“Layla” and other party songs that grew up on Mallorca stormed the charts this year. 2022 was the year of Ballermann hits. We ask ourselves: why?
Tingeltangel in shorts: Julian Sommer, pop singer, sings in the Club Alpenmax in Göttingen.dpa / Sina Schuldt
The first long party weekend of 2022 on Playa de Palma at the end of April: On Thursday, DJ Robin, 26, will be playing “Layla” for the first time at Bierkönig. The song doesn’t really catch fire. One evening later, however, the party people go crazy, want the song non-stop and bawl along loudly.
“That was the moment when we knew, ‘Oops, we’ve got a hit,'” the DJ recalled that moment eight months later. The Ballermann year 2022 goes down in German chart history after a two-year Corona break. On Friday, the investigators of GfK Entertainment’s “Official German Charts” voted “Layla” the number one single in the annual charts. The song is officially the “Hit of the Year”.
“We haven’t been able to party like we used to for two years. There were also two vintages that had never really been celebrated because they weren’t allowed to during the pandemic and were too young before,” says Robin Leutner. Due to the party frenzy of the Ballermann fans, Mallorca music got a bigger platform. “That’s a good thing. We just have the right to be taken as seriously as other music that’s on the charts.”
Sexist on Ballermann
While the hit stars in the top 100 in 2021 were still Helene Fischer, Kerstin Ott and Giovanni Zarrella, Julian Sommer (“Dicht im Flieger”, 39th place in the annual charts) and the Zipfelbuben feat. DJ Cashi (“Olivia”, number 61 in the annual charts) for big hits. The beer captain (“Lea”) also celebrated successes. The Flippers experienced a surprising comeback with their older song “Wir Say Thank You”, which was played up and down at Ballermann, Schützenfest and fairs.
But his romantic, soppy line of text “Love is when you kiss tenderly” tends to be the exception. After all, the Ballermann is more hearty, quite a few say: sexist. “The whole store knows you. From the head to the calves,” says “Olivia” about a woman who likes to switch partners. Stripper “Lea” is praised with: “She has such beautiful cheeks, an ass to crack nuts. Brutal rump. Great, great, great.”
The sexism debate of the year, however, was caused by the song by singer Schürze and DJ Robin about the puff mama Layla (“She is more beautiful, younger, horny”), which stayed at number one for nine weeks in the summer, certainly fueled by the ban some (few) folk festivals.
“We would like to thank you again very much for having the debate at all, which from our point of view was absolutely unjustified,” says DJ Robin. “But of course she gave us even more attention and made the song even bigger than it already was.” Producer Ikke Hipgold also made sure of this with cleverly staged PR campaigns like “Free Layla”.
The musicologist Marina Forell from the University of Leipzig would have preferred a more in-depth debate about sexism at parties, detached from the lyrics of the song. “If a sexist song is okay for many people when partying, what does that say about the party atmosphere for women, for example? Do you feel safe?” Musically, the expert certifies “Layla” as an extremely catchy text. “It’s also produced in a modern way, which doesn’t sound as cheap as some Ballermann songs.”
A completely different life
The success of the party music has also had an impact on the shortage of skilled workers in Germany: the 24-year-old newcomer Julian Sommer has resigned from his job at a car dealership. And “Layla” singer Schürze, whose real name is Michael Müller, no longer works as an electrician.
“It’s a completely different life. You wake up at the times you used to sleep and you spend half the weekend on the autobahn,” says the 32-year-old Swabian about his new everyday life. He put most of the income into an account to later finance a house. In winter, both “Layla” makers want to take things a little easier despite après-ski. The coming year is almost completely planned for this. Still, Schürze doesn’t really know what awaits him in 2023. “We now have to see how long the hype lasts, whether we can stay up there or even get bigger.” (dpa)