David Hasselhof - Rock Star?

29 September 2004 22:31 blondelibrarian germany, news, pop culture

When I was studying in Paris ten years ago, I had a little clock-radio that I listened to in my no-frills dorm room. I had a Discman (I was on the cutting edge back then!), but I have always liked listening to the radio and it really improved my language skills to listen to those French DJs.

The station I listened to was a random pop station that, for the most part, played awful music. However, they also played a whole lot of French pop music. I didn’t think about it at the time, but a couple of months ago I read that The Voice of America was encountering problems in France because of a rule that a certain percentage (around 50%) of every broadcast must be in French.

I didn’t follow up on the story, but today I read that some German politicians want to introduce a bill that would require something like that here. (article) Apparently, only about 10% of music played on the radio here in Germany is actually in German.

I don’t doubt it. I don’t listen to the radio much these days, but when I was listening to Bayern 3 (I have a crappy clock-radio that barely gets any station) a few months ago, I very seldom heard a song in German… mostly they just played crappy American pop or hip-hop.

I think that is too bad. I have discovered some pretty decent German bands that sing in German and think it would be doing everyone a favor if more bands like these had success here in Germany.

I mean seriously… I read that one of the biggest music personalities ever imported from the US to Germany is David Hasselhof!! Now, if that fact isn’t just screaming out for some native musicians to have some success here then I don’t know what is!

3 Responses

  1. Duncan Says:
    30 September 2004 at 09:48

    Personally, I don?t care to hear hip-hop, Rock, country or much of anything else in German because German?in my humble opinion? is not really a musical language…like some would argue that French, English or even Italian indeed are.

    I used to think that I was alone and probably a little unfair and arrogant in my opinion until I heard Germans saying the same thing! The majority of Germans prefer to hear songs in English. This must be true, or the majority of the music played would not carry ?English? texts. Even many German bands sing in English. My older son has a local garage band?all Germans?but their music is mostly in English. Ironically, my son disagrees with my opinion. Go figure

    As for David Hasselhof, Germans have a strange?no let me rephrase that? “different” taste in music. You have to understand. This is a nation that sent Guildo Horn and Stefan Raab (who when not being a clown, is actually talented) to the Euro Vision song contest. As a kid, do you remember those chintzy commercials on TV promoting the albums of singers like ?Slim Whittman?? Slim Whittman? Who is he? Well, Slim was a country singer who made it big here in Europe singing really corny country music. They loved him. Again, go figure.

  2. CT Says:
    30 September 2004 at 16:18

    France has Jerry Lewis, Germany has David Hasselhoff….

  3. June Says:
    30 September 2004 at 18:13

    David Hasselhoff…..yes, Germans have very, very bad taste generally, not only in music (sigh). You must turn to alternative styles in Germany to survive.