Rock – Strider’s Web

NENA: 99 Luftballons and Other Tunes

From the first time I heard NENA’s amazing 1983 song 99 Luftballons I was riveted to the power and beauty of her voice and song! When I heard it again a half dozen months later in English I liked it even more, because the lyrics were telling a story that needed to be told. She didn’t slow down for a minute from then to 1987, at which point the band sadly imploded. She returned as a solo artist in 1989, with the second stage of her career going full tilt until 1997. She has had the full support of her original band members the whole time, including her ex, for both live and studio events. Not something many rock stars can say in that same situation.

After some film work and time to raise here family, she returned to the music scene with new tunes around 2005; during the between time she did manage to release a bunch of live albums. She kicked off the third stage of her music career with the 2 CD set of original music Would you like to go with me followed by a 2 CD collection of covers of some of her favorite music called, appropriately enough Cover Me. I particularly like that one of the covers was the most important song from Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, called Helden in German, Heroes in English. After that she seems to have been releasing around an album of original music each year.

Then came the pandemic. She had few shows last year, and this year she has a handful of tour dates scheduled, 2 major festivals per month ending in September. Starting in March of 2022 she will return in force, with what seems to be 2 concerts scheduled for every 3 days for the whole rest of the year. With lots of other bands following the same pattern, this has become the New Normal.

It was easy to pick the first tune to include here, since it chose itself: 99 Luftballons. This version was posted from a live tour performance from 2018, as was the 2nd track, Willst Du Mit Mir Gehn. For the third one I went with Licht; Enjoy!

Mylène Farmer: Déshabillez-moi, Sans Contrefaçon

Mylène Farmer is not just a world class singer, she also has some of the best choreography ever seen on stage, and her music videos have always been cinema grade. That last is no surprise to anyone, considering she was an actress before she got into music, and her long running collaboration with filmmaker Laurent Boutonnat for those videos. I am including two of her tracks, Déshabillez-moi, and Sans Contrefaçon, but you can find more on her official web site, and on her You Tube Channel. For those who don’t happen to speak French but still want to follow along with the songs, you can turn on Closed Captioning and select Auto Translate if the CC is not already in English.

Crimson Apple

Crimson Apple is a band from Hawaii (now based in LA) made up of 4 sisters and sometimes a friend or two, who have cranked out some excellent music. The first song is Run Along, the second is called Hello, the third is One Time, and they finish up with the track Replace This Heartbeat, all from their Hi Sessions episode. Hi Sessions brings Hawaii’s best music to the world from their studios which appear to be located most of the way up on the side of a volcano. They write their own original music, but they have also posted some great covers of One OK Rock songs which are well worth watching.

The Baseballs

The Baseballs are a German Rockabilly band with attitude, and if you are not already familiar with them you should be! They already have a huge library of music to their credit, and I can’t wait to see what they do next. The first track here is Umbrella, the second is Chasing Cars, the third is Hot N Cold, and the 4th is Candy Shop. Sadly, I can’t seem to find a Baseballs video to embed that is anything like a currently acceptable video quality, but perhaps that was a deliberate attempt to invoke those classic days. Or perhaps everyone in Germany watches their music on cell phones only, which would work with these. However low rez the video is, the music remains world class!

Guano Apes

The German band Guano Apes got together in 1994 and they have been creating solid rock music ever since, with the occasional break. The first track is Close To The Sun from their new album Offline, the second is 2014’s Fake, released on the same album. The final song is Sandra Nasic singing Fever, possibly from a solo project. I love that one of their several Best Of albums has the title Planet of the Apes. The band broke up in 2005, but when they got back together in 2009 they were reborn, releasing more music each year than ever before, lots of it climbing the charts, some of it making it to number 1.