Opium for the people
| Opium for the people | ||||
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| Studio album by Die Toten Hosen | ||||
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Publication |
January 26, 1996 |
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| Label (s) | JKP , Eastwest Records | |||
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CD, MC |
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Title (number) |
18th |
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running time |
67:03 |
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Opium fürs Volk is a music album by the punk rock band Die Toten Hosen with texts in German only. The title of the album alludes to a remark by Karl Marx , who wrote: "Religion is [...] the opium of the people ." The lyrics of the album deal with the themes of morality , religion and mortality. Like almost all of the band's previous recordings, it was produced by Jon Caffery and was released on January 26, 1996 as the first album on the band's record label JKP . In the year of its release it was awarded a gold record and a platinum record in Germany; it received gold status in Austria and Switzerland.
Emergence
During an event on the occasion of the German Evangelical Church Congress in Hamburg in 1995, which Campino visited by chance, he met Abbot Stephan Schröer . Shortly afterwards, in August 1995, Campino accepted an invitation from Schröer and went to the Benedictine Abbey of Königsmünster in Meschede for a week of retreat . The participation in monastic life inspired Campino to part of the song lyrics and to the concept of the album.
The album Opium fürs Volk was recorded in autumn and winter 1995 in the Skyline Tonfabrik in Düsseldorf; the mixing and the final mastering took place in Dieter Dierks' studio in Stommeln . The band had been with front man and singer Campino since 1988, Andreas von Holst and Michael Breitkopf on electric guitars , Andreas Meurer on electric bass and Wolfgang Rohde on drums.
After the contract with Virgin expired , the band decided to become independent from the major labels in the future and founded the company JKP in 1995 . At the same time she signed a contract with Eastwest Records, a subsidiary of Warner Germany , which provided that Eastwest, as a service provider, would take over the distribution of the finished sound carriers. This constellation of the band's own label with an established distribution partner was new in the music industry in 1995. The first production under the new contractual conditions was the single Nothing remains for Eternity with the accompanying music video by Hans Neleman in December 1995 , before the album Opium fürs Volk was released on January 26, 1996 .
Design of cover and booklet
The collage on the front, designed by Johann Zambryski , shows the profile of a man. A screw marked with arrows is supposed to turn his brain. An entire combination tool kit is printed on the sound carrier itself. In addition to all the texts, the booklet also contains a series of screen shots from German television with presenters such as Ilona Christen , Jürgen Fliege , Fritz Egner , Hans Meiser and Arabella Kiesbauer , Johannes Paul II and a physically abused toddler. This is followed by a page from a comic booklet, postcard shots of a bullfight , a red-tinged picture of a decapitated Chinese with the headline “Viva la Revolution! China 1926 ”, excerpts from paintings with biblical motifs, a picture of Lenin giving a speech to the proletariat , and finally a photo of the group Die Toten Hosen, taken by Gabo . All images relate to the title of the album Opium fürs Volk and the Marxian metaphor as interpreted by the band:
“In 'Opium fürs Volk' we see everything that calms people down, what keeps them in their armchairs. Just don't make a rebellion, just don't wake up, get up, do terror, just don't get uncomfortable. In the end we are somehow 'opium for the people'. "
Accordingly, a T-shirt that the band sold through their merchandise mail order and at concerts in 1996 bore the inscription next to a portrait of Karl Marx: “The Toten Hosen are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the mind of a heartless world like it Mind is spiritless. They are opium for the people ”. This sentence is a modification of a quote from Karl Marx in the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Introduction : “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the mind of a heartless world as it is the mind of spiritless states. It is the opium of the people. "
Subjects and title list
Texts
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As with all previous productions of the band Die Toten Hosen, the lyrics on this album are mainly from Campino and are for the most part written from the perspective of the narrator . The pieces Nothing stays for eternity , And so on , Eternal lasts the longest (Dub) and Ten Little Jägermeisters are a collaboration with Hanns Christian Müller . Müller has been an advisor and friend of the band since 1986 and has been involved in earlier productions as a co-author, producer or director of music videos.
The album begins with a clap of thunder and the Lord's Prayer , which is presented as Gregorian chant without any instrumental accompaniment. The melody comes from the monks of Königsmünster Abbey. The song Mensch speaks to the inner ambivalence of the human being. The phrase “My name is man” is a quote from the music title of the same name by the band Ton Steine Scherben , which approaches the subject in their song in completely different ways. Nothing remains for eternity is about the impermanence of being. The two verses of Eternal last the longest , which is attached to the song without a break, with the line of text "My friend that's it," take up the topic again. Campino said: “For me this is really just a call to live in the here and now and to enjoy it more. [...] Stop pondering about yesterday or what is tomorrow. [...] Every day something new arises, but every day something also dies. It's about realizing that you can't change it anyway. Every day something breaks and cannot be repeated ”.
In the text of The Ten Commandments , Campino first quotes the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament and then questions the strictness of the laws. He continues his criticism of the “Old Church” in the piece of music Paradies by rejecting blind obedience to the rules and the associated promise of paradise.
In Die Fliege , Campino describes a trauma in which a fly entered his head, crawled around in his brain, causing him pain and blocking him completely. In XTC he describes the emotional state during and after an ecstasy trip.
Bad Wolf , which is about a girl who is sexually abused , He thinks she thinks , which is about a couple who live side by side every day, and so on , describing a philistine , are the few tracks on this album in which the lyric self does not tell.
The love song Bonnie & Clyde refers to the story of the gangster couple of the same name who stick together until death. The band got caught because of the passage: “We're robbing a couple of banks or a money transport. We shoot two, three, four, five cops when there is no other way, ”criticized the conservative Statt Party , whose deputy state chairman in Lower Saxony Jan Timke had reported the band for insulting. Die Toten Hosen rejected the allegation and stated that the line of text concerned described "violence as a last resort in a hopeless situation".
At The Frog Prince and lies is about hurt feelings after a failed partnership. Soul therapy is a call to share your problems through conversations with like-minded people. The two songs Und wir leben and Viva la Revolution represent a review of the band's history with the conclusion that their revolutionary idea was ultimately nothing more than "opium for the people" and that they are still alive despite their poor lifestyle.
The last track on the album begins with a question from the moderator Uwe Wassermann from the radio station Fritz : “Don't you mind singing those boozy songs every evening?” Andreas Meurer then rebukes him: “I mean, you should had made the effort to listen carefully to our last records, if you would have noticed that we haven't been making songs like this for a long time. If I somehow see the pictures of starving children on TV, then I can no longer sing about Bommerlunder . ”This is followed by Ten Little Jägermeister , a cynical, satirical drinking song in the form of a counting rhyme. Wassermann's words conclude the album: "Yes, yes ... well, I have to say: I see that you have really developed."
music
Die Toten Hosen continued their rock music style with influences from punk rock with this album. This includes hammered eighth notes and power chords .
In addition to the electric guitars, the electric bass and the drums, the band also uses various complementary instruments. In the titles Böser Wolf and Lügen they are supported by the flutists and strings of the Munich Philharmonic . Hans Steingen plays in We Live the Scottish Pipes and Frank Kirchner plays the saxophone in He thinks, she thinks . Furthermore, the band borrows from acid techno in the music track XTC and uses synthesizers and drum computers .
In the barely two-minute music track And so on , which begins with an overdriven guitar sound followed by the classic time signature “one, two, three, four”, you can hear a blues harp as a melody instrument .
A four-tone motif, played on the electric guitar, determines the atmosphere of the piece. Nothing remains for eternity . Before the singing begins, it is repeated eight times and then again nine times until the chorus. The tone sequence dominates over the entire first stanza and the interlude. In the second half of the stanzas, drums, rhythm guitars with hammered power chords and bass set in. In the guitar solo in the middle of the song, which is accompanied by drums, Andreas von Holst initially modulates a single note (D flat), which sounds different due to bending and flageolet notes . The second part contains the solo blues riffs. A calm keyboard melody then changes the mood over eight bars. It is underlaid with synthetically produced birdsong.
This is followed by the refrain with the vocals and the power chords using all instruments. A standing chord of synthesizer and electric guitar sounds forms the end.
The song Nothing remains for eternity is a remix of the theme as Dubversion called Eternal is the best policy attached. Finally, Ten Little Jägermeister , where Hans Christian Müller plays the mandolin and a friend of the band, Uli Hiemer sings in the choir, contains influences from reggae .
Publications
Singles
Before the album, the single Nothing Remains For Eternity was released in December 1995 , which, in addition to the title track, contained three other songs:
- Alcohol - 2:04 (Rohde / Campino)
- Celebrity Psychosis - 3:14 (Campino)
- The '7' is everything - 5:12 (Meurer / Campino)
Paradies was released as a single in April 1996. It contained three additional titles, including a cover from The Beatles .
- A joke - 2:56 (Meurer / Campino)
- Duckburg remains stable - 3:35 (Breitkopf / Campino, Müller)
- I'm the Walrus - 3:07 cover of The Beatles
The single Bonnie & Clyde contained two compositions by the band and an interpretation of a song by Kiss and was released in June 1996.
- Little boy - 3:58 (from Holst / Campino)
- Herzglück hard wave - 1:55 (Rohde / Campino)
- Do you love me? - 3:10 cover by Kiss
Ten Little Jägermeister was released as a single in September 1996; this time with a new piece of music by the band and a cover version of a Rolling Stones song .
- We Love You - 3:10 Cover by The Rolling Stones
- The King from Wonderland - 4:15 (Breitkopf / Campino)
Music videos
That of Hans Neleman designed film Nothing remains for eternity is one of the band to their hitherto most expensive since they 50.000 DM claims to settlement payment had to pay to a photographer who the shortly after the first broadcast of the music video copyrights to the aesthetics Registered images. In the black and white music video, the band members are shown, covered all over their bodies in a crust of clay, wrapped in gauze bandages and sometimes hanging upside down between dead trees. With the video for Paradies , on the other hand, costs could be saved, as the Hamburg photographer Gabo made her directorial debut and therefore waived her fee. She received technical support from Martin Weisz . The film shows Die Toten Hosen performing in the Hamburg St. Pauli Theater .
The shooting of Bonnie & Clyde took place under the direction of Ralf Schmerberg for the most part in the former Karlskaserne in Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg . The bed scenes were recorded in the Pension Wirt am Berg in Stuttgart. Campino's partner in the video is Lea Mornar .
The cartoon for Ten Little Jägermeisters (1996) was directed by Sabine Huber and Andreas Hykade and produced by Ralf Schmerberg at FilmBilder in Stuttgart. The work received various awards, which the band awarded the illustrators because of their lack of participation.
New edition 2007
For the 25th anniversary of the band, Opium was remastered for the people . The new edition contains a new, additional booklet written by Jan Weiler , an interview with the band, who remembers the creation of the album, as well as explanations of current affairs in 1996. The list of tracks has also been expanded by three pieces of music.
- Flying - 4:28 (Campino)
- Celebrity Psychosis - 3:14 (Campino)
- Herzglück hard wave - 1:57 (Rohde / Campino)
tour
The tour for the album under the motto Eternal Lasts Longest was opened by the band on April 22, 1996 with a concert in the Bremerhaven town hall . She then gave more than 75 concerts in completely sold-out halls in Germany, Austria and Switzerland by the end of the year. She stepped among others at the festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park as a headliner on. The final concert of the tour took place on December 22nd, 1996 in the Philipshalle in Düsseldorf . The live album On behalf of the Lord was recorded during the first leg of the tour and released on October 26, 1996.
resonance
Chart successes and awards
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In the first week the album reached number one in the charts in Germany, number three in Austria and number two in Switzerland. It was awarded a gold and a platinum record in Germany in 1996; by 2002 it had reached platinum twice. The album is one of the best-selling albums in Germany . In Austria and Switzerland it got gold once each. With a re-release of the vinyl version in 2016, it returned to the German charts at number 13 in September 2016.
The piece Ten Little Jägermeisters was received with great enthusiasm by the audience at the live concerts, which is why the band decided at the end of 1996 to bring the piece of music onto the market as the fourth single. The song rose to number one in the German, Austrian and Swiss single charts, and Die Toten Hosen were awarded a gold record for a single for the first time in their career; by 2001 the single reached platinum. The video was awarded the Comet and the ECHO as best video clip nationally in 1997 .
Press
The music press was mostly benevolent about the album. The city magazine Prinz described it as “a very serious record, with no hip-hip hurray, raised index fingers and almost no class speaker mentality”. The people would get what they deserve, namely “holding the mirror in front of their face.” However, it would “be a bit too obvious to put a song about ecstasy with an electro beat.” The Toten Hosen would also be “ 10 small Jägermeister , the new trouser, fan curve, drinking and shouting anthem, deliberately put a counterpoint after the end of the CD. ”Frank Rummeleit in Zillo wrote of a“ logical further development of the album Kauf MICH! "And described Die Toten Hosen as" grippy punk rockers who pull out their sting if you want to make them radio-compatible ". Opium fürs Volk is "an album with depth, both lyrically and musically".
Hollow Skai confirmed to the band in Rolling Stone that "despite all the thoughtfulness, they still understand aggressive street hits and ironic carnival hits, weird booze songs and catchy rock 'n' roll". This is shown by the song 10 kleine Jägermeister , with which they " ridiculed those who still rubbed against the Hosen- Bommerlunder -Hedonism and never understood the ironic populism."
Götz Kühnemund , editor-in-chief of Rock Hard magazine , wrote that there would be "no great surprises, but also no noteworthy failures" if you liked Die Toten Hosen and describes the album at the same time as a "musically convincing hard rock disc with intelligent lyrics and lots of PANTS-typical charm ”.
The album was also discussed in various church magazines. Journalist Udo Feist wrote in Evangelical Commentaries : “For a long time, the texts read like a discussion of former confirmands about their catechism. A masterpiece, musically lively and discursive, a brilliant sprint between sense and doubt. [...] So, you open-minded Christian people, buy: This is where conversations can begin! "
The theologian Thomas Klie emphasized in an essay on religious education that in this album "religion is not caricatured and no criticism of religion is hidden in its musical arrangement, but a specifically late or post-Christian spirituality". Die Toten Hosen would "naturally fall back on the Christian religion and make use of its repertoire of symbols and forms of expression."
literature
- Bertram Job : Until the bitter end ... Die Toten Hosen tell their story . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-462-02532-5 .
- Tim Renner : Children's death isn't that bad at all! About the future of the music and media industry . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-593-37636-9 .
- Hollow Skai : The Dead Pants . Hannibal, A-Höfen 2007, ISBN 978-3-85445-281-2 .
- Kai Jessen: Forever punk. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12889-3 .
- Uwe Böhm, Gerd Buschmann: Pop music - religion - teaching . LIT Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-5179-6 .
- Jan Weiler : Children, how time flies ... Die Toten Hosen tell - Jan Weiler listens to 1982–2007 . Booklet for the new edition 2007, part 12: Opium fürs Volk .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Die Toten Hosen "Opium fürs Volk" in the IFPI database DE AT CH
- ↑ Jan Weiler : Heavenly rest . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin . March 1996.
- ↑ a b c Jan Weiler: Children, how time flies… Die Toten Hosen tell - Jan Weiler listens to 1982-2007 . Booklet for the new edition 2007, part 12: Opium fürs Volk .
- ↑ a b Hollow Skai : Die Toten Hosen . Hannibal, A-Höfen 2007, ISBN 978-3-85445-281-2 , pp. 98-99.
- ↑ Tim Renner : Children's death is not that bad at all! About the future of the music and media industry . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-593-37636-9 , pp. 110-113.
- ↑ Bertram Job : Until the Bitter End ... Die Toten Hosen tell their story . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-462-02532-5 , p. 169.
- ^ Healthy punk for a sick people , Musikexpress Sounds , issue 2/1996, pp. 43–48.
- ↑ Die Toten Hosen, based on an essay by Karl Marx from 1843, published in the " German-French Yearbooks " Paris 1844, volume I. (source, as printed on the T-shirt)
- ↑ Karl Marx : On the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right . Introduction. In: Marx Engels works. Volume 1, Dietz Verlag, 1976, p. 378, (online) .
- ↑ Bertram Job: Until the Bitter End ... Die Toten Hosen tell their story . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1996, p. 217.
- ↑ a b c Uwe Böhm, Gerd Buschmann: Pop music - religion - teaching . LIT Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-5179-6 , pp. 209-215.
- ^ Campino in conversation with Frank Rummeleit in Zillo , April 1996 edition.
- ↑ Iris Schmeink: Study seminar for the teaching post for the secondary level II, Neuss-Norf, lesson draft for the subject Catholic religious teaching. March 18, 1999, p. 3. (PDF; 133 kB)
- ↑ "Tote Hosen" feel misquoted. In: Berliner Zeitung . November 13, 1996.
- ↑ a b c Die Toten Hosen: Opium for the people. Booklet to the album page 2.
- ^ Die Toten Hosen, adaptation by Hans Steingen : Reich & sexy II - The fat years. (Songbook) Bosworth, Berlin, ISBN 3-937041-45-1 , pp. 20-23.
- ^ Die Toten Hosen, adaptation by Hans Steingen: Reich & sexy II - The fat years. (Songbook) Bosworth, Berlin, ISBN 3-937041-45-1 , pp. 26-27.
- ^ Die Toten Hosen, adaptation by Hans Steingen: Reich & sexy II - The fat years. (Songbook) Bosworth, Berlin, ISBN 3-937041-45-1 , pp. 86-89.
- ↑ a b DVD Die Toten Hosen: Reich & sexy II - Your most successful videos , comments from the band on the individual music videos.
- ↑ Fryderyk Gabowicz : Die Toten Hosen. Live backstage studio: photographs 1986–2006 . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89602-732-8 , notes on the creation of the video Paradies on March 4, 1996.
- ↑ Reiner Pfisterer: On the way ... on behalf of the pants. Book accompanying the photo exhibition in Ludwigsburg Palace , 2009, p. 59.
- ↑ Kai Jessen: Forever Punk. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12889-3 , p. 151.
- ↑ Excerpt from the music video for Ten Little Jägermeisters on the homepage of Filmbilder , Stuttgart.
- ↑ Tour data archive. Retrieved March 26, 2018 .
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH
- ↑ Music industry database - search query required
- ↑ Official German album charts from September 16, 2016. (No longer available online.) Hit-Oase, September 16, 2016, archived from the original on October 20, 2016 ; accessed on March 26, 2018 .
- ↑ Kai Jessen: Forever Punk. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12889-3 , p. 106.
- ↑ Prinz , February 1996 edition, p. 28.
- ^ Zillo , April 1996 edition.
- ^ Rolling Stone . Edition February 1996, p. 32.
- ↑ Review in Rock Hard . Issue 107, April 1996 edition.
- ↑ Udo Feist: Our Father of the Dead Pants - Punk as a source of spirituality. In: Evangelical Commentaries. 4/96, pp. 234-236.
- ↑ Thomas Klie : Opium fürs Volk - Promised dream time in the fun punk of the Toten Hosen. Loccumer Pelikan, religious education magazine for schools and communities, January 1997, pp. 24–27 , accessed on December 21, 2015 .
