Die Deutschen sind verrückt

Ah, such a dichotomy. I love the music. However, I think most of the lyrics are pretty silly. Fortunately for me, I'm able to ignore lyrical content pretty easily, as long as the tune in question isn't a sappy love song.

Let's start with Atari Teenage Riot's music. The band calls its particular brand of noise "digital hardcore," but it is so much more than that. Abrasive. Destructive. Innovative. Intelligent. The future of rock'n'roll. I absolutely love the way the music is put together. Samples from far-flung places (e.g. heavy metal, punk rock, political speeches, video games, cartoons) are brought together to create an amalgamation dripping with energy and brilliance. They seem to be quite meticulous in the composition of the music; they are definitely not slackers relying on a mere three chord inventory. This is what happens when a bunch of kids who are anarcho-punks at heart get into techno, become disillusioned with techno, but instead of turning their backs on it, try to kick it up a few notches. And musically, they succeed.

Politically, the band can be likened to Crass, if they were taken to a whole new level for the proverbial new millennium. Unfortunately, like Crass, many of the lyrics seem to stoop to trite sloganeering at worst, and are simply uncreative at best. (Hmm, now that I think of it, that isn't being very fair to Crass...) They take their beliefs and hit you over the head with them, with long strings of exclamation points trailing behind. They just don't do a good job of blending politics and poetry; their lyrics, quite simply, are artless. I would like to be charitable and attribute the poor lyrical quality to the fact that English is not their first language, but for some reason I don't think that's the case.

Okay, I must end this now. I hope this review was coherent, but I wrote it at work in the midst of trying to figure out a new computer program, dealing with other people bugging me, and having to listen to a co-worker blast the local pop music radio station at a very high volume. Ack!