2021 - Short

 

I featured the other days albums that impressed me much and was played often at my place and I thought it was the time to write down the best songs of this year. Many of them you can find on the long posts and I have to admit that I am not the one that is able to finish the list because there were so many songs I heard the first time this year that made me happy once or several times. Other songs crossed my attention weeks later when I listened to them on my yearly playlist on Spotify where I collect new songs year by year. Looking at this playlist I find more than 200 songs and the more I think about it I can't decide which one would reach a top ten. So here are some songs, subjective of course and not showing the full range of music I listened too but still worth to be named when you look back on this year.

A Brief History Of Hamburg School Part 2

 

The second wave of Hamburg school presented new bands developing the original guitar based indie sound. Sometimes they changed their crudeness for a more melodic style. But still using cryptic lyrics that are hard to understand what they want to explain. First of those bands named should be Die Sterne. I remember when some of their funk and soul influenced songs were part of the sound of a summer in the early 90's.

Die Sterne - Widerschein

Tocotronic were those band that brought post-grunge like Dinosaur Jr. into this genre. Over the years they established as pioneers of Hamburg school. I liked them and I also was impressed by their live appearances. 

Tocotronic - Kapitulation

Tom Liwa and Flowerpornoes brought melancholia into this guitar based sound. Formed in Duisburg in 1985 they sung on their first albums in English and started years later after they moved to Hamburg singing in their native language. Their musical cosmos spreads from psychedelia, alternative rock to folk. 

Flowerpornoes - Planetenkind

Continental Tuesday # 7

The latest hype in German independent music is Trümmer (ruins). Deeply based in the sound and tradition of influential German bands like Tocotronic, Blumfeld or Die Sterne from the mid 90's they make a real good and for German conditions an unique sound. I like the way they play their guitars and the way they arrange their songs. But I can't get any access to their lyrics. Many critics call them revolutionary and the voice of young German rebel kids but for me it is only prases of pubescent kids. But maybe it's only because I am too old to understand what a twen feels in these days. Anyway, it is up to you who don't speak German to form an opinion of your own about their music.