In my previous issue of Pop Week, I looked at a BRAVO from twenty years ago. Two decades old. All the stars of that day are porous, worn-out and completely unknown to young people who have grown back. Changing of the guard in pop? undeniable.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that this magazine relic from 2003 shows a clear continuity within pop culture. But if it’s not the protagonists, then what is it? Eventually the realization, of course! The star yesterday as today is… the telephone. From ringtones to TikTok, from counting units to likes, the medium is the message – and the medium is your phone.
This column is therefore dedicated to the eternally young cultural practice of the hot wire (WLAN password on request).
What phone type are you?
Type 1: Phenomenal Orthogonal
Haters gonna hate, but doesn’t it just look awesome when you hold your phone against your skull at a 90-degree angle ready for a nesting bird to balance on? Phenomenal orthogonals, these are the visionaries among us flat-rate victims. That the design of a portable phone is based on an ear-to-mouth receiver sounds to her like a fairy tale of a round earth. So negligible. The one-handed self-antennaing suggests to bystanders that the pheno-orthos is of great mental power – and you nod to that species as respectfully as if you saw someone in a pennant-ridden recumbent bike passing four inches above the turf below.
Yes, finally someone says it: recumbent cyclists and orthogonal phone users, these are the true pillars of our society. Today at 20 pm please step on the balconies and clap for them!
Type 2: Radio
Do you remember the CB radio? A kind of noisy, crackling mobile phone forerunner, which was mainly popular during the war, with truck drivers and youth detectives.
Frequencies were set on small wheels in order to be able to radio other owners of such a device from a distance of a few hundred meters. The aim was to yell against the constant background noise in the ether – with the side effect that the other person could sometimes hear you beyond the device loudspeaker.
This wonderful enrichment of public space is now experiencing a long-awaited comeback thanks to open-air WhatsApp telephony. People with an exciting amount of text set their valuable conversation partners to “loud” and now alternately bark with them into their smartphones. Smartphones that they hold in front of their faces like radios. In this way, the bilateral limitation of a telephone call can become a multiple audio experience for the entire district.
Type 3: SpraNa
In analogue times it was still said: “A pen pal only becomes nice with an answer” – but this needy focus on a counterpart cannot necessarily be transferred to the present time. After all, it repeatedly forces the communicative person into the annoying situation of having to listen. Listening means backing down. And dialogue – that often means endless dry spells until it’s finally your turn to speak again. No wonder this trend caught on: Cut out the middle man! With the voice message, you are finally freed from the other end of the line – and become the sole center of the conversation.
Certainly … one hears again and again of left-leaning Snowflakes who would like to have the use of voice messages at the Geneva Convention on Human Rights objected to. But time (#Apocalypse) will show who will be right in the end.
Type 4: Handsfree
Once upon a time, the person calling was tied to a table in the hallway by a humorlessly short cable from the so-called landline telephone. Conditions like in the Middle Ages! The hands-free movement breaks with this fixation on a limited indoor radius. No place where it is not worth making a phone call. At a funeral, while bungee jumping, on the Way of St. James, in the rest compartment of the train… As Marius Müller-Westernhagen once wrote with protruding veins in the toilet (the most important location of the hands-free movement): “Freedom is the only thing that counts”.
Type 5: Old School
After calls from this species you can set the clock: 6 p.m. moonlight tariff! From then on, the unit costs only half. They consider flat rates, blue tooth and candy crush to be insignia of the Antichrist – which, of course, cannot be completely dismissed out of hand. They still write down the telephoned units in worn octave notebooks and are still attached to their analog long-term contracts with Deutsche Telekom and the post office. Some of you own a considerable collection of telephone cards and have coffee table books with the most beautiful telephone booths from Greifswald to Castrop-Rauxel.
The telephone in pop music – a little musical journey
ABBA – “Ring Ring” (1973)
When the phone is sung about in a song, it’s usually not about relaxed chatter, but mostly functions as a metaphor for disrupted communication.
Toto – “Hold The Line” (1978)
“Hold the line / bam bam bam pamm! / love isn’t always on time” … keep in touch, stay tuned in, don’t hang up – what a treasure trove of universally usable metaphors belongs to the world of telephones.
Milli Vanilli – Baby Don’t Forget My Number (1988)
What were those times when you had to remember phone numbers! (Or playback lyrics.)
Soul Asylum – “Somebody To Shove” (1992)
Due to the production of the early albums by Bob Mold, Soul Asylum was often considered a Hüsker-Dü shrinkage stage. However, this medal was not enough for greater credibility. Nonetheless, “Somebody To Shove” is a beautiful song that has vocalist Dave Pirner wailing incessantly: “I’m waiting by the phone / Waiting for you to call me up / And tell me I’m not alone”.
Andreas Dorau – “The Telephone Says You” (1994)
Andreas Dorau finally frees the telephone in pop poetry from all this inherent fruitlessness of not reaching. Here it rings and “I pick up and ask who / Is this nice young gentleman?”
Paffendorf – “Call me” (2000)
For a few years, the late 1990s turned the phone call via paid sex hotlines into an obscene imperative. It was incessant to call expensive 0190 numbers – at least that’s what the advertising loops in the night program of the private broadcasters suggested. This trashy jerk off marathon was so present in that era that it could even become a chart hit – and it sounded like this:
The Notwist – “Pick Up The Phone” (2002)
Musically at that time with this crackling pop on the pulse of the indie time, the lyrics also work with the stylistic device of the repetitive. However, the continuous loop of the sentence “Pick up the phone and answer me at last” sounds somehow intrusive. Today one would probably simply block the lyrical I. At that time the only thing that helped was ringing.
PS:
I would like to close this column with an absolute classic of juvenile beat music. We are experiencing a kind of telephone avalanche here, which “Sesame Street” obviously invented before the “Three Question Marks”. In general, something from the here and now is anticipated in this antiquated puppet play. The pop potential of the telephone was recognized long before Spotify and the like. Or as the piece so beautifully puts it:
“Pick up the phone, turn off the radio / Let’s dance no matter what happens / Dance to the phone beat with us!”
What happened until now? Here is an overview of all pop column texts.
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