Episode 238
So now it’s summer again. That means a lot, but also that the way we listen to music – unfortunately similar to the length of our trousers – inevitably adapts to the season. Many readers of this column will initially reject this indignantly. They’ll keep telling themselves they’re immune to seasonal listening patterns, mistakenly believing they have tastes in music that can withstand the balmy breezes of summer.
Admittedly, I don’t think that pale goth rock adepts would be tempted to blow the playlist “The 20 greatest Latin hits since the invention of the beach hut” through the tropical apartment in the warm season. Even devotees of satanic metal styles won’t shy away from the usual ritual defilements just because gelato season is on. But let’s just take the Bob Dylan fans, of whom there are supposed to be two or three in the readership: These days, they’re probably listening to “New Morning” or “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid” more often than, say, “Tempest”.
Your devoted author also sets the musical clock to daylight saving time at the latest at the beginning of May and shows the door to overly life-negating tones. In the place of semi-moribund bards, who lament about the vale of tears of being, there are mainly samplers that leave the worn-out terrain of Anglo-American rock and pop behind them.
In these days, two of them gladden my heart. The first was put together by Sheffield-born DJ Luke Una and is called É Soul Cultura. I didn’t really understand the concept behind the compilation. It seems to be about capturing the mood that sets in on the way home after a long night out at around five in the morning when the birds start to chirp. “É Soul Cultura” is in the best sense of the word a background record on which the musical art of blaring and murmuring is transcended to a certain extent, whereby the blaring and murmuring sometimes seems to come from Brazilian or African regions, sometimes from the one-euro flea market box.
A record about which things can be done very well. Things like moving a pile of junk from room A to room B. The second sampler is even better: “Paisà Got Soul”, put together by a gentleman named David Nerattini, is the compilation-turned-Italian answer to the yacht rock boom of the last years. Here you will find 15 pieces from the 70s and 80s, which combine soul and Italo pop in a carefree Mediterranean style. The really big names are missing (Lucio Dalla, Pino Daniele), but you can look forward to Alberto Radius, Eduardo De Crescenzo and Enzo Carella, among others. The hit veteran Peppino di Capri is also involved in the matter. If you don’t have a yacht, you can of course still celebrate – if necessary in the paddling pool at home, no problem at all.
Incidentally, in my next life I would like to become a full-time compiler of summer compilations based on the model described above. However, I would put the musical focus on German-language chansons and upscale hits: Klaus Hofmann with “Summer in the City” would be there, Rainhard Fendrich with “Strada del Sole”, Konstantin Wecker with “If the summer is not far away”, ” Sommerlied” by Hannes Wader, maybe Rio Reiser with “Dr. Summer”.
However, as far as commerciality is concerned, I have no false illusions: it is to be expected that a summer sampler with German-language chansons that I put together would sell as well as flip-flops on the peaks of the Himalayas. But what is success when it comes to beauty? And taking care of these is more important than ever during the season of shorts.