Yello
| Yello | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Electropop |
| founding | 1978 |
| Website | www.yello.com |
| Current occupation | |
singing |
Dieter Meier |
synthesizer |
Boris Blank |
| former members | |
synthesizer |
Carlos Perón (until 1983) |
| Other studio musicians (selection) | |
| Chico Hablas (1979-1989, 1994) | |
| Marco Colombo (1991, 1994) | |
| Felix Haug (1979–1980) | |
| Beat Ash (1981-1991, 2009) | |
Yello is a Swiss musician duo ( Dieter Meier and Boris Blank ). The word Yello is a play on words by Dieter Meier and stands for "a yel led hel lo " ("a roared hello").
Band history
At the end of the 1970s, Yello was founded by Boris Blank and Carlos Perón in Zurich ( Switzerland ). Boris Blank and Carlos Perón met in a test laboratory for cars to record engine noises. They got into conversation and later began to experiment with a wide variety of devices, recorded noises and processed them into songs. Looking for a suitable accompaniment voice, the seller of a local record shop introduced her to Dieter Meier in 1978, who at that time was still in a band called The Assholes .
In 1979 the first maxi single was released on a Swiss underground label called Periphery Perfume . In 1980 she made her way to the USA to present her music to various record companies. The three Swiss received a record deal. At this time, individual tracks appeared on albums by the residents label Ralph Records . The second release, Bostich , was a club hit. The first albums Solid Pleasure (1980) and Claro que si (1981) followed. Carlos Perón left the band in 1983 after completing the album You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess (released early 1984).
In the mid-1980s, the band gained greater fame through their first chart successes, especially in their home country of Switzerland and Germany. The album Stella , released in early 1985, stayed in Germany for 34 weeks in the charts (highest position 6th place) and was awarded a gold record . In Switzerland, Stella took 1st place. The next best-of album 1980-1985, The New Mix In One Go , also received gold in both countries . The next studio album, One Second (1987), was similarly successful with its three single releases, including The Rhythm Divine with Shirley Bassey .
The final breakthrough in Germany came in 1988 with the single The Race , which was used on German television as the theme music for the popular music video show Formula One and climbed to 4th place in the charts, the only top ten placement for a Yello Single in Germany. The album Flag (also 1988) won gold in Germany and Austria as well as 3rd place in Switzerland. This was followed by Baby (1991; 1st place in Austria) and Zebra (1994; 4th place and platinum in Switzerland).
1997 to 2003 released Yello three more studio albums each without much success in the single charts.
In 2009 the album Touch Yello was released , on which guest musicians include the German jazz trumpeter Till Brönner , the Swiss singer Heidi Happy and the recorder player and professor at the Mozarteum Salzburg Dorothee Oberlinger . The album was presented the day before in a Berlin cinema with a “virtual concert”. With 1st place and a gold record , Yello was able to build on its old successes, at least in Switzerland. In Germany it was enough for 20th place. The album Yello by Yello - The Singles Collection 1980-2010 , released in late 2010, also sold well.
In 2016 the album Toy was released, which reached 1st place in Switzerland and 2nd place in the charts.
plant
Yello's beginnings were characterized by a great willingness to experiment:
“Blank started with some kind of noise - didn't you? - which he recorded. His first snare drum was a newspaper on a table. Tsch tsch- he rustled and recorded with the cassette player and played it back and a next track on it with another cassette player and so he put his music together. And it was never planned as an avant-garde, so to speak. He actually wanted to make pop songs, but of course they sounded totally different with this amateurish-anarchic process [...]. And that's why we were then mistakenly celebrated as the founders of techno music and the devil knows what. "
“You have to imagine: Back then I was working with snippets of tape, that is, I used quarter-inch tapes to pull them across the tape heads. That was then a loop. [...] But back then it was a surprise and also a bit of speculation: What will come of it? "
Boris Blank later worked with the music computer Fairlight CMI like many other professionals .
Yello's music is characterized by a special transparency and spatiality of the sound. Boris Blank works out the tracks in great detail with modern electronic instruments as well as sampling of voice and acoustic instruments and sounds.
“I like to give electronic instruments life. I like to express the soul of the machine, rather than be a slave to it. "
“I want to breathe life into electronic instruments. I want to express the soul of the machine instead of being its slave. "
Since 1983, after Carlos Perón left, Yello has been musically influenced only by Boris Blank. Dieter Meier's singing is only recorded after the composition has been completed. He contributes the lyrics, which are sung or spoken by him with a distinctive voice.
“And I'm still looking forward to appearing in Boris' sound images. It is always incredibly lucky when I hear something new from Boris. I always have to laugh a lot and am amazed at this originality. "
From 1979 the guitarist Chico Hablas, former member of the jazz rock band Shivananda , took part in many songs as a studio musician. Beat Ash has been in the studio since 1981 and is responsible for drums and percussion on many tracks. Guest singers and other musicians were also hired for some songs.
Dieter Meier attributes the long existence of the music formation to the fact that he never felt the urge to always have to be part of the production or to do as much as possible himself. Boris Blank needs a lot of space and time for himself in the studio. The two see each other often, but spend little time together in the studio.
"And it's also funny that to this day Boris, when I get there and brush into his sound images, actually feels that it is more of a disturbance."
With their music they have helped shape the world of electronic music . In the 1990s, some of the most famous publishing Techno - DJs and - producers a joint album with interpretations of old Yello songs as a tribute to the two pioneers. The remix album is called Hands on Yello and contains remixes by Cosmic Baby , Westbam , Jens Mahlstedt , Mark Spoon and Jam El Mar ( Jam & Spoon ) , Oliver Lieb , Ilsa Gold , Hardsequencer (aka Hardy Hard ) , Carl Cox , Carl Craig , Moby, et al. a.
In 1995 this album was revised and released as a limited edition Hands on Yello, The Updates . This 2 CD album contains 14 tracks.
Also in 1995, Yello published all the samples for the piece as bonus tracks on the maxi CD How How . DJs were asked to make remixes of How How , to which Yello himself supplied the material in the best digital sound quality.
Yello do not see themselves exclusively as a band, but as an artist project. Basically they create their videos themselves. Dieter Meier directs. Family members Meiers and Blanks were involved in some video productions.
Self-assessment
Dieter Meier judges the success of Bostich as a club hit:
“And the crazy thing is that this part got lost in America and got onto the turntable of the most famous radio DJ at the time: Frankie Crocker (WBLS) and it was the number one dance hit in all black and Latino Discos of America. […] But one thing can be said in any case: Neither Blank nor I have […] built our 'sand castles' and musical pictures with a view to success - especially not with blacks in America. [...] That was an unimaginable coincidence. I still don't know how this record got there in the first place. "
Dieter Meier sees his musical talent modestly as follows:
“The real breakthrough - isn't it? - that was Bostich, and there I just - according to my singing abilities - sang on one note. "
"[...] I really can't sing that well, especially not reading notes."
Anecdotes
Without the energetic intervention of Dieter Meier, Boris Blank would have deleted Bostich immediately after its creation:
“[…] Boris found that absolutely not good - yes - and wanted to delete it immediately. Back then I only had one track to sing and if we didn't like it - didn't like it - we had to delete it. And Bostich in this form only survived because Boris always goes to lunch at 7 to 12. Because he said: 'Delete it immediately, we'll do something else.' And then I fought for it and it was 7 to 12 and he went to lunch. And after lunch, after hearing it 20 times, I was sure I didn't want to erase that. Boris said: 'Good, then it's over for today', I'm going home. ' If you took a cassette with you, a few friends played it and they actually thought it was okay. "
Dieter Meier explains how the lyrics to Oh Yeah came about:
“Is one of the few Blank songs that I couldn't think of. For me, Blank's sound images are usually like the score of a non-existent film. I listen to that and it's like dragging a film through my brain that doesn't exist. I immediately see scenes and pictures. Stand there with my typewriter in the recording booth and type in the lyrics, listen to the song and it's usually done in 2 hours, because that's so inspiring for me. And I couldn't think of anything to say 'Oh Yeah'. And then Blank says: 'Listen, listen to the music. It's like a king of a South Sea island - sitting on the beach, the sun going down. Some lady waves him a little fresh air, a servant brings a cold drink and he looks out at the horizon. What would you say then? ' I said: 'Oh Yeah!' "
Use of Yello Music in the Media
Yello's music has been used in several films. The most used song is Oh Yeah . The Simpsons briefly plays it when Duff-Man , the mascot of the local brewery, appears. The title was also used in the films The Secret of My Success (1987) with Michael J. Fox , Ferris makes blue (1986) and in My partner with the cold snout (1989).
In the film, dirt from Paulus Manker (1985), music of Yello used.
In the movie Manta Manta (1991) the song "Jungle Bill" is used in the final race between Klausi and Axel.
The song The Race served as a theme song for both the television station Eurosport and the music video show Formula One for many years. Various Yello songs were also used in some episodes of the popular TV series Miami Vice . Parts of Yello songs were also used for jingles for various radio stations.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 CH
|
 UK
|
 US
|
|||
| 1980 | Solid Pleasure | - | - | - | - | - |
First published: 1980
|
| 1981 | Claro que si | - | - | - | - | - |
First published: September 22, 1981
|
| 1984 | You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess |
DE26 (13 weeks) DE |
- |
CH13 (10 weeks) CH |
UK65 (2 weeks) UK |
US184 (4 weeks) US |
First published: January 15, 1984
|
| 1985 | Stella |
DE6th  (34 weeks)DE |
AT23 (6 weeks) AT |
CH1 (18 weeks) CH |
UK92 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: January 27, 1985
|
| 1987 | One second |
DE11 (21 weeks) DE |
AT6 (14 weeks) AT |
CH4th (18 weeks)CH |
UK48 (3 weeks) UK |
US92 (10 weeks) US |
First published: April 26, 1987
|
| 1988 | Flag |
DE11 (17 weeks)DE |
AT12 (6 weeks)AT |
CH3 (14 weeks) CH |
UK56  (7 weeks)UK |
US152 (9 weeks) US |
First published: October 30, 1988
|
| 1991 | infant |
DE6 (17 weeks) DE |
AT1 (11 weeks) AT |
CH5 (14 weeks) CH |
UK37 (2 weeks) UK |
- |
First published: June 15, 1991
|
| 1994 | zebra |
DE44 (9 weeks) DE |
- |
CH4th  (14 weeks)CH |
- | - |
First published: October 16, 1994
|
| 1997 | Pocket Universe |
DE17 (9 weeks) DE |
AT21 (6 weeks) AT |
CH7 (12 weeks) CH |
- | - |
First published: February 23, 1997
|
| 1999 | Motion picture |
DE26 (4 weeks) DE |
- |
CH13 (6 weeks) CH |
- | - |
First published: October 25, 1999
|
| 2003 | The Eye |
DE98 (1 week) DE |
- |
CH22 (4 weeks) CH |
- | - |
First published: November 3, 2003
|
| 2009 | Touch Yello |
DE20 (12 weeks) DE |
AT35 (4 weeks) AT |
CH1 (24 weeks)CH |
- | - |
First published: October 2, 2009
|
| 2016 | Toy |
DE2 (6 weeks) DE |
AT16 (2 weeks) AT |
CH1 (11 weeks) CH |
UK84 (1 week) UK |
- |
First published: September 30, 2016
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
Filmography (selection)
- 1981: Jetzt und Alles Director: Dieter Meier, Screenplay: Dieter Meier, Peter Vitzthum , Actor a. a .: Dieter Meier, Carlos Perón, Boris Blank, Richy Müller ...
Awards
Art Prize of the City of Zurich
- In 1997 Yello was awarded the City of Zurich Art Prize.
- 2014: Lifetime Achievement For the 35th anniversary of the band, Yello received the German Echo for Lifetime Achievement.
- 2010: Best Album Pop / Rock National ( Touch Yello )
literature
- Daniel Ryser: Yello - Boris Blank and Dieter Meier. Realtime Verlag, Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-905800-56-2 .
Web links
- Official website
- Yello at laut.de
- Biography: Yello at musicline.de
- Yello in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Yello Interview in Fresh Guide (2017)
- Yello at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chico Hablas Discography / Instruments & Performance. Discogs , accessed January 26, 2011 .
- ^ Marco Colombo Discography / Instruments & Performance. Discogs , accessed January 26, 2011 .
- ^ Felix Haug Discography. Discogs , accessed January 26, 2011 .
- ^ Beat Ash Discography. Discogs , accessed January 26, 2011 .
- ↑ Anka Schmid (film author): Article on the film portrait “Yello - Electro-Pop made in Switzerland”. In: 3sat.de. 3sat , October 9, 2005, accessed on January 10, 2011 (first broadcast).
- ↑ a b Boris Blank / Yello: Recording Zebra (interview). In: soundonsound.com. Sound On Sound Magazine, December 1994, accessed January 16, 2011 .
- ↑ Interview with Yello. hitparade.ch, 2010, accessed on January 27, 2011 .
-
↑ Chart sources:
- Yello in the German charts on OfficialCharts.de
- Yello in the Austrian charts on AustrianCharts.at
- Yello in the Swiss charts on hitparade.ch
- Yello in the Official UK Charts (English)
- Yello on Billboard 's US charts
- ↑ Echo 2014: Yello are awarded for life's work ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Martina Gabric, Musikmarkt, March 5, 2014
- ↑ Simone Meier: Pompous display of the domestic music industry. In: bernerzeitung.ch. Berner Zeitung, March 3, 2010, accessed on January 10, 2011 .
