Pop column: news from Gzuz, Kiefer Sutherland and the Lumineers – culture

Singing actors: very dangerous territory. You can do that, picked out rather randomly, for example with Kevin Costner see. Costner has a band called Modern West, whose style we now want to call dusty country, just for fun. Kevin Costner has a problem: his music is often referred to as country. And he thinks that’s mean: “We just made the mistake of using the word ‘West’ in the band name,” he once explained. So people would “automatically think it’s country. And our record company hasn’t done anything about it so far, because in this industry you just tend to give someone a short paraphrase (…) Which isn’t fair to us”.

That’s right. His band actually plays country rock. About as convincing as his explanation of why people think it’s country. In fact, it’s more like this: Modern West’s music is so faceless, dull, and rigid in expression that it’s as if Costner were playing it in one of his films. It goes without saying that the listener’s brain reaches for everything it can get in a kind of synesthetic cry for help in order to orient itself. So Wyatt Earp. And the movie with the wolf and the buffalo. And boom: country. That’s how it works. After a concert in Munich, Costner once gave his fans autographs. Fine move. one thought. Star to touch. one thought. Close to the people. one thought. Of course: country. Then you looked closer and found a sign that said Kevin Costner and the band would love to sign posters. Cost: 40 euros. Per poster.

How did you get there now? Oh, right: the actor Kiefer Sutherland will release an album on Friday. Sutherland has a legendary guitar collection – and for the best of reasons. He has, he once said in an interview on American television, a lot of friends who were excellent but, for a while, suitably poor musicians. They therefore lacked instruments, which is why the actor, who was less financially afflicted at the time, helped out with hardware. on loan. Then at some point the musicians made good money themselves and gave the stuff back. So Sutherland suddenly had an impressive collection – but still individual places in the stands. “It became an addiction from there.” There were whispers of many hundreds of guitars of quite enormous value. In the meantime he is said to have reduced the collection to a level that he can also play in an average year. He’s done it again and recorded “Bloor Street” (Cooking Vinyl/Indigo) in the process. Hardly country. More like rock music. Whiskey glasses (emptied) and cigarettes (smoked) in the lyrics. A little pop in the production. And otherwise in the overall impression, well, well… oh, is that so important? Sutherland seems to be a fine fellow in and of itself. One song is called “So Full of Love”: “I’m so full of love I can’t hold it down / Floatin’ like a balloon off the ground / I once was lost but now I’m found / Momma, you turn me right around.” The music is just about as sophisticated as this quatrain.

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the Lumineers once reduced the concept of the Manufactum-blessed singer-songwriter shambles to the absolute purest, finest essence with their really, really big hit “Ho Hey”. The band from Denver, Colorado, makes music, which one can also say with love, that can also play quite well in the background without attracting attention. And now this strange effect: Suddenly her new album “Brightside” (Universal Music) pushes itself into consciousness again and again while it’s going on. Forces to wallow. Or just tilting your head as if looking at a particularly beautiful mountain panorama. And when you look, you realize: Oh, “AM Radio” again. Ah, Big Shot again. So they might seem like good, catchy songs. Even by the way. That’s a lot.

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Also gzuz has a new album. It’s called “Grosse Freiheit” (187 Strassenbande), which is of course a reference to the Reeperbahn on the one hand, but also a bit of irony on the other. It’s not entirely unlikely that the rapper will soon have to go back to prison. Drug possession, gun violations and assault are up for debate this time – all while he was on probation. The first appeal hearing was on Monday. Rough line of defense there: The judge from the first round did not understand that Gzuz and Kristoffer Jonas Klauß (his real name) are not one and the same person. Rather, Gzuz is an artificial figure and his “rough texts” are art. So these lines from the song “Montag” might not come in handy: “Tear it open or shit on it / Too much pressure on the chewing bars / I wouldn’t record it while I was fucking / I wouldn’t be called Kristoffer Klauß.”

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