Posted on 04/08/2018 7:35:47 AM PDT by SandRat
Up until a few years ago, you wouldn’t hear any German-language songs on the radio, unless it was a country/folk type of music station.
It was considered uncool to play German music on the air. Admittedly, there weren’t many non-folksy types of singers and bands around that sang in German, but I would assume that’s because there literally wasn’t a market for it (again, except for the folk sector).
A little over 15 years ago, a young, soulful singer from my hometown of Mannheim — Xavier Naidoo — appeared on the scene, and he would change that forever. He wouldn’t hide his love for our language any longer, and thankfully, his soulful music fell on open, wanting ears.
What he has accomplished, how hard he worked to make German-language music acceptable, respected and popular, with more than just one generation, was groundbreaking. Germany’s radio stations now play more German music than ever since the end of World War II when American GIs brought with them their records and songs with fast-paced beats, rhythms, and foreign-sounding lyrics that slowly replaced all the slow, boring, old-fashioned German music the country had been used to before the war.
It was Xavier Naidoo who paved the way for many current contemporary German artists like Andreas Bourani, Cro, Clueso, Max Herre, Rosenstolz, Peter Fox, or Tim Bendzko. At last it is “cool” again to play a German-language song on the radio, and it’s cool again to sing along in your car at the top of your lungs.
You see, language as the primary means of human communication forms a large part of social practice. It is shaped by speakers’ idiosyncratic experiences and by long-lasting cultural traits. In everyday communication, both of these components, the individual and the cultural, evoke stereotypes and social ratings.
This statement cannot be proven any more impressively than through observation of people who have left their home country to live abroad.
It seems that people who live in a foreign country, even if they truly consider it their new home, tend to cling to their old traditions, routines and language more than they did when they still lived in their native country. I witness it every day in myself and the majority of Germans living in the U.S. that I’ve met thus far.
We get giddy like small children when a random store starts selling a certain German product we haven’t seen in a long time, even if we usually wouldn’t buy that product back in Germany.
We celebrate our German dishes and proudly bring a regional or national specialty to any cookout we’ve been invited to. Most of us hold dear our German traditions and holidays — for example celebrating Christmas Eve instead of, or in addition to, Christmas morning. And if you’ve ever asked a German about the driving skills of somebody who went through driving school in Germany (which takes several months) and the importance of a German driving license (which is a one-time cost of $1,000 and more), you know that we take pride in almost anything German.
But the language is what ties it all together, and we’ll talk some more about that in my next Kaffeeklatsch, so stay tuned!
Kaffeeklatsch is written by Kat Hanson, a native of Germany and military spouse of eleven years. Kat has lived in Sierra Vista since 2014 with her active duty Army husband and two children. She has previously lived in Monterey, California, Fort Stewart, Georgia, and her native Germany. She is the Marketing Team Manager of the Herald Review's Advertising Department. For questions and comments, please email kat.hanson@myheraldreview.com or call 520-515 4633.
There’s some good German bluegrass.
I wonder if there are more Turkish or Urdu songs on German radio, or German songs.
Bookmark
Its Polka time!
Wir fahren auf der Autobahn!
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?
What about the opening of Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages”
“Gunter Glieben Glauchen Globen”
So I fly up to the land of the Whiskey Rebellion, the old Western Reserve, once every six weeks to deal with Ye Olde Homestead (bloody sandstone basements...and I grew up in a place with no basements because the water table is only six feet beneath the surface...so I know crap all to start with)
Grab a car service out of PIT, CLE or CAK, wherever is cheapest to fly into. Driver and I are talking on the way home. He tells me about this place:
Went, had a great meal, real beer, and entertainment.
I heard what I thought was a German “Oompah” band on the radio a few years back. I finally realized it was Mexican music, when I heard the singing. Funny how both musical styles use the same instruments.
TransEurope Express also an excellent Kraftwerk tune
“I heard what I thought was a German “Oompah” band on the radio a few years back....”
There were a lot of German immigrants to Texas, for example New Braunfels, TX, and those rhythms and instruments are German. The Germans mixed with the Mexican/Texicans and you get that music and good beer and sausages.
You wee hearing German music. Outside the US, the largest German migration was to Mexico.
A lot in the north of Mexico, the current “Música Norteña” (northern music) is a music genre that exists thanks of the German and Scandinavian settlers that came to the north of Mexico. When Maximilian I became emperor of Mexico in the Second Mexican Empire, he opened the doors to a lot of europeans immigrants.
There was an open debate here in the US in the beginning over the *official* language of the US being English or German.
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