Jawohl, this month there are no less than three German acts in the top 10 of the Music Moves Europe Artist chart.
Famous for beer and sausages, Boney M and Kraftwerk, and in more modern musical times for Robin Schulz, Milky Chance, Alice Merton, Felix Jaehn and Au/Ra, the German music scene has to be taken into account. Besides three top 10 acts, there are five more German acts in the top 100, which is – as always – dominated by the UK with 43 entries.
But let’s focus on the Germans. At #6 we find high rising young singer Zoe Wees from Hamburg, whose piano ballad Control (Caroline) stretches out all over Europe. She has been suffering from epilepsy, and she wrote this song to thank her music teacher, who always helped her through hard times. At #9 singer-songwriter Eli (or Elias Leon Breit in full) from Cologne had his breakthrough when his song Change Your Mind (Prime) was picked for a telecom commercial. Now he’s popular in Finland and Slovenia too. And at #10, German hip hop artist Apache 207 is famous for his John Lennon sunglasses. Despite rapping in German, the artist from Ludwigshafen is not limited to the German-speaking countries: in Denmark and Poland, he has fans too for songs like Roller (Sony). Especially in streaming hip hop is popular: the current weekly streaming chart shows German acts are catching the zeitgeist with 17 German songs in the top 50, most of them representing the hip hop genre.
Other German artists currently in the Music Moves Europe Artist chart are pop singer Ilira at #12, rapper Mero at #23, alternative pop singer Bülow at #62 and rapper Pashanim at #69. And we welcome a German new entry at #96 by rapper Jamule, who has Spanish-Lebanese roots. His self-released songs like Fastlane are crossing over to Luxembourg.
The highest of four other new entries this month is by Italian singer Elenoir at #70. Her arty but poppy song Wrong Party (Warner) crosses over to Germany and Poland. Alex Kapranos, well-known as the singer of the British rock band Franz Ferdinand, enters with his solo career at #89. He made a duet with French chanteuse Clara Luciani called Summer Wine (Domino), which is a cover of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood. It gets airplay all over Europe. At #97 British studio project, Sault comes in through airplay everywhere for their self-released soulful track Wildfires, which was inspired by the Black Lives Matters movement. And finally, at #98 we find the groovy pop of Belgian model turned singer Claire Laffut. With songs like Nude (Universal) she gets airplay in France, Spain and Italy. And she makes quite something different than German schlager or krautrock…
Author: Menno Visser
Music journalist and radio professional from The Netherlands
