Between jemöötlichkeit and punk rock: The Screenshots confuse with humor and seriousness.
Susi Bumms, Kurt Prödel and Dax Werner probably sometimes wonder how it could happen that people bought their combination of satirical magazine humor and punk rock with such enthusiasm. The Screenshots, supposedly from Krefeld but actually from Cologne (or is it?), met at X (formerly Twitter). With their simultaneously hit and sarcastic songs, they easily ended up with Böhmermann and in the opening act for Madsen and the Sportfreunde Stiller.
Her debut album 2 MILLION SALES WITH A SIMPLE IDEA entered the album sales charts at number 45 in 2020. And now? Carry on, of course, but seriously – OK, not quite. On WUNDERWERK MENSCH, the three mix irony with honesty (?), punk with singer/songwriter style and Kölsch Jemöötlichkeit in roughly equal parts, which brings with it irritating effects: as if Die Ärzte were performing with Die Höhner, or Philipp Poisel with Team Scheisse . Only Susi Bumms sounds like Susi Bumms, for example in the desperate but also incredibly funny “Modern Dance”.
Lyrically brilliant pieces like “DIN A 8” (“everything that makes me happy / fits on a DIN A 8 piece of paper”) and especially “How it was before” meet comparatively calming songs like “Grandparents” and “Love knows nit where se goes there” or the NDW pastiche “Satellit” – a real rollercoaster of emotions into which you are pushed by Prödel, Bumms and Werner. Is this still punk rock? Somehow.