The flood (song)
| The flood | |
|---|---|
| Witt / Heppner | |
| publication | January 23, 1998 |
| length | 4:14 (radio version) 5:42 (extended version) |
| Genre (s) | Rock , synth-pop , electro |
| Author (s) | Peter Heppner, Joachim Witt |
| album | bayreuth one |
Die Flut is a song by the Neue-Deutsche-Hardness singer Joachim Witt in cooperation with the German synth-pop musician Peter Heppner . The piece is the second single from Witt's eighth studio album bayreuth eins .
Creation and artwork
The song was written jointly by Peter Heppner and Joachim Witt , the latter arranged and produced the single together with Jose Alvarez-Brill . Brill was also responsible for mixing the piece. The piece was mastered by Liquid Gold Mastering in Halle (Saale) , under the direction of Radu Marinescu. The recordings were made in The Factory recording studio in Belgium . The flood was released under the music labels Epic Records and Zeitbombe (Strange Ways Records), published by Eisenherz, Hanseatic MV and Strange Ways Records, and distributed by Sony Music Entertainment . On the black cover of the maxi single - next to artist names and song titles - water waves can be seen. The photography and artwork come from Graphische Werken Ottensen, the design concept itself comes from Heppner.
Publication and promotion
The first publication of Die Flut took place on January 23, 1998 in Germany. The first edition of this maxi-single was taken off the market after a few days and re-released in March 1998 in a slightly different format. The first names of both artists are still on the cover of the first edition; these were left out in the new edition. In the course of the year publications followed in Austria (July 12, 1998) and Switzerland (August 9, 1998) and finally a Europe-wide publication. In addition to the radio version , the maxi single contains an extended version of Die Flut as well as the songs Wintermärz and Twelve , as a B-side . The B-sides are solo releases, Wintermärz is from Witt and Twelve from Heppner.
In 2001 Witt released a live version of Die Flut as the B-side of his single Stay? . It is a solo version of the piece that was recorded during Witt's Bayreuth 2 Tour 2001 . This version was mastered by the Woodhouse studio in Hagen. On February 22, 2019, a live orchestral duet by Heppner and Witt appeared on Witt's live album Refugium, accompanied by the musical accompaniment of the MDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph-Johannes Eichhorn . The recording was made on October 7, 2018 in the Leipzig Gewandhaus .
background information
- Cooperation between Witt / Heppner
Peter Heppner and Joachim Witt released two singles together in their careers. In 1998 the two of them published their first joint work, Die Flut . Witt described how this came about by saying that one of his “absolute favorite titles” was Über's Jahr from Wolfsheim . According to his statement, that alone was reason enough to contact Heppner. In addition, Witt was encouraged by Lothar Gärtner - the label owner of Strange Ways, with whom Wolfsheim were under contract. Witt introduced the title to Heppner, and so the basis for a collaboration arose, borne by a striking mutual agreement.
For the 20th anniversary of Die Flut , Heppner and Witt took What remains? again a duet. The song was released as a single on August 10, 2018 and celebrated its live premiere on August 12, 2018, when they performed together at the M'era Luna Festival . What remains? was created under the opposite sign. While Heppner was one of Witt's guest at bayreuth with Der Flut , this time Heppner is the host. The single appeared on Heppner's third studio album Confessions & Doubts .
- Surprising success of Die Flut and effects on Wolfsheim
In an interview with the German online magazine Laut.de - which Heppner gave in the course of the release of his albums Confessions & Doubts and TanzZwang - he reported 20 years after the publication of Die Flut that the success of the single surprised everyone, almost ran over them would have. They all believed in the play, and he himself believed that it could be successful. But that it would be so successful, especially without radio support , it was only done through word of mouth and sales after all . That was an "amazing thing" and "crazy". And it stopped and didn't stop, so that it was almost annoying at the end. Furthermore, during the interview he reported that he always wanted to "time" his side projects so that they take place shortly before new Wolfsheim projects in order to support these projects. Wolfsheim wanted to come out with their fourth studio album Spectators and Die Flut was still in the German single charts. That was stupid for him and Markus Reinhardt as a band. Therefore, they should have postponed the publication of Spectators for three months.
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
Shortly after the Sumatran-Andaman quake in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004, some radio stations temporarily banned the song from their rotation . It is estimated that around 230,000 people died as a result of the quake and its aftermath, around 165,000 of them in Indonesia alone . Over 110,000 people were injured, and over 1.7 million coastal residents around the Indian Ocean were left homeless. In addition to Die Flut , titles such as Perfect Wave from July or Land unter by Herbert Grönemeyer were temporarily removed from the program. The SWR3 spokesman Frank Bischoff, for example, stated that it would not fit if such titles were played now.
content
The lyrics to Die Flut are written in German. Both the music and the text were written jointly by Heppner and Witt. Musically, the song moves in the realm of rock and synth-pop music. The tempo is 115 beats per minute . The song is in the key of E major . The song is based on two verses, a bridge and a chorus . The bridge takes place before each chorus and between the second and third choruses and always consists of a quatrain, the text of which is different each time. The stanzas are sung by Witt, the bridge by Heppner. The chorus is ultimately sung by both of them together. Martin Langer, from the German pop group Felix De Luxe , can be heard on drums as an instrumentalist .
In terms of content, the piece describes the longing for a life in a better world and the dissatisfaction with our and its impermanence. It's about an inner struggle in which someone struggles with their previous life. The regional daily newspaper Freie Presse thinks that the listeners tend to feel like melancholy first. In addition to many negative-sounding statements, the text also hides some optimistic passages such as that of the refrain, in which only the dream of a new “great” life is sung about.
“When does the flood come - over me?
When does the flood come - that touches me?
When will the flood come - that will take me away?
into another great life - somewhere. "
Music video
At the beginning of the video, Heppner and Witt sit across from each other at a table lit by a lamp , as in an interrogation . The main plot begins with the text “The ark is ready”. You can see men and women dressed in white (they are referred to as “chosen ones” in text overlay) in a row of two, waiting for their ticket in front of a huge black ship. At the same time, a black-clad man in a leather and raincoat with an aviator's hat (Witt) accompanies a group of “disabled people” towards the ship. While the last ticket is being issued, the rain sets in. The “chosen” and “disabled” who are not on the ship yet, now meet and fight to get on the ship. Ultimately, only one of the “chosen ones” (Heppner) succeeds. This cuts the ropes so that the bridge of the ship falls down. Here some of those who remained are killed and the hatch is closed by him. At the end, Witt and Heppner can be seen again in the same position as at the beginning of the video. The “boarding passes” are marked with an official stamp with the Stralsund coat of arms .
The music video premiered at the beginning of the year. The total length is 3:52 minutes. Directed by Stefan Browatzki and Philipp Stölzl . To date, the video has over 1.6 million views on YouTube (as of June 2019).
Contributors
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Song production
Music video
Artwork (cover)
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Companies
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reception
The song became the greatest commercial success in Witt and Heppner's careers. Witt, who was successful at the beginning of the 80s, made a big comeback, while for Heppner it was the first commercially successful release apart from his music project Wolfsheim .
criticism
Both singers were accused of glorifying totalitarianism because of the music video . Similar to Rammstein , they resorted to an aesthetic that had previously been established in martial industrial , and thus reached a larger audience. While Rammstein directly used Riefenstahl's images with Stripped , the music video for Die Flut was based on Sergei Michailowitsch Eisenstein . However, like the Rammstein video, the music video offers clear links to a totalitarian aesthetic. The illustrated apocalyptic scenario of an impending flood is of Lindke as near-homage "to the nationalist-racist Republican motto> The boat is full <" interpreted. The taz evaluated the video as a Social-Darwinist work, "an absurd panopticon of people with disabilities, to die chosen - Sound of eugenics , one who fears of foreign infiltration staged and survival of the fittest." According Büsser was with the flood a "Überfremdungs- and Überbevolkerungsangst schürendes Video [produced] that slipped past obvious Nazi propaganda by a hair's breadth [.] “The A&R manager of the associated record company Strange Ways Records, Christoph Bolwin, rejects the allegations. In the video, Witt remained ashore as an outcast and the aesthetics of the video was based on Eisenstein and in no way on Nazi propaganda films. In interviews that Witt gave during the creation of the Bayreuth series of works , he represented ethnopluralist positions and advocated a detachment of the aesthetic used, which was taken up again in the video for Bataillon d'Amour in the form of a torchlight march, from the context of National Socialism . In the same interviews, he called himself a left-wing cosmopolitan .
Charts and chart placements
In Germany, the flood reached position two in the single charts and stayed in the top 10 for 19 weeks and in the charts for 37 weeks. In Austria the single reached position twelve in seven chart weeks and position 24 in Switzerland in ten chart weeks. Although the song did not make it to number one, it was still the most successful German-language song in the German single charts for a period of twelve weeks and the most successful German-language song in the Austrian hit parade for three weeks . The flood was able to place itself in the German annual single charts from 1998 on position eight. In the decade charts of the 1990s determined by the ultimate chart show , the single reached position 46. To determine the decade charts, after the weekly chart positions in the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999, points ten to one were assigned from positions one to ten ( First place gets ten points, second place gets nine points, etc.).
For Witt as an author, performer and producer, this is the fourth chart success in Germany, the second in Austria and the first and so far only chart success in Switzerland. It is his second top 10 success in Germany after Goldener Reiter . For Heppner this is the first chart success as an interpreter, composer and lyricist in all German-speaking countries .
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Awards for music sales
In 1998, Die Flut in Germany was awarded a platinum record for over 500,000 units sold, making it one of the best-selling German-language songs and duets since 1975. According to Heppner's statements, the single sold around 700,000 times worldwide during the release period, and should be up by 2018 The flood sold over 900,000 times. For Heppner it is the only record award as a solo artist to this day. For Witt it was the first recording award of his career, to this day it is Witt's only single with distinction. Until the award of a gold record for the album bayreuth eins in 2015, it was generally Witt's only award for a long time. It is the best-selling record of their careers for both performers.
| Country / Region | Award | Sales |
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| Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales) |
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 Germany (BVMI)
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 platinum
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500,000 |
| All in all |
1 × platinum |
500,000 |
Cover versions
- 2000: Mambo Kurt feat. Tom fishing ripper
literature
- Uwe Böhm / Gerd Buschmann, Pop Music - Religion - Lessons. Models and materials for didactics of popular culture (Symbol - Mythos - Medien Vol. 5). Münster 2002. pp. 75-102.
Web links
- Music video for “Die Flut” on YouTube
- The flood content analysis by Thomas Bickelhaupt / Uwe Böhm / Gerd Buschmann on January 14, 2002
Individual evidence
- ^ Witt / Heppner - The flood. discogs.com, accessed March 21, 2014 .
- ↑ The Flood (MCD). amazon.de, accessed on March 22, 2014 .
- ^ Witt / Heppner - The flood. musik-sammler.de, accessed on July 27, 2014 .
- ^ Witt * - Stay? discogs.com, accessed January 14, 2019 .
- ↑ Joachim Witt & MDR Symphony Orchestra - Refugium (CD, album). discogs.com, accessed March 23, 2019 .
- ↑ What's left? / Peter Heppner. listen.tidal.com, August 10, 2018, accessed August 18, 2018 .
- ^ Peter Heppner Fanclub Germany - Contributions. facebook.com, August 12, 2018, accessed August 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Peter Heppner: Confessions & Doubts , accompanying booklet, RCA Germany, September 28, 2018.
- ↑ a b Markus Brandstetter: I have no idea about dance. laut.de, October 2, 2018, accessed on October 3, 2018 .
- ↑ Radio stations react to natural disasters. mediabiz.de, accessed on May 1, 2018 .
- ↑ BPM for 'Die Flut' by 'Witt'. songbpm.com, accessed December 27, 2017 .
- ↑ Modern melodies full of melancholy. (No longer available online.) Freiepresse.de, formerly in the original ; Retrieved September 18, 2015 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Tim: Peter Heppner: “You can make something strange to yourself”. Freiepresse.de, September 26, 2018, accessed on October 3, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c Witt & Heppner - The flood. mvdbase.com, accessed March 22, 2014 .
- ↑ a b c d e Joachim Witt \\ The flood. svenbudelmann.de, accessed on June 10, 2019 .
- ↑ Axel Schmidt, Klaus Neumann-Braun: The world of the Gothics: Scope of dark connotated transcendence . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, S. 269 f .
- ^ Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Last exit: Germania . Jeske / Mader, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931624-12-9 , pp. 131 .
- ↑ Stephan Lindke: Breaking taboos today is tomorrow's mainstream . In: Andreas Speit (Ed.): Aesthetic mobilization . Unrast, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-804-9 , p. 231-266, here p. 243 .
- ^ Sonja Vogel: New German hardness. taz, June 9, 2015, accessed September 8, 2016 .
- ↑ Martin Büsser: How does the new middle sound? 1st edition. Ventil Verlag, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-930559-90-0 , p. 13 .
- ^ Wolf-Rüdiger Mühlmann: Last exit: Germania . Jeske / Mader, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-931624-12-9 , pp. 135 .
- ↑ Stephan Lindke: Breaking taboos today is tomorrow's mainstream . In: Andreas Speit (Ed.): Aesthetic mobilization . Unrast, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-804-9 , p. 231-266, here p. 242 ff .
- ↑ Thomas Winkler: Witt for Fun. taz, February 3, 2006, accessed September 8, 2016 .
- ^ Witt / Heppner - The flood. officialcharts.de, accessed on August 19, 2018 .
- ^ Witt / Heppner - The flood. austriancharts.at, accessed on March 22, 2014 .
- ^ Witt / Heppner - The flood. hitparade.ch, accessed on March 22, 2014 .
- ↑ Top 100 annual single charts 1998. officialcharts.de, accessed on April 7, 2018 .
- ↑ The ultimate chart show: The most successful single of the 90s, RTL, February 1, 2013
- ↑ Archive list of the ultimate chart show. rtl.de, accessed on March 22, 2014 .
- ↑ Gold / platinum database. musikindustrie.de, accessed on December 27, 2015 .
