Boytronic

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Boytronic
General information
origin Hamburg , Germany
Genre (s) Synth pop
founding 1983
Website www.boytronic.eu
Founding members
Holger Wobker
Peter Sawatzki
Current occupation
Holger Wobker
James Knights
former members
Peter Sawatzki
Charlie Schöppner
Klaus Stockhausen
Klaus Dufke
Hans Johm
Michael Maria Ziffels
Ingo Alberto Hauss
Marc Wade
Hayo Lewerentz
Ingo Hauss

Boytronic is a German synth-pop band whose biggest hit, the debut single You , reached number ten in the German single charts in 1983 .

history

The band was founded in 1983 by Holger Wobker and Peter Sawatzki in Hamburg . Similar to Camouflage or its role models Depeche Mode in the early years, Boytronic is also a band that has dedicated itself entirely to electronic synth pop. The 1983 album The Working Model is one of the most commercially successful albums for this genre of the 1980s . The band's best-known single is You from 1983.

In 1985 the second album The Continental was released . Particularly noteworthy was the collaboration with the then very popular producer Bobby Orlando (who is primarily known for his Hi-NRG productions with Divine ). The collaboration resulted in Man in a Uniform , which was released as the second single. Then the band turns to the third album. In the meantime, the song Late Night Satellite was released, which did not become a great chart success, but achieved a good rate on the radio. The song Hurts was released as the first single from the new album . In it the band took up the AIDS problem and had to take a lot of criticism in the "scene". There were quarrels with the record company at the time, Metronome Records , which also resulted in disputes within the band. Holger Wobker left Boytronic and the naming rights remained with the record company. The planned third LP was no longer published.

In 1988 the album Love for Sale was released under the band name Boytronic . The singles Don't Let Me Down , Love for Sale , Tears and I Will Survive ( cover version of the Gloria Gaynor song) were released. However, all of these releases are not about the band in their original line-up, but rather a project artificially generated by the record company with other musicians. The popularity of the name Boytronic was used to encourage existing fans of the band to buy records. There was also an appearance with the band in this line-up camouflage in the youth program Elf 99 of the GDR -Fernsehens where the title Never Ever could be heard. The Boytronic project released another LP in 1992 called The Heart and the Machine , which was not commercially successful.

Holger Wobker disappeared completely from the music scene in the 1990s . For a few years he went to a monastery in Asia to find himself there. At the end of the decade, Wobker turned back to music. He met with his old bandmate Peter Sawatzki to start work on a new Boytronic album, this time with the original line-up again. Sawatzki fell ill with cancer and committed suicide in 1998. This stroke of fate hit Holger Wobker very hard, and so all plans were again on hold.

At the beginning of 2000, Hayo Lewerentz (aka Hayo Panarinfo), who was one of the heads of the second band project at the time, thought that it was time to get Boytronic out of the woods. Lewerentz, who had meanwhile founded his own record label ( Major Records ) and was able to establish this very successfully on the market, got in touch with Holger Wobker. The result was the 2002 comeback CD Autotunes .

In 2003 the album The Working Model (from 1983) was re-released in a revised version. It contains the titles of the original album plus eight bonus tracks. In 2004 the double album MAXI followed with all maxi single releases (12 ″ singles) of the 1980s and a few new tracks. The 1986 album The Continental was also re-released in 2005 with four bonus tracks.

Hayo Lewerentz left the band in 2005 to take care of his Major Records label. The band was expanded by two new members, Hans Johm and Michael Maria Ziffels. In November 2006 the album Dependance was released . It fell below expectations commercially and flopped. Shortly afterwards there was a dispute about the future musical direction, which led to the renewed separation of the band.

In 2009, Hayo Lewerentz went to the recording studio with the band and Holger Wobker to produce a new album. The release date was not known for a long time. On November 3, 2017, the album Jewel was released with the new singer James Knights. James Knights first appeared in 2016 in the video "Time after Midnight". Knights could be seen live on New Waves Day 2017 in Oberhausen on May 13, 2017, where, according to Monkeypress, he was able to convince vocally. In 2018 Holger Wobker returned to the band. Hayo Lewerentz and Ingo Hauss then left Boytronic to return to their actual U96 project.

In December 2018, the band, now consisting of Holger Wobker and James Knights, announced a new album for spring 2019, The Robot Treatment .

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
The Working Model
  DE 48 12/12/1983 (7 weeks)
Singles
You
  DE 10 09/12/1983 (22 weeks)
Don't let me down
  DE 45 07/18/1988 (8 weeks)
Send me an angel
  DE 95 06/20/1994 (1 week)

Studio albums

  • 1983: The Working Model
  • 1985: The Continental
  • 1988: Love for Sale
  • 1992: The Heart and the Machine
  • 2002: Autotunes
  • 2003: The Working Model (Reverse)
  • 2005: The Continental (Replace) (limited to 1000 pieces; Release: November 18)
  • 2006: Dependence
  • 2017: Jewel (released November 3)
  • 2019: The Robot Treatment

Compilations

  • 1991: Boyzclub remixes
  • 2004: Maxi (2 CDs)
  • 2014: The Original Maxi-Singles Collection
  • 2016: Best Of (10 AIFF files)
  • 2019: Drama Compilation (18xFile, MP3, VBR)

Singles

  • 1983: You
  • 1984: Diamonds and Loving Arms
  • 1984: Man in a uniform
  • 1985: Hold On
  • 1985: Late Night Satellite
  • 1986: Hurts
  • 1987: I Will Survive
  • 1988: Tears
  • 1988: Don't Let Me Down
  • 1988: Love for Sale
  • 1988: Bryllyant / You (Remixes)
  • 1988: Turbo Dancer Mega Mix (12 ″ Promo)
  • 1989: Trigger Track
  • 1991: Hold On (Boyzclub Mix)
  • 1992: Pictures of You
  • 1992: My Baby Lost Her Way
  • 1994: Send Me an Angel
  • 1995: Blue Velvet
  • 2002: Living Without You
  • 2006: Little Italian Feeling (Promo)
  • 2007: Unreleased EP (6 mp3 files)
  • 2017: The Universe ( AAC single; released October 13th)

literature

  • Dirk Horst: Synthiepop - The soulful cold: Stories of Synthiepop . Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8423-3422-9 , p. 123 f.

swell

  1. ↑ monkeypress.de CD review for the album Jewel .
  2. ↑ youtube.com Boytronic with James Knights - Time after Midnight (2016), released: July 9, 2016 .
  3. ↑ monkeypress.de: New Waves Day Festival in the Turbinenhalle Oberhausen (May 13, 2017) .
  4. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE .
  5. ↑ Boytronic. Retrieved August 1, 2019 .

Web links