don’t forget – a superstar, are sought. But what are the distinguishing features of this new celebrity generation?

What is certain is that the candidates are already minor media celebs during the process of “becoming stars.“ The jury and an armada of cameras serving a nation of expectant spectators, who may decide who will be permanently (or temporarily) accepted into the ranks of established celebrities, see to it.

What does being a superstar really mean?

Superstars existed in the past, too. People who became famous for any number of reasons and have remained so into the present. Everyone knows their names: Elton John, Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe … the list goes on. Whether musicians, actors, athletes, or former “nobodies” who became known through scandal.

However, many can no longer remember one or the other winner of the RTL casting show, Deutschland sucht den Superstar / DSDS (i.e. Germany searches for the superstar). The shelf life of these “superstars” is very short.

A similar pattern holds for the Popstars looked for each year by the TV broadcaster ProSieben. The girl group No Angels, which arose from the show’s first season and was very successful in Germany for a while, is still this show’s poster child. The group even made it to the Eurovision Song Contest as Germany’s musical representatives. But placing 23rd among a total of 25 contestants was surely not as good as what had been hoped for in advance.

There are other ways to handle things

In the period from February 2nd to March 12th 2010, the TV broadcasters ProSieben and Das Erste searched together for a special star. Our star for Oslo - surely another stroke of genius by the German entertainer, musician and music producer Stefan Raab – was a total success. When the viewers selected Lena Meyer-Landrut (19) in the end, it was clear that she would represent Germany at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo with her song, Satellite. But what happened next was something the musical academic high school graduate with the artist’s name Lena surely had not even dreamed of. Both her debut album My Cassette Player and the single Satellite directly advanced to first place in the German charts – a record. To date, both the album and the single have achieved double-platinum status, and – by the way – Lena won the Eurovision Song Contest, too.

That Stefan Raab has a winning touch for effective broadcast formats is well-known, and not only since Unser Star für Oslo (i.e. our star for Oslo). In addition to Schlag den Raab (i.e. beat Raab), Turmspringen (i.e. high diving), Autoball (i.e. car soccer) European and World Championships, and the Wok World Championship, he has also organised his own music casting shows and served as juror. SSDSGPS (Stefan sucht den Super-Grand-Prix-Star; i.e. Stefan searches for the grand-prix superstar) was the first. From this show Max Mutzke emerged, who participated in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest and won 8th place. In 2007, SSDSDSSWEMUGABRTLAD (Stefan sucht den Superstar der singen soll was er möchte und gerne auch bei RTL auftreten darf; i.e. Stefan searches for the superstar who can sing what he or she likes and and can also appear on RTL), then arose as follow-up broadcast, in which Stefanie Heinzmann won.

Something that lasts, please

To be sure, Max Mutzke and Stefanie Heinzmann are no superstars, but they have been in the music business for several years now and have retained public interest in the positive sense of the word. There has been no hint of scandal about either of them, unlike the candidates for Deutschland sucht den Superstar. Several candidates have been convicted of criminal offenses in the past, and in the here and now it is the negative headlines that stick in one’s memory, as well.

Already in the first casting phase of DSDS, in which the sheep are to be separated from the goats, there are repeated moments in which viewers must ask themselves if a candidate really belongs in front of a camera at all. Admittedly, a few candidates can in fact sing, but very many others cannot, and the latter are trashed by the jury of experts before rolling cameras. It has been shows like DSDS or Das Supertalent (both RTL) that have particularly shaped the concept of “fremdschämen” (i.e. cringe factor; = one’s feeling embarrassed on account of others’ behaviour).