Do you realise what a shit-storm you have provoked? (grin).

So, it comes as no surprise that the Germans were no good at pop music in the 1960s – no one had written the manual.

It’s a good thing for Earth that the 1960s Doctor Who aliens didn’t invade Berlin instead of London. The Doctor had a hard enough time getting the British authorities’ cooperation; dealing with the German central-planning ethic would have been worse.

(I’ve been watching the series from the very beginning – just getting into the early Pertwee serials. The Internet is a wonderful thing.)

Of course with such a large population, the Germans can afford to be parochial and only serve the German market, which is why they have this phenomenon of the “Schlager” as well as the “Volksmusik” stuff which involves lederhosen and sometimes Roger Whittaker. It is also the reason why I have to watch badly dubbed films on the telly all the time.

The Germans themselves are quite an irrational folk (e.g. their reaction to nuclear power). They are good at planning things and executing them, but their Officials’ thinking is often completely counter-intuitive ( some laws and regulations are totally arse-about-face). Over the last 20-30 years they have fallen into the thrall of the business graduate, which is one reason why the banks are so dangerously exposed and why they have all but abandoned large-scale IT and communications production.

I always stick music into two categories, technically progressive and traditional. When Tom Jones was making traditional music Steve Reich was making progressive music. Something that has never been done before, a new sound. Its not to say either is better.

My point being until about 82 music was electric, after that it went electronic, hip hop, acid house, techno, drum and bass, grime dubstep etc. All that music owes a heavy debt to German music although the artists might not know it themselves. The last great electric wave of music punk, was also heavily influenced by German Rock. Also selling German Music (Faust etc) to the UK was how a certain Mr Branson become rich

Definitely worth reading up on if you interested in musicology.

Germany produced a lot of solid bands as part of the Neu-Deutche Welle in the early ’80s. Germany was seen as cool to the UK indie scene of the late ’80s – having a German girl singer (a la Andrea Heukamp of the The House of Love) was a definite plus.

If I can count the Swiss add the Young Gods.

Peter

Goddard was American and Whittle was British – and like the rest of the continent the Germans would still be catholic if not for catholicism’s enemy no. 1 – England.

There are lots of other reasons why Germany is different – the most obvious being the general level of education. Another thing the Germans more or less invested was so called “Standard Software” of which SAP is the biggest name. This was based on there being the “right” way of doing business, and SAP was supposed to embody that (none of that making it up as you go along stuff). I have always been amazed at the degree of agreement across German businesses about the language they use to describe for example the various level of contribution to fixed costs. In the UK you will find it is pretty much company specific (we include these costs, and exclude these costs etc); in Germany it’s all been defined, and that’s in part what you learn when studying business at a university.