“Funny” songs are the most complicated thing in the world, Frank Zappa, who is known to be one of the few seriously (and voluntarily) funny musicians in pop history, already knew that. DOES HUMOR BELONG IN MUSIC? he asked on his 1984 live album of the same name. Today, almost forty years later, when you hear Alligatoah’s new album ROTZ UND WASSER, you want to call after Zappa into the afterlife: No, never, please not.
Lukas Strobel, as Alligatoah is really called, has been absurdly successful as a class clown for years, whom some simply find to be bullied, some naively take at his word – and others love that they can feel smarter than those who read lines like “Come on ‘we’re going down the drain together’ really feel like a lot.
Too tense to just be funny nonsense
With his rap, which repeatedly squints towards Schlagerpop and Schweinerock, Alligatoah persistently parodies several dead-parodied genres, which would still be bearable – if only he weren’t so confused with metaphors on ROTZ UND WASSER (after all, number 2 in the charts!). bang so hard that everyone with a spark of language skills gets a brain spasm: “It comes full circle, round thing / We’re a round thing / Come on, we’ll get fat / In a duet”. It’s too tense to be just funny nonsense, but it hardly works as a parody, because joking along with phrases is really part of the basic repertoire of German humor.
In general, the basis of good parodies is the unconditional, unironic seriousness of something; Ween’s “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night” is the funniest Motörhead satire of all time, because Dean Ween follows Lemmy Kilmister’s bourbon speed and madness number with full physical exertion, exaggerates while intoxicated, loves him to death. And that takes courage. The fictional character Alligatoah, at least that’s what his new album suggests, doesn’t really seem to love much – except for the feeling of being the last to laugh. Which at least kind of explains his success.
This column first appeared in the Musikexpress issue 06/2022.