Genre of popular music
"Schlager" redirects here. For the "Schlager" duelling sword, see
Academic fencing
.
Schlager
|
---|
Stylistic origins
| Original
Subsequent:
|
---|
Cultural origins
| 1950s, West Germany,
[1]
East Germany and Austria
|
---|
|
Dansband
|
|
|
|
Music of Germany
|
Schlager
(
German:
[??laː??]
, "
hit(s)
")
[2]
is a style of European
popular music
and
radio format
generally defined by catchy instrumental accompaniments to vocal pieces of pop music with simple, easygoing, and often sentimental lyrics.
Schlager tracks are typically light
pop
tunes or sweet,
sentimental ballads
with simple, catchy melodies. Their
lyrics
typically center on love, relationships, and feelings. The northern variant of schlager (notably in Finland) has taken elements from Finnic, Nordic, Slavic, and Eastern European
folk songs
, with lyrics tending toward
melancholic
and
elegiac
themes. Musically, schlager bears similarities to styles such as
easy listening
.
[
citation needed
]
The style has been frequently represented at the
Eurovision Song Contest
and has been popular since the contest began in 1956,
[2]
though it is gradually being replaced by other pop music styles.
Etymology
[
edit
]
Schlager
is a loanword from German (from
schlagen
, "to hit"). It also came into some other languages (such as
Bulgarian
,
Danish
,
Norwegian
,
Swedish
,
Dutch
,
Czech
,
Finnish
,
Hungarian
,
Lithuanian
,
Latvian
,
Estonian
,
Serbian
,
Turkish
,
Russian
,
[3]
Hebrew
, and
Romanian
,
[4]
for example), where it retained its meaning of a "(musical) hit".
Central Europe
[
edit
]
The roots of German schlager are old. Originally, the word meant a hit or a strike. The first use of the word applied to music, in its original meaning, was in an opening night critique in the newspaper
Wiener Fremden-Blatt
on 17 February 1867 about
The Blue Danube
by
Johann Strauss II
.
[5]
One ancestor of schlager music in its current meaning may be the operetta, which was highly popular in the early 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, the
Comedian Harmonists
and
Rudi Schuricke
laid the foundations for this new music.
[6]
Well-known schlager singers of the 1950s and early 1960s include
Lale Andersen
,
Freddy Quinn
,
Ivo Robi?
, Gerhard Wendland,
Caterina Valente
,
Margot Eskens
and
Conny Froboess
. Schlager reached a peak of popularity in Germany and Austria in the 1960s (featuring
Peter Alexander
and
Roy Black
) and the early 1970s. From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, schlager also saw an extensive revival in Germany by, for example,
Guildo Horn
,
[2]
Dieter Thomas Kuhn
,
Michelle
, and
Petra Perle
.
Dance clubs
would play a stretch of schlager titles during the course of an evening, and numerous new bands were formed specialising in 1970s schlager
cover versions
and newer material.
Some Germans view schlager as their country music, and American country and Tex-Mex music are both major elements in schlager culture. ("
Is This the Way to Amarillo
" is regularly played in schlager contexts, usually in the English-language original.)
Popular schlager singers include
Michael Holm
,
Roland Kaiser
,
Hansi Hinterseer
,
Jurgen Drews
,
Andrea Berg
,
Heintje Simons
,
Helene Fischer
,
Nicole
,
Claudia Jung
,
Andrea Jurgens
,
Michelle
,
Kristina Bach
,
Marianne Rosenberg
,
Simone Stelzer
,
Daniela Alfinito
,
Semino Rossi
,
Vicky Leandros
,
Leonard
,
DJ Otzi
,
Andreas Gabalier
and more recently,
Beatrice Egli
.
[7]
In
Hamburg
in the 2010s, Schlager fans still gathered annually by the hundreds of thousands,
[8]
dressing in 1970s clothing for street
parades
called "Schlager Move". The Schlager Move designation is also used for a number of smaller schlager music parties in several major German cities throughout the year.
[9]
(This revival is sometimes associated with
kitsch
and
camp
.)
Stylistically, schlager continues to influence German "party pop" or "party-schlager" (e.g. "
Layla
", 2022):
[10]
that is, music most often heard in
apres-ski
bars and
Majorcan
mass
discos
. In the English-speaking world, the most popular group to have included elements of schlager in their style is probably
ABBA
, a band that mixed traditional Swedish music, schlager, and pop-rock to create their own sound.
[11]
Finland
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Creekmur, Corey K., and Linda Y. Mokdad. The International Film Musical. Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
- ^
a
b
c
Raykoff, Ivan; Deam Tobin, Robert (2007).
A Song for Europe: Popular Music and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest
. London England and Burlington, Vt. US: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 37?58.
ISBN
9780754658795
.
- ^
Шлягер (Shlyager)
in the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
, 1969?1978 (in Russian)
- ^
"Dexonline"
.
Dexonline.ro
. Retrieved
8 July
2018
.
- ^
Norbert Linke:
Musik erobert die Welt. Wie die Wiener Familie Strauß die ?Unterhaltungsmusik“ revolutionierte
. Herold, Wien 1987,
ISBN
3-7008-0361-3
, S. 204.
- ^
Alsmann, Gotz (8 May 2008).
"Der Schlager hat sich selbst entmannt"
.
Der Spiegel
(in German)
. Retrieved
26 September
2015
.
- ^
Entry at Schlagerguide,
(in German)
- ^
"
"Schlagermove" - Atlantic Alliance"
.
Archive.today
. 21 July 2012. Archived from
the original
on 21 July 2012
. Retrieved
20 November
2018
.
- ^
"Schlagermove - Home"
.
Schlagermove.de
. Retrieved
8 July
2018
.
- ^
Koch, Tanit; mattwithers (27 July 2022).
"Germansplaining: The song of the silly season"
.
The New European
. Retrieved
10 October
2022
.
- ^
Harrison, A., "
Why are ABBA so popular?
,"
BBC Online
, 21 October 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2022.
External links
[
edit
]
- Media related to
Schlager
at Wikimedia Commons
|
---|
Stylistic origins
| |
---|
Styles
| |
---|
Regional variants
| Africa
| |
---|
The Americas
| |
---|
Asia
| |
---|
Europe
| |
---|
|
---|
Related topics
| |
---|