EXBERLINER Issue 163, September 2017

WHAT’S ON — Music
Editor’s Choice
What’s poppin’?
Is pop the new black in Berlin? Time to re-evaluate the onetime
musical bogeyman. By Michael Hoh
Lollapalooza
MUSIC NEWS
Mucking around
They might not be
teens anymore, but
the oh-so-cute Berliner
garage/funpunk
outfit Chuckamuck
(see page 47)
remains a reliable
source of teenage
anger. Their selftitled
third album
(Staatsakt) comes out
Sep 1, with a release
party at Bi Nuu on
Sep 23.
Greetings from
Köpenick
Sticking to his
trademark formula of
minimalist beats and
feisty rap lyrics oozing
heaps of Köpenick
charm, braided blonde
Romano’s second
album Copyshop
(Vertigo) hits shelves
on Sep 8.
Remember when “pop” was a
dirty word? Back in the 1980s
and 90s, when we still had
kings and queens of the genre, it was
synonymous with the lowest common
denominator – the evil, commercial
and mindless nonsense you’d hear on
the radio in your parents’ kitchen. Of
course, that hadn’t always been the
case. If you go even further back, pop,
together with rock music, was the
outlet of a rebellious counter-cultural
movement of the 1950s before Andy
Warhol had a go at it in the 1960s.
Very early on, The Drums played
with that ambiguity. The New
York-based band bridged the gap
between ageing jukeboxes and glittery
synth sounds, giving birth to
the bastard child of surf pop, greasy
ballads and melancholic post-punk.
Lines like “Oh mama, I wanna go
surfing/Oh mama, I don’t care about
nothing” or “Everybody’s gotta love
someone/but I just wanna love you,
dear” inevitably evoked references
to the empty sunshine phrasing of
the Beach Boys and the sticky US
tearjerkers of the 1950s.
There have been times when pop,
in its shiny mainstream bubble, tried
to harness its commercial power
to reach the public politically, but
the funny thing was – no one cared,
and the message was lost. It didn’t
matter if Michael Jackson wept over
dead trees and protested against rac-
ism, or if he simply sang about vegetables.
His songs were just too darn
catchy to notice the words. So, why
not lose words all together? Moderat
did, for the most part, and with great
success. Sigur Rós invented a new
language, and Elizabeth Fraser appears
to sing mostly gibberish on all
Cocteau Twins albums. So, does pop
just care about empty phrases and
catchy synthesizing? Apparently so.
After “Kebab-Träume” and “Der Mussolini”,
DAF, the so-called godfathers
of techno and EBM, charted once at
number 47 around 30 years ago with
a song called “Voulez-vous coucher
avec moi?” Why not...
Lollapalooza, Berlin’s biggest
outdoor festival and the mother of all
festival franchises, couldn’t care less
about a pop label. Despite its commercial
success, it still is promoted
as a haven of alternative culture
– never mind that the Foo Fighters
are about as mainstream as it gets.
Tori Amos, who’s probably the most
famous of the solo artists playing this
month, also still gets the “alternative”
boot at the Grammys, which
she hasn’t won to this day. Just being
nominated must’ve helped her album
sales skyrocket – into pop heaven?
If pop is determined by what sells
best, then we wouldn’t need another
Preis für Popkultur. We have the German
Echo music prize for that. From
the start, the Preis für Popkultur
wanted to be seen as a counter-reaction
to that Helene Fischer adulation
gala. However, if you look at this
year’s shortlist, chosen by a jury you
can also be part of if you work in
music and invest a €60 Vereinsgebühr,
the outcome is rather same-y in all
the 12 categories. Or maybe Casper
and Beatsteaks are all Germany has
to offer? What’s striking, though,
is that in contrast to the Echo, the
Preis für Popkultur, along with last
month’s Pop-Kultur festival, are not
indicators of the current state of pop
culture (oh, the outrage when racist
band Frei.Wild won an Echo), but
factors that try to tame it and shape
it to their liking... and there’s no reason
why they shouldn’t or couldn’t.
It’s just “pop”. It appeals to everyone
because it says absolutely nothing. ■
Moderat Sep 2, 19:30 Wuhlheide, Oberschöneweide | Preis für Popkultur
Sep 8, 20:00 Tempodrom, Mitte | Lollapalooza Berlin Sep 9-10 Rennbahn
Hoppegarten, Karlshorst | The Drums Sep 28, 21:00 Lido, Kreuzberg
| Tori Amos Sep 29, 20:00 Tempodrom | DAF Sep 30, 21:00 Astra
Kulturhaus, Friedrichshain
34
EXBERLINER 163