wavemaster
1-20-02, 03:27 AM
Neue Deutsche Welle, short NDW, was the German answer to the domination of the charts by artists from the US and UK.
With the beginning of the 80s the music of and for the youth came mainly either from the US and the UK. German music was either pop for older folks, Hard Rock or comedy (nonetheless, artists like Marianne Rosenberg or Frank Zander were quite successful).
Punk Rock hadn´t the same impact in Germany as in the UK, but it gave some musicians a serious push. The problem was that most German Punk Rock bands had no chance of becoming popular to a wider audience since it was recognized as "primitive and raw with disturbing messages". Another influence was the upcoming New Wave which followed Punk Rock, generally being more welcomed.
In the meanwhile, a discussion about the role of the Allied Forces in Germany gave a new surge to the self-esteem of the national identity, as alternative groups and parties gained a wider audience in the conscience of the German youth in particular.
Synthesizer and Keyboards became attractive once they were "cheap enough" for everyone, they were also easier to use and more reliable.
The "D.I.Y."-message of Punk got stuck in the minds of many artists and bands, and a fresh sound was soon to be heard from garages and cellars in Germany. The use of the German language was no longer a taboo reserved for the "old", and each band had soon inhabitated it´s own approach to this kind of music.
The term "Neue Deutsche Welle" wasn´t invented yet. Since the music was still underground, it was either distributed by tape trading or self-founded labels like Ata Tak. Almost everything was allowed, the correct grammar was unnecessary as long as the lyrics were fitting to the beat (sometimes, not always!) , and so the music had a variety of facades, from 'milder' Punk over cheeky Pop to Kraftwerk-like tunes.
In 1981, the music press began to notice that there was something brewing in the underground. The first articles of the music press reported about new bands with a certain kind of music - the baby still had no name. DJs in Germany began to play the tapes and singles, and the people began to request the songs they had heard in the discos on Saturday at record shops and radio stations on Monday.
At the end of 1981, the first artists of this new wave had chart notations - RHEINGOLD, SPIDER MURPHY GANG, JOACHIM WITT and GRAUZONE (the latter came actually from Switzerland).
1982 was the year when the hit hits the fan...the breakthrough.
In an article of the Spex (magazine for independent music), Alfred Hilsberg finally named the nameless, with the soon-to-be famous term "Neue Deutsche Welle".
The Top 20 were no longer reserved for the established music and the respective artists - a tidal wave of new German bands and artists were radically changing the musical landscape.
Soon, the sounds from IDEAL, FALCO, EXTRABREIT and TRIO were heard everywhere, on the radio, in the disco, even on TV (despite of the sometimes not overall clean lyrics). And not only in Germany...TRIO were the first NDW-band which had also managed to place their "Da Da Da" in the US charts.
Later in 1982, more and more German bands joined in the takeover of the charts: FALCO, HUBERT KAH, SPLIFF (to name a few).
NENA and FALCO were soon leading the pack, with #1 hits in Germany and chart success in the US.
In 1983, the NDW was in the vise-like grip of the music industry and the teenage gazettes. First inflation warnings were issued (even from the music industry!), but the train kept on rolling - unstoppable, as it seemed.
Even artists and bands which had really nothing to do with the NDW like KRAFTWERK and BAP were sucked into this maelstrom - just the fact that they also had German lyrics was enough.
More hits, more artists, but slowly, quality was replaced by quantity. The labels were signing "the dirt under the fingernails" to get their piece of the cake in an attempt to participate from this highly profitable movement. Dozens of samplers were flooding the market, and each one was worser as the preceding one.
Ironically, more and more bands and artists were falling back on the music they had despised with updating the Pop of the 50s and 60s. And the consumers striked back - in the second half of 1983, the sales for NDW-music dropped in a dramatic way. At the end of 1983, NDW was virtually dead - no one wanted to listen to this overhyped fad anymore.
1984 saw the last convulsions of the corpse with releases from NENA and TRIO. Most bands had dissolved in the crash of the NDW or had changed their style, only a few survived. Once again, German lyrics had become a taboo, only German Rock music had profited a bit from the NDW as the chart notations of HERBERT GRÖNEMEYER or the KLAUS LAGE BAND showed. Other styles had taken over in the popularity of the audience - Synthpop and Italo Disco.
This was a heavy blow for music with German lyrics...it took over ten years until RAMMSTEIN lifted the ban with their album "Herzeleid" in 1995.
With the beginning of the 80s the music of and for the youth came mainly either from the US and the UK. German music was either pop for older folks, Hard Rock or comedy (nonetheless, artists like Marianne Rosenberg or Frank Zander were quite successful).
Punk Rock hadn´t the same impact in Germany as in the UK, but it gave some musicians a serious push. The problem was that most German Punk Rock bands had no chance of becoming popular to a wider audience since it was recognized as "primitive and raw with disturbing messages". Another influence was the upcoming New Wave which followed Punk Rock, generally being more welcomed.
In the meanwhile, a discussion about the role of the Allied Forces in Germany gave a new surge to the self-esteem of the national identity, as alternative groups and parties gained a wider audience in the conscience of the German youth in particular.
Synthesizer and Keyboards became attractive once they were "cheap enough" for everyone, they were also easier to use and more reliable.
The "D.I.Y."-message of Punk got stuck in the minds of many artists and bands, and a fresh sound was soon to be heard from garages and cellars in Germany. The use of the German language was no longer a taboo reserved for the "old", and each band had soon inhabitated it´s own approach to this kind of music.
The term "Neue Deutsche Welle" wasn´t invented yet. Since the music was still underground, it was either distributed by tape trading or self-founded labels like Ata Tak. Almost everything was allowed, the correct grammar was unnecessary as long as the lyrics were fitting to the beat (sometimes, not always!) , and so the music had a variety of facades, from 'milder' Punk over cheeky Pop to Kraftwerk-like tunes.
In 1981, the music press began to notice that there was something brewing in the underground. The first articles of the music press reported about new bands with a certain kind of music - the baby still had no name. DJs in Germany began to play the tapes and singles, and the people began to request the songs they had heard in the discos on Saturday at record shops and radio stations on Monday.
At the end of 1981, the first artists of this new wave had chart notations - RHEINGOLD, SPIDER MURPHY GANG, JOACHIM WITT and GRAUZONE (the latter came actually from Switzerland).
1982 was the year when the hit hits the fan...the breakthrough.
In an article of the Spex (magazine for independent music), Alfred Hilsberg finally named the nameless, with the soon-to-be famous term "Neue Deutsche Welle".
The Top 20 were no longer reserved for the established music and the respective artists - a tidal wave of new German bands and artists were radically changing the musical landscape.
Soon, the sounds from IDEAL, FALCO, EXTRABREIT and TRIO were heard everywhere, on the radio, in the disco, even on TV (despite of the sometimes not overall clean lyrics). And not only in Germany...TRIO were the first NDW-band which had also managed to place their "Da Da Da" in the US charts.
Later in 1982, more and more German bands joined in the takeover of the charts: FALCO, HUBERT KAH, SPLIFF (to name a few).
NENA and FALCO were soon leading the pack, with #1 hits in Germany and chart success in the US.
In 1983, the NDW was in the vise-like grip of the music industry and the teenage gazettes. First inflation warnings were issued (even from the music industry!), but the train kept on rolling - unstoppable, as it seemed.
Even artists and bands which had really nothing to do with the NDW like KRAFTWERK and BAP were sucked into this maelstrom - just the fact that they also had German lyrics was enough.
More hits, more artists, but slowly, quality was replaced by quantity. The labels were signing "the dirt under the fingernails" to get their piece of the cake in an attempt to participate from this highly profitable movement. Dozens of samplers were flooding the market, and each one was worser as the preceding one.
Ironically, more and more bands and artists were falling back on the music they had despised with updating the Pop of the 50s and 60s. And the consumers striked back - in the second half of 1983, the sales for NDW-music dropped in a dramatic way. At the end of 1983, NDW was virtually dead - no one wanted to listen to this overhyped fad anymore.
1984 saw the last convulsions of the corpse with releases from NENA and TRIO. Most bands had dissolved in the crash of the NDW or had changed their style, only a few survived. Once again, German lyrics had become a taboo, only German Rock music had profited a bit from the NDW as the chart notations of HERBERT GRÖNEMEYER or the KLAUS LAGE BAND showed. Other styles had taken over in the popularity of the audience - Synthpop and Italo Disco.
This was a heavy blow for music with German lyrics...it took over ten years until RAMMSTEIN lifted the ban with their album "Herzeleid" in 1995.