German Popular Music

During the second half of the twentieth century, German popular music underwent many different changes. The primary influences on this newly emergent genre of German music were the popular songs in the United States and Great Britain. Due to fear of cultural pollution, the East German government sought to control Western popular culture within its borders, so the popular music that developed in East Germany did so in a kind of isolation, with very few influences. On the other hand, the forms that emerged in West Germany, foreign music had a profound impact on the development of German popular music.

English language pop songs had an increasing influence on West German popular music, one that continues even today. Now, most of the songs on German radio are in English, and Germans have even written English language songs of their own. Some of these have enjoyed international acclaim, but very few have appealed to listeners within Germany itself. Other European artists, such as Sarah Conner, No Angels, Monrose, and US5 have all taken up this English language tradition. So far, this type of music has gotten a chilly reception in the United States.

During the late 1960s, rock first appeared on the German popular music scene. Although German musicians had been experimenting with electric guitars and the sounds of psychedelic rock, which they had learned from listening to foreign music, a strong rock tradition grew up in Germany. The popularity of rock spawned several new bands to form, such as Krautrock, Embryo, Neu, and Faust. The Hamburger Schule, or School of Hamburg, is another widely known subgenre of German popular music. Hamburger Schule bands, such as Blumfeld and Tocotronic often blend punk, grunge, and pop influences, and feature cerebral lyrics that serve as cerebral meditations on topics ranging from postmodernism to social criticism.

East German popular music developed during the early 1970s, when pop music from West Germany began to be heard on the other side of the border. The genre that developed from this influence came to be known as Ostrock, which featured almost a reverse engineering of West German pop songs.

Since the reunification of Germany, many other types of German popular music have come to the forefront. Hip hop, for instance, has acquired a devout following, as have punk, metal, and Goth music. The Neue Deutsche HA¤rte, or New German Hard, blends heavy metal with electronic samples, and has gained a large international following. New Hard bands include the world-famous German pop group Rammstein.