Bundesvision 2012: Saxony-Anhalt

What happens when an artist that you really like enters Bundesvision?  Well, if you're like me, you get all tingly and excited.  What happens when the song that this artist enters is really not one of her best?  You probably feel that this is a missed opportunity for some much deserved recognition.

Since I first heard Johanna Zeul, I have been in love with her music.  Some call her music "alternative folk".  I don't really get that.  Sure, she often plays an acoustic guitar, and her style is often stripped down to a very elemental form.  But that isn't necessarily folk in my book.  On her 2008 album, "Album Nr. 1", Zeul is definitely in the realm of alternative rock, with hints of Kristin Hersh and even Bjork.

Unfortunately, as I alluded to before, Zeul's entry for Bundesvision 2012, Sandmann, is nowhere near the best showcase of her songwriting or performing talent.  It is stripped down alternative rock like her other music, but Sandmann is stripped of the quirky hooks that make many of her other songs so appealing.  In short, this is a very interesting and exciting artist performing a fairly run of the mill song. 

My prediction:  I wish I had something better to say here, but I'll be shocked if Johanna Zeul's Sandmann does any better than the bottom third of the competition.  I just don't think there's enough depth or edge here to really excite the audience.

Bundesvision 2012: Rhineland-Palatinate

This is my third (well, second and a half) year reviewing the Bundesvision Song Contest entries, and I'm beginning to notice a pattern.  Every year there is one band that I have never heard of before that plays a song that I really like.  Last year's surprise band was Kraftklub.  The year before that it was Blockflöte des Todes.  This year, I have fallen for Pickers with their song 1000 Meilen.

Now don't expect me to tell you much about Pickers.  They don't have any albums out, although they do have an apparently all English language EP out that I can't seem to get my hands on.  Fortunately, they do have a bunch of different live songs on YouTube so I can get my Pickers fix before they come out with their inevitable pre/post Bundesvision debut album.

"But what about their Bundesvision entry?" I hear you asking.  Well, think of early Arctic Monkey (Pickers lead singer Lutz Rodenbüsch sounds exactly like Alex Turner), and you have a pretty good idea.  It is high energy indie rock and roll with a driving beat and jangly guitars; just the sort of thing I need to blast out of my car speakers on the long commute home.  I am already hooked!

Prediction:  Just as they came out of nowhere to surprise me, I think Pickers will surprise Bundesvision with 1000 Meilen.  They might not win, but I think they may very well come close.  Then again, what I like and what the Bundesvision audience likes are often very different.

The Just Discovered File: Mallu Magalhaes

This is my first installment of hopefully many that I am calling "The Just Discovered File". It will be a quick blurb noting an artist that I have somehow stumbled across whom I find interesting and exciting.

Anyway, my first entry in the "File" is Mallu Magalhaes from Brazil. At the ripe old age of 17, this innovative songwriter is already on her second album (both albums are called "Mallu Magalhaes"), and is taking Brazil by storm.

Her music is a mix of folk, rock, reggae, and any number of other styles you can mention. But what pulls them all together is her compelling yet vulnerable voice, fun lyrics in both Portuguese and English, and incredibly catchy tunes.

So far, she's not on iTunes or Amazon in the U.S.. You can find her on Amazon.de and Amazon.fr though, if you're willing to pay for shipping (which, by the way, is a couple of Euros cheaper from France).

Open World Music

Shhh. . . I don't want to burst any bubbles out there, but the United States and Great Britain aren't the only countries in the world that make great rock music.

"But Peter," you say, "I already knew that. I have the entire 5,000 volume set of Putamayo CDs, and I can sing Tajik falak music at ritual circumcisions with the best of them!"

Well, that may be so. But that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about the whole realm of rock music (including its subsets: pop, rap, reggae, soul, R&B, and many others) that is produced around the world, often in languages other than English, that should be extremely appealing to the American consumer, but that is all but unavailable through normal consumer channels.

As a rabid lifelong fan and collector of music, much of it rather more esoteric than the usual stuff you find on Top 40 radio, I have always been at least somewhat aware that there is a whole world of great rock music out there. When traveling overseas, or while making foreign friends, I have occasionally been exposed snippets of really exciting bands. While living in Prague in the early 90s, MTV Europe was burning up with videos of Mano Negra, a band that practically invented the genre of Latin Alternative. While visiting East Asia for business school in the early 00s, Tokyo was reverberating to the sound of Pushim, a band that performs hot vibe reggae and soul in Japanese and that has a lead singer who could blow Christina Aguilera (and others of her ilk) out of the water. And yet, despite the widespread success of these bands and many others in their home countries or geographic regions, few in the United States are even aware that these bands exist.

This issue ultimately came to a head in my own mind when I enrolled my daughter in the German School of Washington, DC this past September. As she follows in her parents' footsteps in being an avid lover of raucous rock and roll music, and knowing that many of my foreign born friends first learned English through their exposure to American and British popular culture, I naturally wanted to find her good German language music. Unfortunately, if you go to your local record store and look in the "German" bin or search for "German Music" on Amazon.com or iTunes, you could be forgiven for coming away thinking that all music produced in Germany is played on accordions and tubas.

Interestingly enough, it was YouTube and then later LastFM that offered me the "in" to German rock. It was there that I first became aware of platinum selling artists that, for whatever reason - be it cultural, linguistic, or legal, you will never find in the United States through the usual distribution channels.

Since then, I have made it my personal mission first to find these exciting musicians, and second to let Americans know about them. Up to the point that my ADD kicks in, and my obsessive interests migrate to something else equally shiny, I will be posting here my commentaries on the rock music scenes of countries around the world, reviews of artists and albums, links to places you can purchase international rock, and videos of songs that I particularly like.

This is not to say that I know more on the subject than anybody else. Rather, I am hoping that I can start a conversation with other music lovers, music producers, and music marketers. Tell me about what is going on in your music scene in your part of the world. Tell me about the exciting new band that you just discovered, or tell me about your band. Alternatively, tell me why you think American or British rock has more universal appeal than what comes from elsewhere. I want to know!

Frankly, I think there is something terribly wrong when the vast majority of European Grammy Award nominees are American artists, and I hope that - in my own small way - I can do something about that for people who want to know more.