Roll Over Beethoven

‘NAME five German pop acts from the era of popular music.

The past, present and future of German pop

“Nena.” Yes, who could forget her 99 red Balloons and the phrase “super flurry”? Brilliant.

“Kraftwerk.” Yes again. Music to reset your video clock by has been delighting all manner of robotic types for decades. Great stuff.

“German rap quartet Die Fantastischen Vier.” Ah, The Fantastic Four. You surprise us with your depth of knowledge.

We had thought you’d go for The Scorpions (wind power music) or even adopted German David Hasselhoff (music to dry-stone wall by).

But, alas, though your knowledge is good, the powers that be at Teuton FM are not convinced enough people know about the wonder of music that is German pop.

So, as the Independent reports, a special parliamentary cultural committee has begun discussing ways of raising its profile.

And the most popular idea is to set mandatory radio and TV quotas for German pop.

It seems that only 10% of all the pop music aired in Germany is produced by German artists, a condition creating much upset among the local recoding community.

More than 500 German pop artists have signed a petition calling for quotas to be set up. And Eckhardt Barthel, a Social Democrat MP on the committee, will try to make the broadcasters see sense, or else.

“We try to get stations to agree to a voluntary quota,” says he. “If that fails we will attempt to introduce a mandatory quota.”

And if successful, German music will once more rule the airwaves over Berlin – and German youth will feverishly try and tune in their radios for their daily dose of Cliff Richard…’

Posted: 4th, October 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink