It is, upon occasion, the privilege of the humble music reviewer to introduce his or her audience to an artist they have almost certainly never heard of, because said artist hails from some god forsaken place like Germany, that dastardly nation responsible for spawning two world wars (and even worse!) my second ex-wife, who is a kind of one-person world war and against whom I hold a grudge because she won’t let me see our Chihuahua Rudi, who loathes everyone and everything and holds the world’s record for nonstop barking at 12 hours, 43 minutes, and 17 seconds.
Oh, I know that plenty of German bands have successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean to our shores. Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Trio, Scorpions, Rammstein, Tangerine Dream—the list goes on and on. (See Boney M., who many credit as one of Hitler’s much-vaunted vengeance weapons.) But singer/songwriter Rio Reiser is not amongst their ranks, and that’s too bad. Part of Reiser’s problem was that he was a pop rocker and sometimes folk musician, and such individuals have never broken through to an American audience. What’s more, he sang in German and his approach was frequently sentimental. Finally, his music varied widely in style from folk to pop to new wave to protopunk, making him a tough artist to put a label on.
This is exemplified on 1986’s Rio I., the first album Reiser recorded after leaving the similarly obscure but great Ton Steine Scherben, which aligned itself with West Germany’s squatter scene, as well as its student and labor movements. Ton Steine Scherben’s radical activities translated into mass popularity but no money, and dire financial straits were one of the reasons Reiser left the band, leading to accusations that he was a money-grubbing sellout. It’s true that Reiser’s highly successful debut album put him in the black, financially speaking, but it also happens to be, for many of the German youth who grew up listening to him, a sacred document. My ex- may have had a Kurt Cobain poster on her bedroom wall, but it was to Reiser she turned most often, for such songs as “Junimond” and the great “König Von Deutschland” (“King of Germany”).
Rio I. is a mixed bag; its opening tracks, “Alles Lüge” and “Lass Uns Das Ding Drehn,” are truly dreadful new wave (hate that ’80s drumming, hate it!) and subtly Calypso-flavored pap respectively, although Reiser almost manages to win you over on the former tune with his impassioned vocals. But I say almost, and it’s not until you get to the stately and slow “Für Immer Und Dich” that you realize that this guy was possessed of real genius, and that the title König Von Deutschland was appropriate. As for “Menschenfresser” (or “Ogre” in English), it falls somewhere in the middle. It reeks of new wave, but the chorus is cool, and while I could do without it, it doesn’t cause me to want to shove C-4 into my eardrums and detonate it the way the album’s first two tracks do.
As for “Junimond,” it’s impossibly lovely in a melancholy way, and Rio I. is worth listening to for it alone. It may be the song Reiser is best remembered for, and that’s appropriate, because while there’s no doubt it’s sentimental so is Elton John’s “Your Song,” and I’ll go bare-knuckles against anyone who questions its brilliance. And it’s followed by “König Von Deutschland,” which is a rocker but not of the sort Americans are accustomed to hearing, and it takes a while for you to realize that the song is tre-fucking-mendous, thanks mainly to Reiser’s great vocals and one hell of a melody.
“Lass Mich Los” is a funky number and translates well to American ears, what with its cool guitar riff and horns. It too is a bit too new wave for my tastes, but I still like it, just as I like the slower “So Allein,” on which Reiser keeps things simple as he does on “Junimond.” It’s a lovely little number, slow and poignant-sounding, and so humble in spirit you may almost forget that you’re loving it. “Ich Leb Doch” is a full-on synthpop number with staggered drumming and a big synthesizer sound, but Reiser pulls it off with his impassioned vocals, turning a song I would love to hate into one I hate to love. Meanwhile, closer “Bei Nacht” is an atmospheric number with a nice soft/loud dynamic, and wins me over with its midnight vibe and the way the song bursts into life about two minutes in, with Reiser crying out the title like he means it. Nice.
Reiser died unexpectedly in 1996 at the young age of 46, and his loss, whether you want to call him a folk rocker or a protopunk or whatever, was treated in Germany as a tragedy, which it was. The shock may not have equaled that of the suicide of Kurt Cobain, but German youth mourned the loss of the King of Germany, and I mourn his loss as well. His was an uneven body of work, but songs like “Junimond” and “König Von Deutschland” will continue to be listened to by plenty of Germans who have never heard of Neu! or Can. As for my ex-wife, she’s not really a one-person World War. She’s more like a one-person U-boat attack. As for my Chihuahua Rudi, however, he’s even worse than I painted him in the opening paragraph. He’s… a monster. Imagine, if you will, Hitler with a tail.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B
