What were you doing in 1991? If you were old enough to know what was going on in the music scene in Germany, you probably heard U96 and their single “Das Boot”. The song is a techno version of the theme song from the 1982 movie Das Boot, which was also the inspiration for the group’s name, and soon became a big hit in Germany. If you haven’t heard “Das Boot” before, check out the video below.

U96 - “Das Boot” video

U96 was joined in the early 90s by other European groups in creating what became known as the Eurodance genre. This is the time period where electronic music really became less experimental and more danceable and mainstream. Among U96’s famous German counterparts in this movement were La Bouche and Culture Beat, which you can relive once again below.

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Atari Teenage Riot was a highly political anarchist and anti-fascist band that was the first to mix punk and techno in a style that later became known as digital hardcore. They gained extensive popularity during the 90s until they split up in 2000. Since then, band founder Alec Empire has been producing albums under his own name, most recently The Golden Foretaste of Heaven, while other band members have been hard at work with other projects as well.

Now, for the first time, a collection of videos by Atari Teenage Riot, Alec Empire, and former ATR band members Hanin Elias and Nic Endo will be available together on a DVD. It’s called Sixteen Years of Video Material and it was released back on Friday, May 30th. They have produced some pretty crazy videos, so I’d recommend it if you like their music.

Of course, if you don’t know what ATR sounds like, you can listen to some of their music on the ATR MySpace page. Don’t forget to check out Alec Empire’s MySpace page while you’re at it. Then you can order both the regular version and limited editions (which comes with a t-shirt, a poster, stickers and more) of the DVD via the Atari Teenage Riot website.

Check out the banned video for Atari Teenage Riot’s song “Revolution Action” below.

Download the new Donots single for free

It’s becoming increasingly popular among bands to give away some of their music for free in exchange for a list of your friends’ email addresses. By doing this, a band amplifies the reach of their music so more people get to listen to it and it also helps them get in contact with more potential fans, so it seems like a win-win situation. We discovered Daloco’s incredible blues-rock album Mama Ist Entzückt this way and it proved to be pretty popular among readers. Now you can get the new Donots single “Stop The Clocks” this way, too. Will it prove to be just as popular?

Just head over to their e-card, type in some of your friends’ emails, and listen away. Sure, this is just a single, not an entire album, but by filling in the Donots e-card, you’ll also be entered to win tickets to one of 2 festivals the band will be playing at later in the year, a meet-and-greet with the band, and a voucher for the Donots Shop worth 100 Euros. Good luck, and as usual, let us know what you think in the comments.

Scooter ousts Madonna from the top of the UK album chart

The latest Scooter album Jumping All Over The World, which was originally released in Germany and several other countries in 2007, was just released on May 5th in the UK. It was the act’s first album release in the UK since 2003’s The Stadium Techno Experience, but they probably would have released more there if they had known how popular they would be with the Brits. Jumping All Over The World soared to the #1 spot on the UK album chart, surpassing even the “queen of pop” Madonna and her album Hard Candy. You can read the complete BBC article here. Thanks to Nadja for the tip.

Tour calendar finally created

I finally made a tour calendar for German bands that are coming to North America. It includes all bands that have already toured here so far in 2008 (including Ellen Allien which I just found out about, a few days too late) and plenty more that have yet to arrive. Check it out now, and check back often for updates. I hope you’ll find this helpful.