Sounds (German magazine)

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Sounds was a German music magazine that was founded in 1966 . Initially the focus was on free jazz , from 1968 on progressive rock . Around 1978/79 the focus shifted to punk and new wave music (at that time still little known in Germany) . In the course of time, Sounds became the first German pop music magazine.

Founder and namesake

Founder, publisher and writer in one person was Rainer Blome, who previously worked as a tour manager and wrote poetry on the side. The first edition of Sounds , initially focused purely on contemporary jazz, came out in Solingen in 1966 , its subtitle was Die Zeitschrift für Neue Jazz . Blome was inspired to choose the name Sounds by a comment by jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler , which can also be read as a programmatic motto in the first issue: "Our music is no longer about notes, it's about sounds".

Development history of the magazine

One of the editorial offices of Sounds during the Jürgen Legath era, Heilwigstrasse 33 / corner Isestrasse, Hamburg

The ups and downs in the overall development of the magazine can be seen in the editorial seats that were changed seven times: The first edition appeared in Solingen in 1966 (Entenpfuhl 4), and between 1968 and 1972 the editorial staff had three different locations in Cologne one after the other (Isabellenstrasse 18a; Ubierring 13; Hohestrasse 156) and from 1973 to 1983 in Hamburg she moved from Heilwigstrasse 33 first to Winterhuder Weg , then to Steindamm . But it is also reflected in the frequency of publication, which has only gradually leveled off: first irregularly, then every two months, and in the heyday of sounds finally one issue per month.

First stage (Rainer Blome era)

In the first year of its publication , Sounds had dealt exclusively with the free jazz of such musicians as Ornette Coleman , Sonny Rollins and Albert Ayler , but in 1967 the gradual change came with a review of the LP "Freak Out" by Frank Zappa's band Mothers of Invention Turn to rock music. Soon, rock music was the focus of editorial interest and reporting on current jazz was soon only a shadowy existence. The consequence: From 1969 Sounds called itself in the subtitle »Magazin zur Popmusik«. What was once started as a small, irregularly appearing fanzine on grayish print paper, developed under Blome into a regularly appearing periodical and, due to its profound approach to music, into an opinion-forming magazine of the highest order. Although it was opinionated, it was by no means high-circulation - as the economic situation can be summed up. Even a separate Austria supplement, a four-page leaflet in black and white, on which the Austrian ORF radio journalists Wolfgang Kos and Michael Schrott and Günter Brödl worked, did not contribute significantly to the increase in circulation. In 1972 the publisher changed. The manager who promotes the Krautrock band your children, Jonas Porst, son of the left Nuremberg photo entrepreneur Hansheinz Porst, put capital into sounds and promised: “Now all budgets have increased and the people in the editorial office have all worries about their existence. Nobody is forced to do the magazine wholeheartedly, but as a part-time job. ”But only five months later there was no more job for Blome. After a dispute with Porst - probably because of his failure to keep his promise to make him editor-in-chief with the relevant decision-making powers - the Sounds founder left unexpectedly and only appears as an employee in the August issue of the year. Diedrich Diederichsen posthumously praised Blome, who died in 1995, as “an extremely interesting figure” who knew how to write “extremely opinion-intensive and aggressive and also passionate”.

Second stage (Jürgen Legath era)

For a while, Michael Wallossek was in charge of the editorial department before the graphic designer Jürgen Legath, who was recognized as a distinguished graphic designer through his work at Stern, was brought on board in August 1972 . Its outspoken ideal of a contemporary music magazine was based on the American Rolling Stone . With the December issue of Sounds at the latest , this was already obvious to the readership at the kiosk. Instead of the previous DIN A4 format (210 × 297 mm), Sounds appeared in magazine format (210 × 280 mm), in four-color printing , on high-quality paper. Legath also redesigned the layout inside the magazine. Columns such as the table of contents ('In this issue'), letters to the editor, news, tour dates, features, reports from live concerts, record reviews and the films / books column - everything was put into a form that has largely been preserved right up to the end of Sounds . In 1973, when Jürgen Legath brought the need to move the editorial team from Cologne to Hamburg , where almost all the big record companies resided, into play and energetically, Porst stepped out - and Legath bought the paper himself without further ado, responsible publisher and owner in one person .

The "gonzo fist", two thumbs holding a peyote cactus - the "watermark" of gonzo journalism

Three people formed the hard core of an otherwise rather freely 'floating' editorial team: Jürgen Legath, known as “Commander”, and his “buddy” Jörg Gülden , Schreiber (pseudonym Dr. Gonzo) and band member of Flying Klassenfeind and Teja Schwaner, a productive English -Translator and writer in the field of pop culture . All three valued the subjective spelling of German-language pop journalism of the 1960s. Legath, Gülden and Schwaner were consequently fans of everything that came over from America's New Journalism , especially Hunter S. Thompson and the so-called Gonzo journalism . From this position, there was a great openness for any kind of “rock writing” (Diederichsen), based on Neutert's Provo slogan: “Don't be factual, always stay personal.” So wrote - in their own unique way - People as diverse as Werner Büttner , Detlef Diederichsen (under the pseudonym Ewald Braunsteiner), his brother Diedrich Diederichsen, Andreas Dorau , Peter Glaser , Peter Hein , Alfred Hilsberg , Rainer B. Jogschies (German rock, festivals, musician initiatives), Hans Keller, Kid P. (actually Andreas Banaski ), Michael OR Kröher , Reinhard Kunert, Joachim Lottmann , Albert Oehlen , Olaf Dante Marx , Georg Seeßlen , Joachim Steinhöfel and Alexander Sevschek (under the pseudonyms Xao Seffcheque and ORAV). What united them was a left gesture, an "unspecified bunch (s) of their own kind", who, according to a late self-criticism by Diederichsen, "stayed outside of any practical politics, but also outside of any political relationship to contemporary politics." Series came around 1978/79 the important impulse to shift the thematic focus of "Sounds" from rock music to punk and new wave music (at that time still little known in Germany) . In the course of this development, “Sounds” even became a kind of 'central organ' for Neue Deutsche Welle , which many (presumably older) subscribers did not like at all. The circulation numbers fell. And the crisis in the record industry, with fewer and fewer ads, did the rest. In January 1983 the last edition of "Sounds" appeared.

End of the stage (Marquard / Springer era)

In the same year Legath sold “Sounds” to the Swiss publisher Jürg Marquard . The already published »Musikexpress« and now brought out both periodicals as one under the double title "Musikexpress Sounds". And this in a way that largely corresponded to the traditional music and journalism understanding of the Musikexpress in terms of content and spelling . Numerous editors and authors of sounds then jumped out and switched to the magazine Spex . After a takeover by Axel Springer Verlag in 2000, it was only called Musikexpress . In 2008, the same publisher tried to revive the sounds, which had meanwhile become legendary, and went on the market with an initial circulation of 50,000 copies, which went completely wrong. After seven issues, which are certainly not in the black, the questionable company was stopped and in November 2009 it was completely discontinued.

See also

literature

  • Jürgen Legath (Hrsg.): Sounds - Platten 66-77 . 1827 reviews; Frankfurt / Main: Zweiausendeins 1979, 1562 S. (only available in antiquarian versions)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See keyword sounds . In: roxikon . The lexicon for rock and pop music http://www.roxikon.de/medien/sounds/
  2. ↑ Sounds No. 1 appeared in winter 66/67. On the cover: Free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann , Blome's best friend. With him and with Peter Kowald, Blome ran the New Jazz Artists' Guild. See Archive (1966). In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  3. ↑ See the archive section . In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  4. ↑ See the archive section . In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  5. ↑ See keyword sounds . In: roxikon . The lexicon for rock and pop music http://www.roxikon.de/medien/sounds/
  6. ↑ See the archive section (1966 and 1967). In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  7. ↑ See the archive section (1966 and 1967). In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  8. ↑ See section Sounds in Austria . In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  9. ↑ See the archive section (1972). In: Sounds archive. A German Music Monthly 1966 - 1983 http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  10. ↑ See http://sounds-archiv.at/styled-201/styled-202/
  11. ↑ See Ronald Strehl: “The Sounds Story”. The history of the 1st German pop music magazine. Broadcast by the NDR night club, Hamburg 2006.
  12. ↑ Ronald Strehl: "The Sounds Story". The history of the 1st German pop music magazine. Broadcast by the NDR night club, Hamburg 2006.
  13. ↑ People like Nettelbeck , Neutert or Salzinger (who, under the pseudonym Jonas Überohr , did not become a permanent columnist for “Sounds” for nothing ).
  14. ↑ See Diedrich Diederichsen in an interview with Clara Drechsler : Live sparingly - and cook according to a recipe . In: Spex 10/1995, pp. 56-59, here p. 56.
  15. ↑ Ronald Strehl: "The Sounds Story". The history of the 1st German pop music magazine. Broadcast by the NDR night club, Hamburg 2006.
  16. ↑ Although, according to his own admission, he was “anti-rockist”, Diedrich Diederichsen actually used the expression “rock writing”. See the interview with Clara Drechsler : Live frugally - and cook according to a recipe . In: Spex 10/1995.
  17. ↑ Natias Neutert in: Boa Vista , magazine for art and literature, No. 3, Hamburg 1975, p. 55.
  18. ↑ [[Diedrich Diederichsen (cultural scientist) |]]: “Who is the brain police”? In: SPEX No. 10, October 1995, pp. 50-55, here p. 52.
  19. ↑ Jürgen Legath (Ed.): Sounds - plates 66-77 . 1827 reviews; Frankfurt / Main 1979 (only available as an antiquarian).
  20. ↑ Peter Mühlbauer: Label fraud. The Axel Springer Verlag is resurrecting “sounds”
  21. ↑ Jens Schröder: “ Springer puts music magazine Sounds on ice ( memento of the original from March 1, 2010 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. ", At meedia.de, February 26, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / meedia.de