I'm back!!! Oh, and DJ ODP too

First, let me apologize to my legions of readers (-ahem!-) for my long time away.  If you follow my other blog The Relocation Chronicles, you would know that I have recently moved from Washington, DC to Berlin, Germany.  Unfortunately, with a move across the world comes several months of winding the old life down, shipping everything overseas, and then getting the new life started.

But this move to the heart of European music is to both our benefit.  I now have more ready access to a whole world of music that was previously more difficult to discover (not to prey on old stereotypes, but Americans are notoriously suspicious of listening to languages that they do not understand).  If you're one of my army of readers (-ahem!-), you now get to discover this music through my ears.

Along those lines, yesterday I participated in a business startup event called Uncubed.  To be honest, not being a developer or a designer, and not being 25, I found the event a little disheartening - or at least I found listening to some the speakers a little disheartening.  I am sure that there is a place in the Berlin startup mix for a mid-career professional with almost 20 years of strategic management experience - but little hands-on development experience - in a successful American consulting firm to bring to the table.  But the event was not really designed around my needs.

That having been said, I had some incredibly interesting and productive conversations with a number of interesting young companies, and one interesting and somewhat more seasoned company that is on the cusp of being massive.

In the growing Berlin startup scene, SoundCloud is seen as the gold standard.  Started in 2007 by a Swedish sound designer and a Swedish artist as a platform through which they could share audio, SoundCloud has grown into a social media platform through which artists, musicians, writers, comedians, teachers, and anybody else who deals in the audio medium can share their "sounds" with fellow artists and increasingly consumers around the world.

I am not an artist, but I am a consumer with few rivals.  With a low cost for entry and a global footprint, SoundCloud is a magnet for musicians who want to reach beyond the few dozen listeners who might go to a show, or the few hundred who might hear of them through community word of mouth.  For somebody like me, who lives to uncover talented musicians who bring their own languages into the mix, the chance to speak in person with the people who bring a new level of ease of access to the process was a dream come true.

So, with that unsolicited plug out of the way, what was I able to use SoundCloud to bring to you today?  Well, over the years I've become something of a closet fan of reggaeton.  Called "Latin reggae" by some, reggaeton seamlessly blends reggae, hip hop, and Latin rhythms and lyrics.  And today's song is DJ ODP with his track Mi Vida No Va Cambiar.  Born in Guatemala, DJ ODP moved to the United States as a youth, and he has been spinning discs around the world for the past 10 years.  I dare you to listen to this track and stay in your seat.

Bundesvision 2012: Berlin

Sometimes it can be tough to maintain motivation to preview every entry for a contest like Bundesvision.  Once you get through the first half-dozen or so songs that you like, you're faced with at least ten more that are - to be honest - kind of dull.

That was the situation in which I found myself.  Even if I hadn't heard all of the songs yet, I had at least a passing familiarity with most of the bands in Bundesvision 2012.  While I naturally previewed the songs that were released early first, I also had a tendency to prioritize songs that I liked.  But now that we have only two weeks to Bundesvision 2012, all of the entries have finally been released.  And now that they have all finally been released, I am finding some very pleasant surprises buried in what is left.

Berlin's entry, B-Tight's Drinne, is just one of these songs that is like a breath of fresh air and a shot of adrenaline.  Combining the energy of thrash and metal with rap, B-Tight throttles you awake from your ballad induced coma.  What a relief!  To be honest, I'm not really a huge fan of B-Tight's other work.  But Drinne demands your attention, and I respect that.

My prediction:  Berlin has won more Bundesvision Song Contests than any other part of Germany.  I don't know if interstate politics will play any part in this year's contest, but if it doesn't, I think B-Tight's Drinne stands a pretty good chance of winning it all for Berlin again.  It might be a little too hard edged for some listeners, but it will come as a welcome relief for many others.

Bundesvision 2011: Saxony

Kraftklub - Berlin

I will admit something: every year (well two, so far) previewing 16 songs for the Bundesvision Song Contest can get pretty monotonous.  There are always a handful of ballads - both male and female, a handful of electronic or dance songs, a couple of soul songs, a couple of indie songs, and the show is wrapped up with one or two borderline novelty tunes.  While many of these songs are quite good, very few of them stand out for their originality.  Occasionally though, a band does something different.  This year, Kraftklub is that band.

Kraftklub first crossed my radar a few months ago with their self-released free-download album "Adonis Maximus".  Their music is a vibrant mix of hip-hop, punk rock, and disco - musical genres that one probably would not think would go together.  Combine this with an eastern German "nerd chic" fashion sensibility, and you have a band that truly stands out from the pack.  Kraftklub's song Berlin demonstrates their craft well - although it is by no means their best song.

Prediction:  As with any band that blows away established genres, Kraftklub's success in the broader German marketplace is by no means assured.  All things considered though, Berlin is a fun, energetic, and exciting song that should do well against the more cookie-cutter competition.  I predict that Berlin will place somewhere in the top 3.

Bundesvision 2010: Berlin

Ich + Ich: Yasmine

Perhaps it shouldn't be too controversial an opinion that Germany's largest city Berlin produces more credible "urban" music than its neighbors to the south in Bavaria. After all, Peter Fox's Schwarz zu blau, a fresh and innovative hip-hop take on Berlin after hours, won last year's Bundesvision Song Contest by a huge margin. With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that fellow Berliners Ich + Ich come through with a wonderfully evocative and emotional urban soul song in Yasmine. Pairing up with an uncredited Egyptian singer, Mohamed Mounir, Yasmine mixes German and Arabic lyrics along with German and American musical cues into a multi-cultural melange that is so reflective and evocative of the melting pot that is modern Berlin. Unlike some of it's competitors, Yasmine has depth and character that is able to take these disparate elements and combine them into a whole that is greater than its parts.

Over the years, Americans have come to think of German popular music consisting entirely of avant garde synth-pop or heavy metal. But Germany, and particularly Berlin, has developed an amazing depth of "urban" music talent. Ich + Ich and Yasmine demonstrate this beautifully.

Prediction: Over their first three albums, Ich + Ich have sold over 2.6 million copies, which indicates a massive base of support. Couple that with a fine song, and I predict that Ich + Ich should place comfortably in the top 5.