While much music slowly fades into oblivion after a few decades, pirate music is now experiencing a true revival. Young people roar along to the lyrics of the songs from A to Z in the party tent. Sometimes it is music that their grandparents used to listen to.
“I sometimes come here to see if there is anything new for me. But I already have a lot,” says 21-year-old Jordie Hemsens as he searches through bins of singles in a second-hand store in Annen. He mainly looks for long-playing records with Dutch music. “They call it black gold in our world,” laughs Hemsens.
And in that world Hemsens is better known as Jordie Hemoes. On his TikTok account with more than 30,000 followers, he posts pirate records with funny introductions. And that is quite catching on. “It started as a joke, but now it’s a hobby that got out of hand.”
Pirate music traditionally refers to music from the 1970s and 1980s. It is often in Dutch and is usually not played on commercial radio stations. Radio pirates send the songs onto the airwaves with illegal channels. And the music is now also spreading on other channels, such as on social media such as TikTok.
In 2021, the culture of pirate music has been designated as intangible heritage. The reason why the genre is so popular among young people cannot be directly explained. Hemsens: “It’s just nice music. It all rhymes and it just makes you happy. I think it’s very beautiful.”
Watch the documentary here I still have a few more years to goabout the fascination of young fans with old pirate records: