Burchardt & Jonkmanns Sounds of Hamburg - Die Musik der Stadt: 1960–2020

(2021 Alf Burchardt & Bernd Jonkmanns) German, Hardcover, 296 pages

In the beginning there was Bert Kaempfert, the inventor of easy listening. But soon it got louder, more boisterous - that's when the sixties really took off with the beat on the Kiez, from the Rattles to the Rivets. Followed by the colorful seventies, the scene around the Onkel Pö and Udo Lindenberg. Followed by the Punks, by Abwärts, by Slime, then by the Neutöners like Xmal Deutschland and Palais Schaumburg. And on through the smooth Jeremy Days to the hip-hop of Fettes Brot and the Absolute Beginners.

At all times, the varieties of pop from Great Britain and the USA found an echo in Hamburg studios, practice basements and bedrooms. Just as exciting, however, was what musicians from the Hanseatic city came up with: Tomorrow's Gift in the Krautrock era or bands like Blumfeld, Die Sterne and Tocotronic, who launched an entire movement with the Hamburg School. Not to forget the chamber pop of JaKönigJa and the indefatigable Goldene Zitronen, the big band Die Meute and the rapper Haiyti. Sounds of Hamburg roams through six decades of music history, shows the most important records of each year and tells about them.