Deutscher Rock: American Music Influence in Germany

1. Deutscher Rock: American Music Influence in Germany By Steven Ortiz aka Stefan

2. Introduction • Usually when people think of German or German language music they think of classical music and German Operas; and musicians like Luwig von Beethoven, Richard Wagner, and Johann Sebastian Bach. From the 16th century German speaking composers have been very prominent in classical music and operas, even having their reputation known around the world. Today however the German people are becoming well known around the world for an entirely new form of music, a form of music originating from the new world, the United States of America. In the 21st century rock and rap/hip hop are the most popular music among the youth around the world, invading many countries and in turn its people create music in their own language modeled after rock and rap. One of these countries is the European country of German, home to the metal rock band Rammstein who is growing popularity all over the world including the birthplace of rock the United States. But this cultural evolution did not occur overnight, it all started with jazz in Nazi Germany, the use of jazz and rock in the soundtrack of movies, the development of German Rock, the politics of American music in Germany and the invasion of rap music.

3. In The Beginning There Was Jazz • Jazz music was the first originally and distinctively American music style besides the fact that it has its root in ragtime, a style of music that had influences from the harmonic and formal patterns of European marches. Those elements mixed with the syncopated rhythms from African-American banjo music found mostly in southern cities and included traits from West African and African influenced Latin American music. • Even though jazz has so many characteristics from so many foreign musical styles most historians agree that it is a natively American style, which also spawned many other subtypes of jazz and other genres of music. • Most of these different subtypes of jazz began to spread to other parts of the world particularly in Europe, especially the subtype of jazz called swing music in the 1930’s.

4. Nazis and Jazz Don’t Mix • One tactic the Nazi Party used to was to control the youth in Germany so that they can grow up learning the socialist ideology and would be able to join the party, the SA, or the SS when they become older. Youth organizations were formed by the Nazi Party, one called the Hitler Jungend (Hitler Youth) for boys 14 to 17 years old; another was the Nazi controlled League of German Girls. However the Nazi Party soon discovered that some of the efforts to control the youth was being hampered by the free spirited attitude of swing music which was brought into German via Great Britain. It didn’t take long for the Nazi Party to realize the counter effect that swing music is having on young Germans, Party also believes that the jazz music scene in Germany is teaching them individuality and sexual permissiveness which is the opposite of Nazi principles.

5. Hitler Declares War on Swing Music • The dictator of Germany Adolf Hitler passed a law banning the sale or performance of swing music, anyone discovered listening to the music is arrested; their records and related objects like record players are confiscated and destroyed. • In spite of the Nazi’s attempts to destroy swing music clubs in the German big cities, underground swing clubs are rampant throughout Germany.

6. A Cultureless Nation • Another problem with the rise of the Nazi Party was the fleeing of most of the nation’s local cultural idols, in the fields of arts, literature, science and music; which Germany was very prominent in classical music. So when World War Two ended and the Nazi Party fell it left a cultural vacuum, since swing music and jazz was already popular in Germany they filled the void. In addition to jazz, a kind of American music filled the void in Germany’s musical scene called rock ‘n’ roll which started to take the world by storm in about 1955.

7. Jazz Spawns Rock ‘N’ Roll • Emerging from a style of jazz known as rhythm and blues (R&B) and was mixed with the vocal styling of doo wop, piano blues style of boogie woogie and a country music style known as honky tonk, this new style is called rock ‘n’ roll.

8. Movies spread Jazz and Rock Even More • The movie industry was also responsible for the spread and popularity of American jazz and rock music throughout Germany, by replacing the folk music in film soundtracks with that of American music, films like Hier bin ich-hier bleib ich. Also American films that made their way to Germany assisted the spread of rock ‘n’ roll, films like Blackboard Jungle that featured “Rock around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets and the movie named Don’t knock the rock.

9. Not All Germans Are Rock Friendly • Even though American music was being accepted by the youth in Germany, not everyone was happy about the Americanization of German culture • In West Germany, the older generation had mixed feels about the United States; they wanted their youth to learn about democracy from the Americans. The older Germans also liked the American’s superior technology, economic achievements and standard of living; but the Germans considered Americans culturally inferior because of their lack of high culture • The East German government knew that if American culture leaked into the east it could possibly wear down the communist government’s power over the East German people.

10. The 1987 Rock Riot of East German • during the 1987 Berlin birthday celebration the West Berliners invited a British rock was performing near the Brandenburg Gate near the wall. The celebration went on for three days and the rock band played each night, on each night young East Germans met as close to the wall as possible to try to listen in on the British rock band increasing in number on each night. Until finally on the third night about anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 East German youths attempted to get close to the wall ended up clashing with East German border security marking the first act of violence between police and civilians in ten years before. During the riot the East Germans were reported by the West German media to be chanting “the wall must go” over and over again.

11. Germans Finally Make Some of Their Own Rock • In the early 1970’s experimental rock bands started to appear in Germany in an attempt to counter the post World War Two cultural vacuum and they were inclined to reject the American music that filled the cultural void to create their own new German culture. This musical movement was starting to be called Krautrock, at first the name was coined by the British as derogatory term taken from the slang word for German people “kraut” which is the German dish of pickled cabbage. Krautrock included new bands like “Neu”, “Kraftwerk”, “Tangerine Dream”, “Faust” and “Cluster”; all bands that specialized in the new electronic music form of rock.

12. MTV and Hip Hop: The 80’s in a Nutshell • The United States of America would become the birthplace of one more type of music that will again change the international music scene spreading the world like wildfire. In the mid 1970’s a new genre of rhythm and blues music that is made of rhythmic vocal over musical accompaniment that first originated from the South Bronx, New York, this music is called rap or hip hop. A rapper and a disc jockey (DJ) are what are at least needed to make up a rap group; however rap groups of two or more rappers are not uncommon where they alternate completing lines or verses for one another in a seamless pattern. • A new cable channel called Music Television (MTV for short) spread rapidly throughout the United States in the early 80’s and eventually started in Europe, in France and Belgium at first, but now Germany has its own MTV network.

13. How Heidelburg Got Hit by Hip Hop Hard • Due to MTV and the use of satellite technology Germany and the rest of Europe can experience changes in trends from the United States almost instantaneously. Because of this rapid exposure of Germany to American music, rap music hits Germany fast and hard especially in the city of Heidelberg. • It won’t be until 1992 when Germany formed its very first rap group called Die Fantastischen Vier, with the first German rap hit named “Die Da?!”.

14. Germany is Really Big On Hip Hop • Since then Germany has produced some of the most famous German speaking rap groups, groups like Rodelhiem Hartreim Projekt a gangster rap influenced Mid 1990’s group and Advanced Chemistry from Heidelburg known for their multicultural and politically centered songs. • Today German is the fourth largest producer of rap and hip hop music after the United States, Great Britain and France.

15. Works Cited • Alter, Nora M. and Koepnick, Lutz. Sound Matters: essays on the acoustics of modern German culture. New York, New York. 2004. 25-26. • "American Music". Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 2005. http://encarta.msn.com 1997-2005 Microsoft Corporation. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564872/American_Music.html • “German Hip Hop”. Answers.com. Jan. 1999. Answers On-line Encyclopedia. Mar. 2005. http://www.answers.com/List%20of%20German%20hip%20hop • “German Rock”. Answers.com. Jan. 1999. Answers On-line Encyclopedia. Mar. 2005. <http://www.answers.com/List%20of%20German%20rock> • “List of German Hip Hop Artists”. Answers.com. Jan. 1999. Answers On-line Encyclopedia. Mar. 2005. <http://www.answers.com/List%20of%20German%20hip%20hop%20musicians> • Wagnleitner, Reinhold and May, Elaine T. Here, There and Everywhere: the foreign politics of American music. Hanover, New Hampshire. 2000. 192-215.