ZDF: Documentary “Partyschlager”: Chart storm thanks to Shitstorm

There is little in human interaction that is more easily exposed than blatant hypocrisy. In mid-2022, for example, the Ballermann poet Schürze sang about a brothel mother named Layla who was “more beautiful, younger, hotter” to DJ Robin’s fairground techno. That was neither subtle nor particularly emancipated. Above all, it was only moderately successful – until the West German bourgeoisie chose the disposable song as an evergreen of their own hypocrisy.

Three cover stories from “Bild” and countless RTL reports, 30 weeks of hit parades in a row, with a good 143 million streams and downloads: Without the excitement of many vigilantes and even more despisers of virtue, says Schürze in the ZDF media library, his sexism would have been comparatively muted Schunkellied barely stayed at number 1 for two and a half months. But “the more people wanted to ban it,” says Michael Müller, as he is called on the ID card, “the more people took direct countermeasures.” So load it, listen to it and shout along.

Chart storm thanks to Shitstorm: the, well, artist even gets academic support for this theory. In the three-part documentary “Partyschlager,” Professor Gregor Herzberg, lecturer in popular music at the University of Regensburg, talks about a “proxy war” that the majority society is waging against its cultural margins. A piece like “Layla” only serves as an outlet for the general disdain for the title song of Maria Burges’ series, which is well worth seeing.

If you don’t know “party hits” at all: these are folk songs from Helene Fischer to Roland Kaiser with a highly accelerated extra charge of Sex’n’Alk’n’Ballermann. A cultural phenomenon. But above all a business one. Although absolutely every Malle song is about the same thing (usually one thing) with 119 to 125 beats per minute in four-four time, beer tent legends like Ikke Hipgold, Isa Glück or Micky Krause make a fool of themselves with it.

The ten top hits by top earners alone have an incredible 758 million Spotify views with minimal production costs. Plus merchandising, licensed sales and 2,500 festivals from the Mecklenburg Schützenhaus to the Schalke Arena. The total annual turnover adds up to half a billion euros. Thanks to raunchy lyrics that, according to Matthias Distel, should be “so light at three per mille” that “even the heaviest person on the playa” could sing along to them. He has to know.

“I have to bring in sales for the organizer, nothing more and nothing less.”

Lorenz Buffalopop singer

Distel’s label Summerfield not only produces misogynistic marching music a la “Layla”, but also his alter ego Ikke Hipgold – an artificial figure with a shag wig to whom Germany’s schnapps distilleries probably erect altars, so much does she encourage toxic alcohol abuse by uninhibited, mostly young guys. All right, but also a bit cheap for a 135-minute milieu study in search of socio-cultural insight.

That’s why Maria Burges delves deeper into the field of lucrative after-me-the-deluge hymns and discovers something surprising. The “first colored party hit artist in the industry since Roberto Blanco,” as Malin Mensah, aka Malin Brown, describes herself. Or her colleague Nancy Franck, who brings it into the upper salary brackets with party bangers without drinking, where Stefan Scheichel-Gieren, nom de plume Lorenz Büffel, admits astonishingly openly: “I have to bring in sales for the organizer, nothing more and nothing less.”

These clear words give “party hits” veracity in an industry that otherwise has very little to do with authenticity and that is precisely why it is profitable. Still. Because in the third part, which is appropriately called “more beautiful, younger, hotter,” the profiteers speak Tacheles. “The zenith has been reached,” says Ikke Hipgold and explains it with “maybe another three million in sales,” which he will make in 2024 “with a tour and 164 appearances.” Since even young talent is now demanding four-figure salaries per appearance, a market that has been “completely inflated since Layla” will clear up. On the one hand.

On the other hand, the first episode, “Good Mood Hits from the Assembly Line,” teaches us a lot about the price-performance ratio in the Ballermann biz. Every spring, between après-ski and El Arenal, Distel’s label invites 30 manufacturers and performers to the alpine hut to produce 100 party hits in no time. Sounds daring, but it’s realistic. After all, everyone sounds exactly like the next, anything but prettier, younger, hotter. But variable enough for the (no longer just male) regular clientele of 15 and 35 with 1.5 to 3.5 per mille in their blood. Or as scene star Isa Glück would sing: “Life is a party, dabdadadab.”

Available in the ZDF media library