Neue Deutsche Welle

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Trio (1982)
Falco and Ursela Monn (1986)

The Neue Deutsche Welle ( NDW ) is a music genre that emerged from 1976 as the German-language variant of punk and new wave and reached its commercial peak in the early 1980s.

The NDW did not represent a uniform style of music, but showed itself to be very diverse. Attributes can be found for many of the artists that would set them apart from the bulk of other artists. However, it was mainly the German language, the relatively short-lived nature and the frequent rawness and coolness that were characteristic. The latter was the reason why some bands, against the trend of that time, distanced themselves from assigning all German-language pop music to the NDW, such as B. Spliff . But a minimalism of the performances has often been a stylistic device. Many of the artists were only musically active or successful then, some made a comeback around 2000.

history

Concept emergence

An early mention of the term Neue Welle can be found in the 1977 fanzine Die 80s by Joseph Beuys student Jürgen Kramer . The term Neue Deutsche Welle first appeared in an advertisement for the Berlin record company Der Zensor ( Burkhardt Seiler ) in the Hamburg music magazine Sounds in August 1979. In the advertisement it was used to categorize the first album of German American Friendship . Two months later, the term, which is derived from the term New Wave , was used by the music journalist and later music label operator Alfred Hilsberg for the title of a three-part series of articles in Sounds ("Neue Deutsche Welle - Aus grauer Städtische Mauern").

NDW as underground music

In the first half of a decade up to around 1981, the Neue Deutsche Welle was an underground movement whose origins go back to British punk and new wave music , although it wasn't called that at the time. From these beginnings an original formal language arose very quickly, which was strongly influenced by the more angular and angular rhythms of the German language (compared to English), for which a large number of the bands had decided early on. Representatives of this phase include Lunch Break , Downward , The Wirtschaftswunder , Der Plan or DAF . Sound-specific synthesizers, which came on the market at affordable prices in those years, formed the sound basis for many works, such as electronic instruments such as the Korg models MS-10 and MS-20 .

The NDW of these years had essentially three capitals, namely West Berlin , Düsseldorf (labels Rondo , Schallmauer-Records and Ata Tak ) and Hamburg ( Zickzack Records ) . Smaller secondary centers included Limburg , the Rhine-Main area (Mainz, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt) and Hanover ( No Fun Records ) .

An important part of the NDW at this time was its connection to the visual arts. Important venues such as the Ratinger Hof or at times the SO36 were run by artists, artists such as Jürgen Kramer with his bands Das Weltende and Das Zwanzigste Jahrhundert as well as his fanzine The 80s or the Berlin Salomé ( Geile Animals ), Martin Kippenberger , Moritz Reichelt ( The plan ), Walter Dahn or Die Tödliche Doris made this connection clear.

NDW as popular music

With the big record companies, the NDW was initially considered uncommercial and therefore difficult to market. The bands, as well as the audience, had reservations about working with the industry. This changed, however, when the first marketing campaigns with groups such as Fehlfarben , Extrabreit , Ideal or DAF met with a surprising amount of response. As the NDW became more and more successful, German-speaking interpreters were also marketed under this label - including from Austria and Switzerland - who actually had nothing in common with the NDW, or relevant retort bands were created. The genre was eventually increasingly dominated by performers who used elements of the hit in a modernized, sometimes ironic form . These included Hubert Kah , Markus and UKW .

Some performers achieved considerable international success. Nena ( 99 balloons ) , Trio ( Da da da ) , Falco ( Der Kommissar ) and Peter Schilling ( Major Tom ) were able to place hits even in the English-speaking world, although here mostly specially produced English versions prevailed.

Commercialization by the music industry led to frustration among the originators of the movement, the underground bands, and the NDW movement quickly disintegrated. But the commercial version of the NDW also quickly lost its importance. Due to the inflationary release policy of the record companies and the massive media presence of the genre, the audience was soon saturated. Many musicians ended their careers and only a few projects survived. The NDW came to an end between 1983 and 1984.

Historical meaning

The NDW made it easier for musicians singing German to establish themselves commercially afterwards, even if they were not stylistically assigned to the NDW. For example BAP , Die Ärzte , Die Toten Hosen or Herbert Grönemeyer .

Some artists later worked as songwriters and producers. These include Annette Humpe , Hubert Kah  - who entered into a collaboration with Michael Cretu in the late days of the NDW - and the former members of Spliff .

The NDW formed a point of contact for new musical movements, such as the Hamburg School .

See also

literature

  • Christian Graf: The NDW-Lexikon - bands and soloists from A to Z . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-529-5 .
  • Günter Sahler: Edition Blechluft # 1: Tin bucket and air pump . Günter Sahler Verlag, Lindlar, ISBN 978-3-942139-20-5 .
  • Günter Sahler: Edition Blechluft # 2: New wave of German memories . Günter Sahler Verlag, Lindlar, ISBN 978-3-942139-21-2 .
  • Günter Sahler: Edition Blechluft # 3: This is Hamburg and not Seattle, Dirk . Günter Sahler Verlag, Lindlar, ISBN 978-3-942139-22-9 .
  • Günter Sahler: Edition Blechluft # 4: Cassette who can . Günter Sahler Verlag, Lindlar, ISBN 978-3-942139-23-6 .
  • Günter Sahler: Edition Blechluft # 5: NDW archeology . Günter Sahler Verlag, Lindlar, ISBN 978-3-942139-24-3 .
  • Hollow Skai: Everything only dreamed of: curse and blessing of the German New Wave . Hannibal, Innsbruck 2009, ISBN 3-85445-302-7 .
  • Frank Apunkt Schneider: When the world was still going down . Ventil, Mainz 2007, ISBN 978-3-931555-88-7 .
  • Jürgen Teipel (Ed.): Waste your youth. A documentary novel about German punk and new wave . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-39771-0 .
  • MOC Döpfner , Thomas Garms: New German Wave - Art or Fashion? Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-548-36505-1 .
  • Kid P .: The New German Wave. Their origins and failures. Your stars and your media coverage . In: Diedrich Diederichsen (Ed.): Staccato. Music and life . Kübler Verlag Michael Akselrad, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-921265-29-0 , pp. 9-55.
  • Barbara Hornberger: History is made. The New German Wave. An era of German pop music . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8260-4288-1 ( Film - Medium - Discourse 30).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Spliff - Carbonara. In: SWR1 , accessed on May 24, 2015
  2. ↑ Katja Mellmann: Heroes from the toy box ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de
  3. ^ Alfred Hilsberg: New German Wave - From gray cities walls. In: Sounds via highdive.de , 10/79.
  4. ^ Annette Vowinckel : B. Hornberger: History is made. In: H-Soz-Kult , May 26, 2011, accessed May 26, 2011.