Friday, January 16, 2009

German #9: Bushido and Karel Gott "Für Immer Jung"

Yep, Kate Perry is still on the pole position in the German charts with her wedding video song Hot N Cold (gee, people! - buy something new, it's not THAT good...).

Anyway, so I took the liberty to pick another song from the top 10 to see what the common German crowd is enjoying these days. And if we - as no regular listeners to German radio - look at number 9, we are immediately stunned by the pairing that seems to desperately home in on the money here: Bushido and Karel Gott.

What the...?

Bushido is a German-Tunisian... sigh... let's call him "rapper", who has seen quite some success in the past years. Based on listening to some of his songs, I would describe him as someone who shows off big balls, spits out his lines in an accusingly second-generation-alien slang and has the to be expected "controversial" lyrics. Yawn.

And Karel Gott?
Man! He sang Biene Maja! How does this fit together?



Better than what I would have expected.
It does not speak for me, that I took a while to realize the chorus is taken from Alphaville's Forever Young (and how more obvious could it have been?!). I then found out that Karel Gott has covered this song already some time ago.

Hum. Speaking of retirement money.
Actually, while I find Gott's version alone quite repelling, the combination of his German chorus with Bushido's... sigh... "rap" benefits the performance.

Oh - that does not mean that I think this is a good tune.
The whole thing drags on like gum that sticks between your hands and though I understand there is some depth in the lyrics from Bushido who was raised without a father and maybe just dug out Karel Gott to do his mom a favor...

Junge, mach doch mal was Schönes
für Deine alte Mutter...

... this heartbreaking benefit of the doubt cannot conceal that this is only a rather mediocre work, somewhere between Kate Perry mainstream and well meaning but yet trivial Musikantenstadl wisdom.

2 smart comments:

Bernhard said...

Wow. Beeindruckend schlecht.
...

Pascal: "Wieso ist das schlecht? Ist doch ein tolles Lied!"

Patzi said...

Hm, also so generell ist die Mischung nicht schlecht. Wenn es nicht grad Karel Goot und Alphavilles Titel waere.