However, this is a twist to popular songs that were already hits in Nigeria. "Until then," he says, "we're just bubbling under the surface.In February this year, in Nigeria, the NotJustOk team with the help of some music scene toppers and the masses in the entertainment industry in Nigeria came up with the top 20 songs of 2015 . Some, such as Schoenauer, believe it never will yet Ertl is just waiting for that certain something, a spark that will put Austria on the map. "Listeners have a certain trust in the filter FM4 has and the music we introduce them to." Existing somewhere between 6Music and Zane Lowe (but with a more principled, socially conscious outlook – interesting considering the rise of the far right in Vienna), their devotion to new music is not only tenacious but impressively diverse, with genres such as dubstep and UK funky all getting a spin alongside the expected run of indie-pop and Austrian acts such as Soap&Skin, Kreisky and the more recent Ja, Panik and Ginga – all of whom owe their record deals to its early support.įM4 or not though, it's uncertain whether Austria's movement will ever really gain the cultural recognition it craves. "I've definitely noticed that we've changed the listening habits of the people of Austria," says FM4's head of production, Matthias Schoenauer.
ALTERNATE SOUND HIP HOP HOW TO
In fact, it's been suggested that FM4's creation in 1995 was so significant that it helped shape the current generation of Austria's music-loving youth who grew up with it – before then there was no radio station supporting exciting new music that, as Ertl points out, people didn't even know how to dance to. Broadcast via ORF (Austrian Broadcasting, the equivalent of the BBC), FM4 is Austria's only alternative radio station and its influence is incredible – effectively propping up alternative music to the extent where its listeners don't consider themselves fans of indie music, but "FM4 music". "But it doesn't matter any more, the youth are detached and making their own culture. "It's a strange and conservative popular culture," says Ertl. With its chart inherently linked with Germany, imports from the UK and America, not to mention the power of Eurovision, Austria's most notable pop moment still remains Falco's 1986 international hit, Rock Me Amadeus. Also, apart from a rare internet-fuelled No 1 last year for Austria's first hip-hop group, Trackshittaz (yes, as in "they shit tracks"), pop music doesn't seem to have fared any better. Nobody wants to take risks."Īustrian alternative music currently survives on an infrastructure of small labels and independent clubs, with collaborations and crossovers between rock, hip-hop and electronica being the trending modus operandi, but not one that's made any sort of impact yet. "Our Viennese high culture is world famous and brilliant," he continues, "but it eats all the money so we can't develop anything else or move forward.
They don't support or recognise party culture." With 90% of the state's art budget going towards high culture (or "dead culture", as one gig-goer labelled it), it appears to be an attitude echoed on a national scale – something perhaps unsurprising seeing as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is capable of playing to more than 100,000 people in a single night. "The most heated argument," according to Ertl, "is that Springfestival and electronic art and music are not 'cultural' enough to get greater funding – that people are not sitting like in classical concerts. It's one of a kind in Austria and as the alternative movement steadily grows so does its popularity – yet not among Graz's local government, who don't "like or support it", with little funding dripping though.
Lasting four days and spanning an array of extraordinary venues (one of which, the enormous Dom im Berg, was a carved out "rave cave" previously used as an air-raid shelter during the second world war), Springfestival expands upon a vibrant, carefree club scene with a lineup including – among hundreds of others – acts such as Caribou, Hercules and Love Affair, and Austrian trip-hop veterans Sofa Surfers.
0 kommentar(er)
