Jazz Ist Anders

If you’re into hardcore and / or punk and you’re of a certain age, there’s almost a 100% guarantee that Die Ärzte (aus Berlin) were a gateway band for you. They’ve been around for more than 40 years by now, which in itself is incredible. Usually people drop off at some point during their catalogue, but I’m still on board. Every album, including the newer ones, has a couple of songs I really like. I’m also a big fan on them re-releasing all of their post-reunion records, which were usually one-time pressings on vinyl and since have become extremely pricey. 

Jazz Ist Anders was originally released in 2007 and I managed to get a copy. Actually, there were two versions: a regular version and an economy version. The economy version, the one I had back then, was (and is) a stripped down version, so the artwork looks cheaper, the cover itself is flimsier and even the lyric sheet doesn’t provide the real lyrics. If you zoom in on the picture, you can see that the lyrics are pure gibberish. You have to be a fan of that kind of humour, which obliviously I am. 

Anyway, like I said, I managed to get a copy of the economy version back then, but a few years later I decided to give this record to the younger brother of my then girlfriend. He’d shown interest in punk in general and in this band in particular, so I gave him the records as a gift. As you might have guessed, my then girlfriend became my ex-girlfriend eventually and I never saw her, her brother or the record again. Oh, well. As the saying goes “time heals all wounds”, or in this case “time fixes every hole in your record collection”. 

13

Another puzzle piece to the LP collection of the greatest band on earth (in their own words). 13 finally received a repress and I was finally able to grab this record for a fair price. For some reason I don’t think about this album all that often and whenever I do, I tend to low-rate it. However, when I do listen to it, I‘m always reminded that there are so many songs on this album that I really like. They went for 2x10“ again, which was also the format of the original lease 25 years ago. I really wish there was an interview with the band explaining why they love the 10“ format for records so much. 

Die Bestie in Menschengestalt

Generally there are two ways people got into hardcore: either through metal or through punk. And if you got into hardcore through punk in Germany in the 80s or in the 90s, like me, chances are pretty high that you listened to  and fell in love with Die Ärzte at one point. Their early records pre-break up were usually pretty silly in hindsight, but after their reunion in the early 90s, they also had more serious songs. Die Bestie in Menschengestalt was released in 1993 and was their first LP after the reunion. One of the reasons why the band decided to get back together again was the political situation in the early 90s after the German reunification, which included a rise in right-wing ideology/neo-nazism and burning homes for refugees and asylum seekers. Those years are affectionately called the “baseball bat years“, so you can imagine what it was like. 30 years gone by and we’re back to that. As a consequence, many songs were a lot more serious and one of their biggest hits until today, Schrei nach Liebe, was also included on this album. It‘s such a major bummer that this album could have been released just this year and many lyrical topics would still be fitting. 

I knew Schrei nach Liebe because it got a lot of airplay on MTV back then, but I didn‘t listen to the full album until much later. My real entry point for the self-proclaimed best band in the world was their next record. 

Anyway, all of their records from the 90s were extremely hard to get for a very long time and if they became available, you had to pay at least an arm and a couple of toes to afford one. So I‘m really glad the band decided to repress that part of their catalogue.