2023-09-26 00:51:00
The former female half of Rosenstolz talks about her solo album, the return under her own name and the remnants of the hormone-charged lyrics of yesteryear
pop.
Anna R., the voice of Rosenstolz, is back! Her solo debut album “König:in” was released on Friday, and on Saturday, September 30th, she will perform with her band at the Zwickau concert and ballroom “Neue Welt”.
Free Press: Anna R., you are releasing your first solo album after three remarkable decades of career. The signs point to success. Their fall tour is sold out, even though no one has been able to hear the entire record yet. Do you react differently at 53 than at 20 when your music is so valued?
Anna R.: Even at a young age, I didn’t go crazy because my ego doesn’t do somersaults because of 500 LPs sold. We started with these numbers at Rosenstolz. Every year more people came to our concerts, and almost every new album was more well received than the previous one. That was a healthy development, the songs got better, the popularity increased.
Freie Presse: And then in 2006 you came across the long-playing record “The Big Life,” which sold one and a half million copies and is an all-time German pop classic. Was the Rosenstolz story already told despite two more follow-up albums?
Anna R.: We started in 1991 with no claim to success, but with plenty of enthusiasm, and 20 years later we gracefully put our project on ice. We really felt like we couldn’t add another chapter to it.
Free Press: Does it occasionally get annoying to be asked about Rosenstolz again and again?
Anna R.: Just ask Paul McCartney what he thinks about the Beatles! What should I do? Rosenstolz is an important part of my artistic life, but only one of it. As long as I’m not reduced to this time, I can live with being “the singer of”.
Free Press: Should “König:in” correct this perception?
Anna R.: I don’t care about that, I always felt most comfortable as part of a band. Since the last band project Gleis 8 slipped out of the hands of everyone involved for various reasons, the thing now bears my stage name.
Free Press: “Das Ding” is more experimental and broader in terms of groove management and instrumentation than Rosenstolz and Gleis 8. But the bottom line is that it remains pop music. Isn’t it any different for you?
Anna R.: I’ll always accidentally play pop music, even though in my private life I prefer chanson, folk and jazz. I’ll probably remain a pop mouse for the rest of my life. Driving myself away from this cloud doesn’t make sense. That would end in convulsions.
Free Press: Speaking of cramp. Since the last Gleis 8 album, the socio-political structure around the globe has literally changed radically. Warmongers and inhumane figures seem to want to create a spider web of social poison around the earth. Can pop still be created with the same ease today as it was ten years ago when you first started with Gleis 8?
Anna R.: Of course, I also find it more difficult to have trust. It also takes a lot of courage for me to do nonsense these days. Everything seems to be going down the drain. Can you still be relaxed under these circumstances? I think you can, but there’s no real nonsense on my new album.
Free Press: Instead, with two highly political songs, you refute the theory circulating among pop fans that there are supposedly no more pop protest songs. In the song “Not mine” you pick apart the creepy, backward-looking ideas of nationalist-oriented sloganeers piece by piece to a danceable groove. Were you not warned about such clear statements by the makers of the ever-successful whore pop music business?
Anna R.: No, such warnings wouldn’t help either. In my opinion, musical art should never aim to please everyone. I don’t understand what slogans are supposed to bring us. All those who contradict the polarizing poltergeists of our time are supposedly traitors. But what are we revealing? Identities that are long outdated? We are citizens of this world and everyone is human, no matter where they come from. That’s all that matters to me.
Free Press: The pleas for charity and healthy self-respect are unmistakable on “König:in”. Are your texts shaped by your social antenna or more by your life experiences?
Anna R.: Probably an equal amount of both. In my lyrics I enter into dialogue with my listeners and ultimately also with myself. Especially in view of the current socio-political climate, there is something healing about being able to write songs. On the other hand, I sometimes feel anxious about returning to the public eye under my own name.
Free Press: Because of the attack surfaces that you offer social media users with your songs?
Anna R.: No, I simply lack the support that Peter Plate or my boys from Platform 8 and I used to give each other.
Free Press: Interesting aspect. She is still perceived as a strong, self-determined woman on whose shoulders even tall boys can find support. Does your self-perception look different?
Anna R.: Naturally. I am as vulnerable as any other person. There are days when I would like to pull the blanket over my head again as soon as I get up. In the end, however, my optimism almost always wins out. I still remain self-critical, because nothing is more unhealthy in the company of people than self-righteousness. The relaxed tone in the dialogue is still more music than harsh shouting.
Free Press: Is the gender title “king” a slap against the patriarchy?
Anna R.: The title is tongue in cheek. With every gender spelling, the man still comes before the asterisk and colon. I don’t understand what this has to do with emancipation. Are you writing this conversation for readers?
Free press: In the best case scenario for both.
Anna R.: Can you see it! The social malaise of the past cannot be reversed either through gendering or through so-called “feminist foreign policy”. I enjoy my femininity, but am often puzzled by the signs of emancipation of our time. We move from one symbolic political moment to the next and forget the important togetherness. Every man can also be a “king”.
Free Press: Is life one of the hardest?
Anna R.: Allegedly. Coming to terms with yourself takes time. I find it dangerous to project your own problems onto other people. Look at Trump, Putin or the so-called “lateral thinker scene”: others are always to blame for your own misery. You could describe their machinations as follows: Welcome, polarization! Everyone’s life can take place according to their own ideas and at their own pace. This in no way contradicts coexistence.
Free Press: “Even if it’s not perfect, it couldn’t be more beautiful,” they sing in the song “The Astronaut”. Is it liberating to know that no one can own the absolute?
Anna R.: In any case. Everyone can and may be both a queen and a beggar. Nobody is perfect and despite all their flaws, somehow perfect because each of us has flaws.
Free Press: What happened to the sex that you regularly discussed during the Rosenstolz era?
Anna R.: Age, age! At 20, both girls and boys are extremely sexualized. The firm breasts, the muscles, the skin: everything is supposedly or actually fantastic. I have lived out my desire and am coping well with the fact that a lot of things are no longer where they once physically belonged. It’s somewhere else now.
Free Press: Would you have been able to convey the sensual depth that characterizes your voice today when you were 25?
Anna R.: Thanks for the compliment, my voice has certainly become more rounded. But finding myself sensual? I’m not that vain. |lomi
To person Andrea Neuenhofen alias Anna R. was born on December 25, 1969 as Andrea Rosenbaum in the East Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where she now lives with her husband, the MTV producer Nilo Neuenhofen. She failed the entrance exam at the Friedrichshain music school during the GDR era with a song by Whitney Houston, but continued to take private singing lessons alongside her job as a chemical laboratory assistant. In 1990 she met Peter Plate, with whom she founded the duo Rosenstolz the following year. It reached number 1 in the German and Austrian album charts several times between 2000 and 2011.
After Rosenstolz disbanded in December 2012, she co-founded the currently inactive but not dissolved band Gleis 8 in 2013 and appeared as a singer with the band Silly.
More reading comfort even when you’re on the move E-paper and news in one app Push notifications throughout the day
No thanks. Continue in this view.
#Anna #interview #Königin #Gender #doesnt #stuffiness #Free #press