Hamburg School (thing) by PeterPan

The Hamburg School is a music style from Germany, which started in the late 80s. Some of you may know the Frankfurt School, a group of Marxist philosophers. The Hamburg School has some parallels: just like the Frankfurt School, it wanted to overcome a stagnation; it was limited to one city (though both influenced the whole republic). The major difference is that the Hamburg School dealt with music. The Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave (has nothing to do with Dark Wave)) left the German music scene at its bottom: German music drifted between non-mattering "intact world" music and dumb hard rock (The Scorpions, etc.).

The best known bands of the Hamburg School are certainly Die Sterne, (The Stars), and the 1994 founded Tocotronic. Both made German-sung rock music popular again in the whole country. But in 1994 the Hamburg School was already coming to its end. Besides these both bands (and Blumfeld) no one had major success. But more dramatically was, that despite some success, they did not achieve what they wanted: to make intellectual German music more popular. Still, US-American- and Euro Trash-music dictated the German music market. This knowledge accelerated the death of the Hamburg School. But the three major bands of the Hamburg School are still around, but far less successful than during the Golden Years, 1994-1997.

But let's go back a few years, to the founding of the Hamburg School. 1986 Carol v. Rautenkranz and Pascal Fuhlbrügge wanted to counteract against the stagnation. So they made quarterly concerts in Hamburg-Altona. These concerts led to the foundation of the label L`Age D`Or in 1988. The first released record was a single by Kolossale Jugend. Bands like Blumfeld, Huah!, Ostzonensuppenwürfelmachenkrebs (Eastzone-Stock cubes make cancer), Die Sterne, Goldene Zitronen or Tocotronic followed.

As a conclusion of my writeup I'll give you the lyrics of one of Tocotronic's songs "Ich bin neu in der Hamburger Schule" (I am new at the Hamburg School):