Mailaf kenn ich gar nicht, nur Olaf

Hidden in the depths of my 9000 song iPod shuffle there’s a selection of the best Deep Dance CDs. Most of these mixes date themselves quite convincingly – and the music is cheap and fluffy dancefloor techno, which will never earn anybody a spot in the music hall of fame. But in my late teen phase these CDs were my some of my most priced posessions, and when I’m in a good mood I listen to whatever mix comes on. Especially if it’s one of the yearly summery mixes, because those are a fun (and often depressing) reminder of what music was hip in Germany in the early 90s. Most of the songs are crap, but ever so often I’m reminded of a song that everybody loved back then and that became a pervasive part of German pop culture.

So yesterday the 1991 mix came on, and here’s the one song that I was pleasantly reminded of when listening:

Frighteningly bad performance, isn’t it? (Psst, I don’t think they’re really singing!) But the song was quite a phenonemon when it came out, and exactly the kind of stuff that we, as teenagers, would latch on to. Plus Diether Krebs, the late great comedian from Essen, deserves a special mention on this webpage. I can’t think of many other comics who have left their mark on German comedy as prominently as Diether Krebs. Think of him as a German Benny Hill – but with a serious acting career to go along with the slapstick. Krebs died of lung cancer (ironically enough, “Krebs” is the German word for cancer) when he was only 53 years old. He leaves many iconic characters of German TV history. And of course this, “Ne Pikfloete!”