5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The german Schlager in general and Udo in particular, April 30, 2001
This review is from: Aber Bitte Mit Sahne II (Audio CD)
I'm Swiss, 42 years old and mainly a 70's Rock fan. Concerning modern music there were just two inputs from my parents side. In 1976 my father to everybody's surprise started to listen to Barry White, whom I've come to appreciate myself. More recently I heard my mother play an Udo Juergens cassette. (By the way if she's right then contrary to his claim of 66 Udo is about 70 years old - she remembers fancying him as a young girl in Vienna when, about the same age, he just started his career). In any case, he is still going strong. Udo Juergens is what Germans call a "Schlagersaenger". As opposed to other languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish,..) this term has a somewhat negative connotation in German speaking countries. I suppose these are some reasons: Germans (at least the older folks) tend to draw a line between serious music (e.g. classic) and inferior popular music (Unterhaltungsmusik). Furthermore, I believe it i s in fact more difficult to sing popular music in German because it's harder to find rhymes that make sense. Or maybe German speaking folks are just genetically less musical than other peoples. All the Schlagersaenger that I know of sound cheesy (schmalzig) more often than singers of another tongue. Fortunately a couple of them get it right every now and then. Let me mention Alexandra, Daliah Lavi, Peter Maffay, and of course Udo Juergens.
As to the latter, the two compilations "Aber bitte mit Sahne" I and II really minimize the Schmalz and offer some great tunes. My favorites on II are Lieb Vaterland, Traumschiff, Rot blueht der Mohn, Liebe ohne Leiden. I hate to admit it but occasionally the melodies almost (not quite - whence only 4 stars) measure up to the best of the Beatles, Moody Blues, or YES.
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