The Bigger Picture Category

When I was a teenager Robert Stadlober, Matthias Schweighöfer or Daniel Brühl used to play in movies commissioned by German TV station Pro7. In those films they spent time in woods, gardens, at boarding schools or in some parents basements at parties asking themselves how the whole adulthood might work. Back then these were exactly the questions I kept asking myself. All this was made that little bit sweeter as I fondly connect those times and movies to their soundtracks. Badly Drawn Boy, Elliott Smith, Slut, The Notwist or PavementRead More

Everything is a fucking show. Everybody needs a fucking mass of background dancers, remixers, mash-ups, fireworks and symbols, pop-culture references, brand tie-ins and codes. The biggest popstars try to make an event out of everything. You have a new album coming out? Cool, let’s just not tell anybody and make it appear over night then. You haven’t released any music for some time but you need a reason to go on tour again and grab a couple of millions? Why not release a new album in order to have aRead More

Well, hello again! I am disappointed that bed. have not thanked me for my kind words last time I wrote down my inner shower monologue. I probably should have told them about it. I am also a bit sad that the new Traams album came out too late to make my premature best of the year list. It is very good and I listened to it often enough to say that it should be on there. But then, I didn’t want to be part of the December flood of bestRead More

Good morning! Do you know HateSong?  „Are You With Me“ by Lost Frequencies is by far the worst song ever. I hate this song so much it makes my whole body hurt. Everything about this song is absolutely terrible. It took three authors to write four lines of lyrics the question behind which – Wouldn’t everyone rather be getting drunk in the Caribbean right now? – is fine but the singer’s delivery is reminiscent of a school-band singer ruining an open mic night with his overdramatized talentless performance. Plus theRead More

How the music industry needs to learn from their youngest audience.  First of all, I’m not really old yet. But in terms of rock and pop music hall of fame, I’ve reached the pinnacle. The year I should say farewell via overdose (which I can’t do because I don’t do drugs), gun to your head (quite difficult this one as well, as German laws on guns are very strict) or alcohol (ok, I do drink, but I never take any medication with it). I don’t see it happening, whichRead More

Sometimes music becomes only the second fiddle to what we call life. The Heart Circle Compilation was put together by members of the „90s Screamo/Hardcore/Emo/Indie“ Facebook group in support of one of its founders Marc Köhler. He is suffering from a cardiac insufficiency and 50% of his heart is kept running by a heart support system. Added to this, he suffers from the so-called ‚Factor V Leiden‘ (FVL), a genetic disorder of the clotting of blood. In the fall of 2014 he got hit by a stroke as a resultRead More

We are small, we are few It’s that time of the year again, where the music industry masses gather in Berlin to celebrate… well themselves basically. It’s Echo time. The German version of the Brits, or the Grammy’s but even by comparing the Echo to them, I’m almost insulting the other awards. But I’ll be attending again and I like the whole idea of dressing up, drinking together with everyone at the aftershow (yes, there’s only one aftershow party) and feeling really gash the next morning. But the awards showRead 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