For a moment you could have thought it was ’66. But just missing is also over. Josef Winkler’s column.
Well, how’s it going for you? The crises and the horror everywhere – a situation “that makes it really hard for us to sleep,” said the radio presenter earlier, but I have to say: it’s still possible to sleep. Being awake is the problem! This has become so difficult, I’m only doing it with reservations at the moment. Although, this winter, a nice nod to the otherwise unromantic reality: First a new Stones record, then the new Beatles single on the radio – hey, it could be 1966!
Would have something going for it, I think… Two aesthetic comments perhaps: Maybe the Stones shouldn’t have commissioned their album artwork from Harald Glööckler. And that GIF-like waving grinning Lennon in the “Now And Then” video – ugh ui ui! Maybe McCartney still hasn’t quite gotten over “How Do You Sleep?” But I’m not here to accuse Sir Paul and Ringo Starr of bad taste in 2023.
“Christian Rock”, we all know it: the electric chair of music!
I recently became aware of what a primal force bad taste can have in, of all places, the venerable St. Georg Cathedral in Dinkelsbühl. The local organ with its 4,000 pipes had been advertised to us city travelers, and we gathered in the high Gothic halls for Sunday mass in the hope of sonic sensations.
But now, as we were stuck in the pews between uncles, aunts and other church people, it turned out that the organist had left the musical arrangement on that fateful morning to a black-robed “project choir”, which now began to accompany the unsuspecting group of Christians with US evangelical “worship” songs. “Christian Rock”, we all know it: the electric chair of music! Plastic rock noise cascades screamed from canned speakers until I thought – and at some point wished – that the 600-year-old vault would collapse on us. This didn’t happen, so God is either deaf or even more kind than commonly assumed – or he doesn’t actually exist.
Hey, don’t be afraid of the AI!
I’m making another abrupt jump in topic so that it’s clear that this text wasn’t written by an AI. She doesn’t do anything like that (yet). And she probably wouldn’t write insulting songs about herself either. Me, yes! Since it was Christmas, I brought one, please sing to the tune of “Chim Chim Cher-ee” from “Mary Poppins”:
ChatGPT, ChatGPT, ChatGPT /
I think I’m going to spit and bite my knee.
ChatGPT, ChatGPT, ChatGPT /
Go, leave me alone with your ChatGPT!
The world is so modern, to that I say: no!
Yes, lick me fat with the GPT chat!
“Modern” would have to be sung in English because of meter. You read between the lines: I’m rather skeptical about the whole thing. On the other hand: Hey, don’t be afraid of AI! There are sincere commercial interests of global corporations behind it, they will be responsible… Waaahahaha! Just fun. Sleep well.
This column first appeared in Musikexpress issue 1/2024.