Hit parade column “They up there”
Hit doctors of our time: That’s why Miksu and Macloud are the new Bohlens
Are now also at the start with their own album: Miksu and Macloud.
Photo: Instagram/miksu. All rights reserved.
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Every era has its hit doctors. In the ’90s, nobody touched a guitar without letting Butch Vig know. Right now, Jack Antonoff is the nerd trusted by powerful women. In Germany, Dieter Bohlen was the man with the charts subscription for a long time. The sun-tanned King Midas gave Germany just as much pop bombast, just as much show stage and great cinema as it could handle: dreams the size of allotments, Las Vegas in Lüdenscheid.
Miksu and Macloud, whose real names are Joshua Allery and Laurin Auth, sell similar things: robber’s pistols and luxury fantasies, a life of viciousness full of light and shade for gangsters and bourgeois alike. In mid-March, the producer duo from Essen was at the top of the single charts with the young rapper t-low and “Sehnsucht” – again.
Even those who have never heard of the two know their producer jobs. They both had it all: old hands (Sido) and young weirdos (Apache 207), sad rappers with street cred (Arrest Warrant) and sad rappers with drainpipe trousers (Casper), traditionalists (Eko Fresh) and avant-gardists (Haiyti).
At FUTURA, Miksus and Macloud’s performance show from 2021, everyone from Bausa to Capital Bra who owes a hit to the new Bohlens stopped by. The rapper Loredana had even helped the duo to break through, for which she returned the favor by giving them both her now iconic “producer tag” – the short introductory sound snippet at the beginning of a song: “Macloud, what a beat! ‘ she exclaimed in the song ‘Sunglasses’. The 2018 hit was rooted in trap, but squinted towards pop, sounded airy and yet well padded – just like a typical German rap hit of the present day.
Whether Miksu and Macloud (co) shaped this formula for success – or are they simply able to sell trends particularly well in a way that is compatible with the masses? Not clear. On the other hand, it is certain that they have made producers in Germany (again) what Antonoff and his cohorts are over there in the USA – namely overhyped pop stars.
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 05/2022.
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