Music Video: Cro - Einmal um die Welt

One of the reasons I have always loved doing this blog, albeit in fits and starts, is because there are some awesome tunes out there that simply never cross over into the English speaking world.  Last fall, "raop" (a self-named cross between rap and pop) star Cro hit it very big in the German speaking world, with his second album "Raop" hitting Number 1 in the German and Austrian charts and Number 7 in the Swiss charts.  Yet here in America. . . nothing. 

Well, that's why I'm here.  Today I bring you one of Cro's big hits from this mega-hit album, Einmal um die Welt.  This song perfectly puts on display exactly what Cro means by raop.  It has the lyrical drive and density of rap, while having an uptempo beat that makes it hard to sit still.  Having had the chance to listen to Cro's other music, this theme carries through well, and makes him an artist worth following moving forward.

Bundesvision 2012: Saxony

Maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age, but some of you may have noticed that I have been liking a lot of the Bundesvision entries for 2012 so far.  That is true - at least so far - and Saxony's entry, Laing and Morgens immer müde is no exception.

Described on their Facebook page as "Electric Ladysound", Laing mixes a very funky electronic dance beat with some undeniably rich female vocals.  Put together, Laing produces a sound that is both internationally appealing and unmistakably German.  Having listened to Laing's only release up to this point, their EP "030 / 577 07 886", they carry this sound from good to even better.

Prediction:  While their sound is different in many respects, and while some readers may reject this comparison, I tend to think that Morgens immer müde will appeal to many of the same people who also enjoyed last year's entry from Frida Gold.  That would put Laing comfortably in the top half of the pack, but still far from the lead.

Bundesvision 2012: Bavaria

Despite my oppressively busy schedule these days, in the interest of preserving my sanity, I though I should finally kick off my preview of the 2012 Bundesvision Song Contest.

Today, we start out in Bavaria with a refreshing change of pace: Fiva & Das Phantom Orchester with Die Stadt gehört wieder mir.

Now let me preface this preview by saying that - overall - I like rap and hip-hop.  Put together some good, clever lyrics and a fresh beat, and it is tough not to like the genre.  Heck, I'll even go so far to say that the stereotypical "gangsta" attitude has its place in the genre, as long as it is an organic outgrowth of the social milieu from which the artist comes.  But I quickly run out of patience, and more importantly interest, when the music becomes all about trying to mimic this "gangsta" stereotype, and not about being honest and taking the music to a new level.  I think this problem becomes particularly egregious when you have non-American hip-hop artists trying to pretend that they come straight out of Compton, when they actually come straight out of Heidelberg (or Osaka, or Montreal, or you name it).

Climbing off of my rickety soapbox, I come back to Fiva & Das Phantom Orchester.  Fiva is a rapper who is comfortable in her European skin.  She doesn't try to pose as some tough inner city thug.  Instead, with her backing band made up of DJ, percussion, and a string section, Fiva lays down an infectious jazzy groove and some engaging vocals, while never forgetting who she is or where she comes from.  I would rather listen to this than to European "gangsta" rap any day of the week.

Prediction:  As evidenced by the past two years' experience, just because I like something doesn't mean that the voting German public will agree with me.  I think Fiva & Das Phantom Orchester will find it's niche audience, but it will not be much more than a niche.  I predict Die Stadt gehört wieder mir will land somewhere in the bottom half of the field.

Music Video: Holger Burner - Aufwachen

For a while, Open World Music had turned inward, relying on my own resources rather than tapping into the work already done by others.  I don't know why that is.  But today, after a long interval, I finally returned to one of my favorite music streaming services - last.fm - to try to find some new artists I had never heard before.

And, boy oh boy, did I ever!

In today's hyper-consumerist society, it is nice to occasionally hear from somebody who sings about how we can aspire to greater things than the mere accumulation of stuff.  Holger Burner is not going to win any prizes from the American Enterprise Institute.  And his heavily techno influenced rap Aufwachen isn't going to make him too many friends in the leadership of his austerity obsessed homeland of Germany.  But I will give Holger Burner kudos for reminding us that often, in our single minded focus on the current definition of "living the dream", we end up with even less than that with which we started.

Awesome Disqualifications - Part 1

When I created Open World Music three years ago, I had to be very strict with myself about what parameters I would use to select music to post.  Artists had to come from non-English speaking countries and the song that I post had to be in their native language.  The first part is easy.  The whole premise of this blog is that there are great bands from just about every country on Earth.  The second part is somewhat more difficult.  Because most poplar modern musical genres had their genesis in the English speaking world, because many of the most influential artists to gain world fame have performed in English, and because performing in English is generally considered the only way to be marketable in the world at large, many artists opt to leave their native tongues behind when they write and perform.  Personally speaking, I think this is too bad.  The point of this blog was to bring the artists who have opted to perform in their own languages to a broader audience.

However, I have always felt pangs of regret that I couldn't also post music from artists from outside of the English speaking world who have made that choice to perform in English.  Often readers will refer me to artists, or I will stumble across artists, who are absolutely awesome, but because of my arbitrary and harsh rules I cannot post here. 

Well, rules are meant to be broken - particularly rules that I made up myself.  And so I bring you the first in what may be a multiple installment series:  Awesome Disqualifications.

The Dodoz - Do You Like Boys
This French band is a great example of hard driving alternative rock.  Sometimes they have an angular sound like Franz Ferdinand.  Other times they are more straight forward.  They're always interesting.





Jaqee - Moonshine
This is a borderline call.  Jaqee is originally from English/Swahili speaking Uganda, but for the past several years she has been working out of Sweden.  I originally heard of Jaqee from her work on the Koalas Desperados project, but I quickly fell in love with her solo work.  I just can't get her voice out of my head.




The Peacocks - Gimme More
This one is an oldie but a goodie.  This Swiss band has been around since 1990, and have been pounding out energetic psychobilly ever since.  







The Van Jets - Down Below
The Belgians are producing some amazing artists these days, including The Van Jets.  This is angular alternative rock, with a hint of a 70s vibe. 




Selah Sue - Raggamuffin
While we're in Belgium, I invite you to also check out Selah Sue.  Stylistically, she looks like a much healthier Amy Winehouse.  Her music is very soulful, and in this particular case, also very heavily inspired by reggae.  Another artist with a voice that will burrow into your brain.




Miss Platnum - She Moved In
I first became aware of this Germany based Romanian singer when she backed up Peter Fox on his breakout solo album, "Stadtaffe".  But Miss Platnum has earned quite a following in her own right, particularly for this soul influenced dance track. 







Lyre le Temps - Go Down/Hit the Road Jack/About the Traum Drum
A few years ago in the United States, swing made something of a popular comeback.  Since then, a new batch of artists - particularly in France - has taken that swing groove, and added heavy electronica elements.  Lyre le Temps takes this hybrid sound to amazing heights.



Ill Inspecta - Like Puppa San
Germany has a huge reggae scene.  As part of this, Ill Inspecta made ripples with his own dancehall take.  He has since left performing, spreading the story that Ill Inspecta was "killed".  But in the meantime, Ill Inspecta left some real gems that would be right at home heard out of a Kingston sound system.





The Bawdies - It's Too Late
Japan is famous for bands that take established musical genres from the United States and Great Britain, and giving them their unique cultural stamp.  The Bawdies don't do that.  They just play straight ahead hardcore R&B that would blow most American bands out of the water. 

Music Video: Sport - Der unsichtbare Dritte

Sometimes, when digging through the music that I have been collecting over the past three years for Open World Music, I stumble across a band that I was really into a while ago, but that had kind of fallen off my radar.  Sport from Hamburg, Germany is one of those bands.  Sport is often heavy music, with pounding bass drum and grinding guitar.  Sport is always dark and broody in mood.  But Sport is always engaging, in sort of a Stranglers having a really bad day sort of way.

Anyway, I have always wanted to post a Sport video on Open World Music.  The problem is, the band is almost invisible.  They have no videos that I can find, other than album tracks that fans have posted.  They barely have a website.  They have had a MySpace page since 2005, but the one album that they list on their discography isn't even one of their albums (they have released five albums as far as I can tell, but even that is just an educated guess).  Even the name Sport is so generic as to render them all but invisible to search engines.  I wonder if this is intentional, but something tells me that they're just not that into marketing themselves.

But, if you look long enough, you're bound to find something.  And so, today I bring you the single music video (and it's a fan video at that) for a Sport song that I could find, Der unsichtbare Dritte.  In my opinion, it's not their best song.  But it is pretty representative of their oeuvre.  If you like this, Sport just released a new album this month called "Aus der Asche, aus dem Staub", and it's on iTunes.

Music Video: Dendemann - Stumpf ist Trumpf 3.0

Sometimes I don't get kids.  Over her six years, my daughter has expressed a strong preference for music that is raucous, that has a beat that you can dance to, and that has a chorus that you can sing along to.  Oh yeah, and she prefers bands with female lead singers.  That's fine.  I get that.  But every once in a while she finds a song that she really likes that doesn't really check any of those boxes.

The other day, that song was German hip-hop artist Dendemann's song Stumpf ist Trumpf 3.0.  Don't get me wrong, I have always liked this song myself.  It is aggressive but smart.  Plus, as can be seen from the video and its wonderful parody of the old TV show MacGyver, Dendemann has a solid sense of humor.  But Dendemann's voice is, if nothing else, gratingly masculine, and his beat and lyrics can neither be easily danced to nor sung along with.  I guess that is the fun thing about music: you never know what you will ultimately find appealing.  The fun is in the searching.

This Year's OWM Thanksgiving Disco Playlist

A few months ago, my step-sister made me a challenge that I couldn't resist: her new Belgian husband (another music lover, apparently) and I would go head-to-head on a Thanksgiving disco playlist.  Well, after going through a dozen permutations, I have come up with my list.  They're not all "disco" songs, but they're all danceable.  Enjoy!

1)  Baaba Maal: International (Senegal)
2)  Mexican Institute of Sound:  Bienvenidos a Mi Disco (Mexico)
3)  Timbuktu:  N.a.p.  (Sweden)
4)  Napoleon Solo:  Explota (Spain)
5)  Deichkind:  E.S.D.B. (Germany)
6)  Plasticines:  La règle du jeu (France)
7)  Madsen:  Mein Herz bleibt hier (Germany)
8)  BB Brunes:  Sixty Eight (France)
9)  Die Sterne:  Depressionen aus der Hölle (Germany)

10)  Model:  Şey. . . Belki! (Turkey)

11)  Movits!:  Sammy Davis Jr. (Sweden)

12)  Koalas Desperados:  All Night Long (Germany)

13)  Casino Royale:  Anno Zero (Italy)

14)  Nous Non Plus:  Catastrophe (USA)

15)  Jens Friebe:  Über den Weg (Germany)

16)  t.A.T.u.:  220 (Russia)

17)  Frida Gold:  Wovon Sollen Wir Träumen (Germany)

18)  Dodo:  Wett di hebä (Sweden)

19)  Mono & Nikitaman:  Komplizen (Austria)

20)  Ryo the Skywalker:  ****Japan (Japan)

21)  LaBrassBanda:  Bierzelt (Germany)

22)  Manu Chao:  Besoin De La Luna (France)

Not French but French

One of the first things you notice when you listen to music produced around the world is how much of it is in English.  This is true, not just in the English world as one would expect, but in non-English speaking countries as well.  With the worldwide popularity of American and British musicians, this is perhaps not all that surprising.  However, one thing that I have noticed as I have tried to find non-English popular music is how many artists perform in French when they are from non-French speaking countries.  This is not a knock in any way on the French language.  Rather, it is an observation that French, for all of its beauty and rich artistic heritage, is not widely regarded as the international language of popular music in the same way that English is.

With this in mind, I thought it might be fun to showcase three of these Francophone artists that hail from non-French countries.

First, I bring you an artist from Poland that I just recently discovered named Mademoiselle Karen.  Her music, at least on the track Ouaf, Ouaf, is hip-hop.  However, her heart is very much in the realm of French cabaret.  Adding to the confusion, Mademoiselle Karen is a classically trained musician who was born and raised in Denmark before moving to Poland to perform with Czeslaw Mosil (a fellow graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music). 

Next on tap, I reacquaint you with the German group Pierre Ferdinand et les Charmeurs, who performed respectably in the Bundesvision 2011 competition.  Now, I have to admit to cheating a little bit here.  Despite having many French related titles, despite usually having French subject matter, and despite often singing in what I take to be French-accented German, their lyrics are typically in German.  But hey, it's my blog, and I can showcase whatever bands I want to.  In Alles von Pierre, Pierre Ferdinand et les Charmeurs follow their usual formula of playing heavily French-influenced swing and lounge.

Finally, I bring you a band from the good old U.S. of A.  Nous non Plus has been lighting up New York City since 2005, when they formed out of the ashes of another faux-French band Les Sans Coulottes.  While often teetering on the edge of being a novelty act, Nous non Plus produces some excellent French-language pop that would not be out of place in Paris.  The new track J'en Ai Marre perfectly showcases Nous non Plus' ability to put out insanely catchy tunes in a language that probably few of their listeners actually understand.

ADDENDUM: 

Well, I'm a day late and a dollar short, but here's another artist that I wanted to be sure to add to this list because A) I can; and B) I love this song.  Paula is another German artist, who produces some very danceable electro-pop.  Most of the time, she sings in German.  Every once in a while, perhaps because her brand of electro-pop has wide appeal in France, she sings in French.  C'est comme ça is perhaps her best example. 

Bundesvision 2010: Hesse

Oceana & Leon Taylor: Far Away

A poorly constructed love song is truly an abomination. But there is something truly sublime about a love song that is well written, and that is performed with an emotional depth that does not spill over into self-consciously manipulative sentimentality. Oceana & Leon Taylor's duet Far Away is definitely one of the latter. Far Away uses a mix of English and German lyrics (the original is all English, but Bundesvision rules require that at least some lyrics be in German) almost as a mirror of distance between separated lovers. Oceana has a beautifully rich and clear voice and, together with Leon Taylor, neither would be at all out of place in the American R&B charts.

Oceana & Leon Taylor's Far Away is yet another welcome reminder in Bundesvision 2010 that German popular music is rich and fertile ground for talented performers and skilled songwriters.

Prediction: I think that Oceana & Leon Taylor's Far Away will hit an emotional nerve with the German public. It is a well-written song that connects with universal emotion. I predict that Far Away, while probably not taking first place, will probably land in the top 5.

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.