Customer Reviews

Spider Murphy Gang - Greatest Hits

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First of all: Excuse me, I'm German (so much about my bad English). Furhtermore I think I don`t agree with my predecessor in the first review: The Spider Murphy Gang (SMG) has nothing in common with all other bands of the Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW, translatet it is something like New German Wave).

It is true that SMG had their greatest hits during the time of NDW. But that was simply coincident. They come from Munich and were local heroes even before NDW got popular. The release of their first album "Rock 'n Roll Schuah" (Rock `n Roll Shoe) showed what they really are: Nothing but a Rock `n Roll Band.

Unfortunately their greatest hits "Skandal Im Sperrbezirk" and "Schickeria" topped the charts right in the peak of NDW and in the same way their popularity rose with NDW their fame faded with NDW disapearing.

However, the rest of greatest hits ist simply Rock `n Roll. And it`s good! There are covered songs like "Sch-Bum ('S Leb'n Is Wiar A Traum" and "Autostop" and their own tracks like "Rock'n Roll Schuah", "Mir San A Bayrische Band" (We Are A Bavarian Band) and "Pfueati Gott Elisabeth" (Bye Bye Elisabeth). These are their real hits everyone is waiting for in their famous concerts. So I have a final advice: Buy it, enjoy it and ask bavarians if you really want to know what their texts do mean.

While I have not purchased this album I am familiar with most of its songs. I agree, SMG (taken from a line of Elvis Presley's song "Jailhouse Rock") is a Rock 'n Roll band. Their sound is nothing like New Wave. I remember listening to them when I worked in Germany over 20 years ago (yikes, it has been that long) and remember their cover of the classic Rock 'n Roll song from the 50's, "School Days", which I believe was titled in Bayerisch as "Schui Tog". This song showed that they were indeed a Rock 'n Roll band. I look forward to my purchase of this album as it is indeed close to what I would have included in a "Best Of" album.

For starters, I'm an American but I've lived in Bavaria for about 30 years now. This is the cream of European Rock and Roll. It's music that in many ways rolls back the clock to the good days of Elvis Presley, to the juke box era when Chuck Berry sang "give me some of that rock and roll music," or when Buddy Holly was singing "Maybe Baby." One reviewer said that this is the New German Wave (neue deutsche Welle) music of the 1980s. Actually, it bears no resemblance to NDW at all. It's pure, primitive rock and roll that's a 100% match for anything that we ever had stateside. The Spider Murphy Gang started its career making rock music for U.S. soldiers in the GI clubs here, singing in English. After that, they hit the clubs in Munich, singing not in German but in Munich's own variation of Bavarian dialect. Will you understand anything on this CD? If you don't understand German, absolutely not. If you know schoolbook German, you'll get a few things here and there. If you understand Munich dialect (Mir san z'Minga!), you're on the train. This is the best of the Spider Murphy Gang that Amazon USA has to offer, but it's the second best that there is. If you want the Spider Murphy Gang at its very finest, skip the CD, go to amazon.de here in Germany and order the DVD Bavarian Broadcasting did in 2007 of the band's 30th anniversary concert in Circus Krone in Munich. You'll never make a better purchase if you're a fan of real rock and roll!