Opinion Category

Dear Taylor, What have you done to me? I knew I was a sucker for sweet pop music even before you blew my mind with your infectious hooks and your quirky attitude – ok, let’s face it, sometimes you look a little bit like a dork. But I don’t care, because I mean that in a cute way. The way you sing songs about all your ex-boyfriends makes everyone go a little „aww“ for you. But, I mean, you’re always the one coming out top of these summer flings, highschool-love-affairs.Read More

I know that we haven’t talked about pop music in quite a while. I mean, we all do love our indie, punk, noise or whatever influenced bands that play the crappiest venues all to be able to release some tunes recorded in their bedrooms or garages via bandcamp or on small run vinyl. But from time to time there is an urge and a void that can only be filled by massive pop tunes. Tacky hooklines that block your ears for days and nights, one-liners that make you long forRead More

In Germany they say that sometimes you have to look over the edge of your plate. What might sound like the desperate escape route of your meaty dinner, is actually a very useful hint for your everyday music nerdism. Yes, we all love certain kinds of music (this blog does too), and we tend to soak up a youth cultures and if we are attracted to them, the chances are quite high that we actually start to play an active role in these subcultures. The problem the German saying isRead More

Summer 2006. I spent the summer in Barcelona in a desperate attempt to improve my Spanish. I ended up going out a lot more than I ever did before, I probably drank a lot more than I should have, I didn’t sleep as much as one should have over the course of my time there and I probably improved my English more than my Spanish. But I also met a lot of great people. This trip was the reason for me to go to study in the UK and forRead More

Sod all the other polls and tip sheets out in January – if you want something to pore over and actually get you excited about music in 2014, then read this. So here we go again then. The wonderful english music tabloid NME has once again found the ones to watch for the new year. Here’s our take on the bands they think will make it big. Are they worth it? Should you care? Is there anything in there that’s exciting at all?Read More

Sod all the other polls and tip sheets out in January – if you want something to pore over and actually get you excited about music in 2014, then read this. So here we go again then. The wonderful english music tabloid NME has once again found the ones to watch for the new year. Here’s our take on the bands they think will make it big. Are they worth it? Should you care? Is there anything in there that’s exciting at all?Read More

I’m sure everyone knows these really bad looking posters advertising some big time event in your town. Mostly they are sponsored by big brands, speak about sensational stuff that actually just bores you to death. Even worse are the looks of these ads. A recent example here in Berlin is a concert called „Die neuen Deutschpoeten“ or „the new German poets“. It is sponsored by public broadcaster Radio Fritz – for the younger audience. So when a radio announces a show like that, especially a mainstream format radio, it raisesRead More

What became of the likely lads? I read a few interesting articles recently that had nothing to do with music really, but made me think. The first article, published by the online version of UK broadsheet the Guardian, was talking about the once promising footballer Kieron Dyer. His career never really took off due to his injury prone body. Despite him only playing just over 300 games during his 17 year-long professional career, he managed to become a lavishly paid player. Author Barney Ronay argues that Dyer was actually aRead More

It’s our party we can do what we want When I was at school, our arts teacher used to tell us that the best paintings are the ones that make your imagination run lose. She told us to imagine we’d be in a hospital bed for a year without anything but a painting hanging across the room. She asked us whether we thought the painting should depicture reality as good as possible or if we did not prefer a very abstract painting with shapes, contrasts and uncertainties. A fair question,Read More

Is the acceleration of our lives showing in music too? I think it definitely is. There’s no doubt about it that the internet and the resulting speed in which music has become widely available has also changed the way we consume music. With the likes of Soundcloud, Deezer or Spotify and Youtube we can now access nearly all the music we want at any given time. We are now consuming in small bits. We are scavaging blogs for the newest singles and artists or labels.Read More