The first tapes I bought (in the early eighties at the age of ten) were Sigue Sigue Sputnik (which I still like), Wham!, Depeche Mode and ofcourse Nena. I sold the Wham! and Depeche Mode tapes shortly after I purchased them, because it seemed that those tapes where produced especialy for girls, and I at the age of ten needed more manly music.
Some would say Nena isn't very manly music, but I only listend to a few tracks. My favourite track was "Im Land der Elefanten" ("in the land of the elephants"), yesterday I downloaded it and listend to it the first time since almost 20 years. IT WAS HORRIBLE !!! The lyrics: ...you can hear the drums, but you will never know what elephant eyes see, you can hear the VODOO drums, but you will never know what elephant eyes see.
The Nena tape survived maybe one year, my little brother, at the age of maybe three or four pulled out the ribbon. Shortly after the Nena incident, I got hold of the only tape I still posses today: Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill. A bit latter, maybe at the age of thirteen I found LPs and the holy grail of music: german heavy metal (whimps and poseurs leave the hall!!!). I grew up in a very little town were only two types of music existed: True music (aka Heavy Metal and Hard Rock) and stuff poor lost souls were calling "pop". My favourite german Heavy Metal bands where ACCEPT, RUNNING WILD and HELLOWEEN, but also (of course) IRON MAIDEN and MANOWAR. Manowar was known for its "great lyrics": Manowar, Manowar, living on the road, when other bands play, MANOWAR KILLS. On the Hard Rock side: AC/DC and Guns N` Roses' If you're interested in obscure german music, try out "Running Wild" they play Pirate Metal, Cowboy Metal and Fantasy Metal but mostly Pirate Metal. Pirate Metal means that the songs usually have a pirate theme, good example is their song "Under Joly Roger"
At the end of the 80th, hardcore arrived in our little village and I became a fan of Suicidal Tendencies. At the age of 14 I once entered my room and saw all those Manowar posters pinned at my wall (next to the Iron Maiden flag) and I was thinking, that at I am defenetly to old for LPs and posters from Manowar and I taered down all the Manowar posters (I kept the Iron Maiden flag for a bit longer).
It dawned to me, that there must be more to music than long haired men in tight spandex trousers.
In the early 90th Grunge started. Like everone else I was wearing checkered shirts but except everyone else I didn't liked Nirvana.
In 1992 (then 17 years old) I felt a bit lost (musically), because I didn't liked Heavy Metal anymore and I didn't like Grunge :-( . But then suddenly bands like Rage against the mashine apeared and I was thinking "holly shit !!!". But very soon I became bored by Crossover. After that came my "dark" stage. I never wore those helloween like gothic clothing but for a few years I listend to bands like Projekt Pitchfork and Deine Lakaien.
During the late 90th I moved to Heidelberg and later to Mannheim, small towns but towns with much more CD shops and music magzines, this and the rise of the internet in 1995 introduced me to millions of "musics" I never dreamed of as a teenager.
Why this outbreak of nostalgia ?
Everytime I have to go to the "Einwohnermeldeamt" (Citizen Registration Office) I see a very badly done graffiti, it says "there is no ending of history". Each time I see this graffitiI start to laugh, because there is a german song called "Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei" (Everything has an end, but the sausage has two) by Stefan Remmler (member of Trio). A couple of days while downloading stupid german songs I realised, that I actually never heared that sausage song. I listend to an excerpt at Remmlers homepage and as you can guess it's awfull. But aren't suasages awfull too? Sausages are the most surreal food there is. Sausage is very strange to me, just think how they are made: a gut stuffed with meat and sometimes even blood. But I have to confess, as strange sausages are to me, i still eat them from time to time. While thinking of how surreal sausages are, I started earching for surreal wurst/sausage pictures and there are lots of them:
i laughed my ass off