Three observations:
1. immos and dollars in “wildberry lillet”
Reduced rap without a melody will be the music of the decade, wrote trend researcher Emily Segal in the Guardian in 2021. It offers the perfect basis for being processed into a TikTok (i.e. a musical meme). In August and September, the song “Wildberry Lillet” by Nina Chuba, a Hamburg native who was born in 1998 and once starred in the children’s series “Die Pfefferkörner”, trended both on TikTok and in the German charts. On TikTok, her monotonously recited lines “I want real estate, I want dollars” were adopted and mimed a thousand times.
Chuba singing about dollars instead of euros makes sense, especially given the declining value of the euro. For the first time in twenty years, the exchange rate is 1 to 1. Gen Z has seen through the system. Dreams no more romantic dreams, but dreams of money and investments. In other words, from the tools with which (almost) every romantic dream can be achieved anyway. Money is therefore on the way from a taboo topic to the next trend topic. Sherbet-colored non-fiction books such as “Coin Stress” by the podcaster Vreni Frost and “Wie Much” by the journalist Mareice Kaiser are currently being published.
2. moto sapien
Fittingly, influencer prototype Kim Kardashian has started a new company. After makeup, skin care and body shaping underwear, her newest brand “SKKY” is now an equity investment company. So Kardashian will raise capital for new brands and companies from investors, banks or wealthy individuals. Due to its role model function, “private equity” could soon be the new target for influencers who are already through with their own make-up, skin care and soft drink brands. Kardashian’s ex-husband Ye West, on the other hand, has designed roll-up foil sunglasses called YEEZY SHDZ, which are reminiscent of a cross between a corona visor, motorcycle helmet and ski goggles.
The latter has been trending for months. And since the reduced rap of the combo 01099, it has operated under the handle “Schnelle Brille”. The monotonous to disillusioned lines “Schnelle Brill’n and we’re in mode, people dance and I give turbo” are laid over an irrelevant after-hours beat, which in turn is accompanied by the noise of a motorcycle engine. The motorcycle as a meme – i.e. as a mood, image and vibe – is currently fascinating. The look is style-defining in fashion and music, see also the video and appearance of Domiziana’s “Without Petrol”. The Austrian designer Anton Brousseau even sees a Moto Sapien coming our way. A biomechanical amalgamation of motorcycle and human.
3. Visualize wealth
Meanwhile, the always biomechanical Björk digs into the earth on FOSSORA with six bass clarinets. There, has Gabber encounter dripping wet mushrooms while singing and warning: “If we don’t grow outwards towards love / We’ll implode inwards towards destruction”. For Björk, music begins with visuals, meaning images, which she then transforms into sounds. This time, there is no app for FOSSORA that also makes the visuals accessible to the listener, but a website with videos that are also – as Björk writes on Instagram – garnished with “digital real estate”. Digital “real estate” in other words.
Meanwhile, trend forecaster Emily Segal has published her debut novel. In “Retrograde Mercury” she tells the everyday life of artists in the New Economy. You accompany the protagonist to her desk, where she also collects visuals, which she moves back and forth on her Mac screen until a new inspiration emerges from her midst – like a mushroom. However, not for music, but for a new company logo. After all, contemporary art must bring Immos …
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 11/2022.