If you are from France or the German speaking countries you might have heard of Andreas Dorau. He was in the German charts in 1981 with a NDW song (also released in the UK) and in 1996 he made it into the French charts with Girls in Love.
Well, this week he finally made his wish come true and made it into the German album charts (#56), for the first time, with his album “Die Liebe und der Ärger der Anderen”. One of the songs, “Du stehst auf meiner Liste”, even features a pencil, paper, and erasing.
Congratulations!
PS: If you don’t know the songs, they both have a sad ending. In the 1981 song “Fred vom Jupiter” the womanising alien has to fly back to Jupiter because all the earth men are jealous and the 1996 song “Girls i Love” has an even sadder ending.
PPS: eSyringe has a series of videos of Andreas Dorau live in Tokyo.
Wow, thanks for that! I am still a big fan of Andreas Dorau’s album “70 Minuten Musik ungeklärter Herkunft”.
Andreas Dorau, here of all places!
My favourite radio stations here in Berlin do play his rather weird stuff regularly so I have been treated to his works over the years and always liked it.
Thanks for posting these videos!
Thank you for your comments. I’m gobsmacked. I did expect some readers of the post might have heard of him or remember him from the early 80s but I didn’t expect there’d be anyone who’s a fan or actively likes him. Great!
Michael, I listened to “70 Minuten” on Spotify in the past. I should listen again. I found out about this new album when Andreas Dorau was on a Radio Eins (rbb) radio show with Stereo Total’s Françoise Cactus (I am a Stereo Total fan).
Julie, oh, that’s great. I don’t think they play his songs very often in Bavaria, where I am originally from, which is a shame.
Am I the only one who is not only unfamiliar with Andreas Dorau, but for a split second, thought we were going to read about pencils from the Andrea Doria?
Andrea Doria pencils, that would be a good fit with your blog post about Concorde pencils.
I think he’s mainly known for his 1981 NDW** song, so unless you are at least in your forties and from a German speaking country or from France it’s unlikely you’d know him. I certainly didn’t expect any comments on this blog post – and certainly not comments like Michael’s and Julie’s.
My big question now is what you think of the two songs form the videos.
** NDW = Neue Deutsche Welle, extremely(!) simplified: it’s a music style from the 80s, lots of synth pop, but also rock and (I think) the idea that everyone can make music. Nena’s 99 red balloons song is an NDW song.
Hmm, it does evoke a certain time period. I’m a little more familiar with a band like Kraftwerk, and even came across Einstürzende Neubauten for a short time. Alphaville were probably the most visible German pop band I knew of in the U.S. (though they sang in English). My vague recollection was that Nena became more popular here once the English version of her song was released.
Then there was all that Falco business from Austria… 🙂
I think many people count Nena and Falco as NDW music.
I thought the German version of 99 red balloons is the popular one in the USA (here in the UK the popular version is the English one), because I spotted the German version in more than one American movie and TV series.
I didn’t realise Falco made it to the USA, but now that you mentioned it, I remember ‘Amadeus’ being mentioned in a Simpsons episode, it was (some sort of Amadeus / PLanet of the Apes crossover).