Music of Germany
Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, singers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world.[1]
"German song" redirects here. For the No Money Enterprise song, see German (song).
German classical music is one of the most performed in the world; German composers include some of the most accomplished and popular in history, among them Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss were among the composers who created the field of German opera. The most popular living German composer is probably film score composer Hans Zimmer.
German popular music of the 20th and 21st century includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle (Nena, Hubert Kah, Alphaville), disco (Boney M., Modern Talking, Dschinghis Khan, Milli Vanilli, Bad Boys Blue), metal/rock (Rammstein, Scorpions, Accept, Helloween), punk (Die Ärzte, Böhse Onkelz, Nina Hagen, Die Toten Hosen), pop rock (Sandra, Enigma, Michael Cretu, Herbert Grönemeyer) and indie (Tocotronic). Famous female singers were Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard Knef. German electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream being pioneer groups in this genre.[2][3] The electro and techno scene is internationally popular, namely due to the DJs Paul van Dyk, Scooter and Cascada.
Germany hosts many large rock music festivals. The Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festival is among the largest in the world. Since around 1990, the new-old German capital Berlin has developed a diverse music and entertainment industry.
Popular music from East Germany[edit]
Ostrock [edit]
By the early 1970s, experimental West German rock styles had crossed the border into East Germany and influenced the creation of an East German rock movement referred to as Ostrock. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, these bands tended to be stylistically more conservative than in the West, to have more reserved engineering, and often to include more classical and traditional structures (such as those developed by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in their 1920s Berlin theater songs). These groups often featured poetic lyrics loaded with indirect double-meanings and deeply philosophical challenges to the status quo. As such, they were a style of Krautrock. The best-known of these bands were The Puhdys, Karat, City, Stern-Combo Meißen and Silly.
Only a few individual songs, such as "Am Fenster" by City and "Über sieben Brücken mußt Du geh'n" by Karat, found wide popularity outside the GDR. There was also a wide diversity of underground bands. Out of this scene later grew the internationally successful band Rammstein (see Neue Deutsche Härte below).