Era of the political chansonnier is over

Three old school chansonniers died in November, the German singer Franz Josef Degenhardt and the two Austrians Georg Kreisler and Ludwig Hirsch. New bands with political content may be springing up but the era of the committed political singer song-writer is over, writes the liberal-conservative daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "The texts have changed, they sound more like one-man start-up companies, and musically many things have evolved as well because ever since bands like 'Ton Steine Scherben' rock music has had political overtones. German political songs are just as elegiac as rap, reggae or ska. Their melodious and rhythmic elements predominate and what listeners focus on could be just to dance along. What's more, political song-writing is no longer a purely leftist domain. Today Degenhardt's song about 'Wolves in mid-May', which came out in 1965 in reaction to the rise of the [extreme right] NPD, would have to make reference to the murderers of the 'national socialist underground' and compete with extreme-right punk rock. And it wouldn't be enough just to change the lyrics. The songs would have to sound different to be up to date."

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