INTRODUCTION
present weariness? I have every understanding for that. And even if I try to keep these column contributions up to date, I always allow butter trips into the past. In any case, the omnipresent revival culture makes it possible for even such recourse to appear very contemporary. So this text willfully leads back 20 years. Because when there is so much talk about the reappearance of the noughties, why not check the original sources? Let’s flip through a BRAVO from exactly this time.
(Speaking of flipping through BRAVOs… Last year, this happened at this point with a cutting-edge number.)
PRESENT (yet still): The Wendler
But I also don’t want to completely owe the reference to the here and now. Therefore, two current topics of the local pop culture, after which you will really long for the following journey through time.
Once: The Wendler. Over the past two and a half years, the Schlager rooster with fiberglass hairstyle has repeatedly appeared in this column. Because on Telegram I followed with fascination and disgust how deep you can dig the grave of your career with the help of stupidity and narcissism.
So I was really shocked when it was said that Wendler was returning to TV with a reality show about the baby on RTL2 – and thus back to the money. For a moment I thought it was my job to make his countless unsolidarity to anti-Semitic Telegram hate posts public again. I finally took screenshots of the nastiest failures. But is this long-standing no-go performance really nobody in the media except me on the screen?
But… fortunately. First RTL distanced itself, then apparently “the Geissens” (okay) and now the show is not taking place. Wendler is not amused about it, as he had issued a half-ass apology (read: Nopology) and simply set his telegram channel, which was constantly hostile to the state, to “private”. So little was almost enough? Wow! Because now the whole debate about his failures has boiled down to the Wendler statement that Germany is a concentration camp. The unpleasant singer claims “subtly” afterwards that “crisis center” was meant. Understood.
It really gets me that he almost made it through. Where’s the cancel culture when you need it? Or wake me up when this person’s next comeback is due, I still have enough other screenshots from his channel from which his reputation – rightly – can no longer recover.
PRESENT II: Trettmann
Fortunately, the other current downer in pop has no socio-political dimension, but it is also a mood killer: how disappointing is Trettmann’s new record? INSOMNIA seems like the prototypical album of a clueless mega-star. Erratic mood texts about how lost but rich one is – and instead of esprit there are more ranked guests than ever. Although, “rangekarrt” would be nice, these duets appear more like sound files passed on from management to management, which the engineer then put together. Chemistry between the guests and Trettmann? Zero. In addition, this pop blockbuster gone wrong seals the end of the collaboration between the producer team KitschKrieg and Trettmann. With great music like the eternal Über-piece “Grauer Beton” (2017) they fought their way up together – and now lost themselves at the zenith. I consider the legacy of this team INSOMNIA, which was released last week, to be a colossal artistic failure – despite (or because of) all the scenery shifting.
To illustrate my disappointment, the track “Kalte Welt” should be mentioned. Here the Trettmann awaits us with a mocking collage of break-up phrases, followed by a short bridge and then (once again) the guest should fix it in the chorus.
But the trademark-rasping voice of Henning May (AnnenMayKantereit) finds itself dipped in strangely rancid autotune and creaks as if an error were on the way. Sorry, the result sounds more like comedy than goosebumps.
I wish Trettmann a real new start here after this deadlocked megalomania. So that he may find his way back to interesting, touching stories – and clothe them in a contemporary, authentic sound. There’s no question that he’s got it, but unfortunately “Insomnia” is the flop of the year for me.
Okay, sorry for the whole bad vibe so far. Now it’s finally time for the year 2003. Let ringtones, Xtina and the photo love story heal us from the present! Here are a few highlights of a BRAVO from spring 2003. Have fun.
This is what the BRAVO looked like 20 years ago
BRAVO 2003 – The Cover
It’s kind of reassuring to know almost all the acts, isn’t it? Okay, even if you salted my field and set fire to my yard, I couldn’t remember a single song by the band Good Charlotte pictured, but I’m aware of their existence. The only blank space on the cover page: John from B3. Please who? The rest of J.Lo, Orlando, 50 Cent to Evanescence to the Simpsons poster should look familiar to most viewers.
BRAVO 2003 – All stars should pair up
Quite striking in my rewatch how many stars in this issue are alleged to have secret relationships. Avril Lavigne and her guitarist, then Lucy from the No Angels and some random musical dude or how about Vanessa (No Angels) and Giovanni (Bro’Sis) or at least Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake!
In my function as a media professional and inspector, I would like to put forward the thesis that this should have a lot to do with the (paparazzi) culture of the time. The colorful editors get photos from agencies and knit a few hot affairs around them in the subjunctive – and lo and behold, the site is both visually and contentwise garish and, above all, full. However, as a consumer, I don’t want to exempt myself from a certain degree of complicity. Because I, too, always like to believe that all the stars are secretly doing it with each other and that all the romantic kisses in the film may actually be real. Okay, maybe I need therapy – but maybe it’s just true! (Well, in the four cases offered here everything seems to have been invented, as one can ascertain through the knowledge of hindsight. Definitely just a coincidence!)
BRAVO 2003 – Omg, Cell Phones!
The central and all-dominant theme of a youth in 2003 is completely unmistakable: cell phones! Everything in this magazine screams cell phone, cell phone, cell phone: cell phone tattoos! Mobile phone raffle! MMS photo of the week! The best SMS sayings! And of course above all: Ringtone advertising! An offer that excludes people over a certain age simply because of the graphic presentation, because who else should be able to read this 4-point font of all those full-page excited advertisements on the subject at all apart from an adolescent with firm eye muscles?
It’s interesting that in 2003 the flashy group didn’t take over Jamba to push the kids into subscription traps. In this phase of mobile phone madness people are still being ripped off via chargeable 0190 numbers. So the ringtones or pixel logos that you pull off consistently (supposedly) have no price. But in order to obtain them, you have to be put off on expensive hotlines for just under two euros a minute. Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, should finally apologize for all the apocalypse his work has conjured up to this day.
BRAVO 2003 – Doc Sommer
The doctor, he’s always the guarantor for stable headlines, which, strictly speaking, should still be used as wall tattoos today: “She broke up with me because of skinheads”. Well, that would really bring me down too. Feel you bro!
BRAVO 2003 – Massive tones
Anyone who has always wondered why the aggro stuff from SIDO and Bushido flattened everything in German rap in 2004 should take a look at the status quo of the sound shortly before this turning point. There one discovers here, for example, the massive tones. They’re just bringing out “Cruisen”, a milestone or memorial to the completely neglected 90s terraced house rap of middle-class children that won’t survive the 2000s. Because honestly, it really couldn’t stay like this.
For me, however, the piece is forever linked to the edifying self-questioning, which is probably the worst rhyme in a German hip-hop song? Massive tones are definitely at the forefront for me with these lines:
“We’re the coolest when we’re cruising / When we’re jetting through the city / We’re the coolest when the cute ones /
Ladies greet us with kisses”
Say hello to cruising. Still lovin’ this linguistic total failure.
BRAVO 2003 – Give a photo love story!
The story “Kathi’s dangerous love game” is pleasantly down-to-earth. Puff, puff, puff! The sexes are still strictly separated and easily distinguishable: The boys fight for the women in the outdoor pool (“Count your bones!”). While the girls, in turn, deal with the interpersonal (“Whenever he puts a bag on it, he slacks off.”). This photo love story may not pass the Bechdel test, but it nevertheless bears colorful testimony to how indispensable this section is for the guilty pleasure reading of a BRAVO.
BRAVO 2003 – Charts from Hell
That’s right, there’s also music – and it’s quite a challenge in this selected week. At that time the youth magazine was still published weekly, today it is distributed monthly. This spring of 2003, Yvonne Catterfeld is waving from above. That may not appeal to you aesthetically, but still better than the spooky characters lurking behind them with lateral thinker swag, Nena and Xavier. In fourth place was Daniel Küblböck, who had died tragically in the meantime, and behind him DJ Tomekk, who was dishonorably thrown out of the jungle camp five years later because of a Hitler salute. My God! 2003, so that was your charts?
This closes the circle of this column and refers back to its beginning: Because it started with the Wendler. He would have been in good hands in this hit parade from 20 years ago. Everything was better in the past. Everything used to be like it is today. Only with 0190 numbers.
What happened until now? Here is an overview of all pop column texts.
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