Our European readers are probably more or less familiar with the format, but for everyone else, do you happen to know what the Eurovision song contest is? It’s an annual, Europe-wide search for the best performer in the whole of Europe - although here the best performer means the cheesiest and kitschiest goddamn pop artist you can find on our continent. Just about all the performances in the contests are beyond horrible, gimmicky eurotechno or pop groups, that are comparable to in-your-face insults to some music lovers and cringe-inducing, hilarious and boombastic comedy spectacles to others. For some reason, this show enjoys huge popularity and significant audience, so much that it’s even aired outside Europe and has spawned numerous spin-offs in other parts of the world. Anyways, after all the artists, one from each participating country, have presented their song in some huge stadium in the country where the contest is held this time, points are awarded according to the votes of the audience (conducted via SMS), and it all concludes in a wild, apocalyptic celebration of the winner who’ll go on to sell tens of millions of records all over the place. But what’s this got anything to do with German music anyone seriously cares about?

Well, the biggest single music event in Germany, Bundesvision Song Contest 2009 is right around the corner. On the 13th of February, a total of sixteen bands from each of the German states (Bundesländer) compete against each other for glory and fame in Metropolis-Halle in Potsdam. In execution, the contest is identical to Eurovision, and it also got its start when the German musician, entertainer and an all-around celebrity Stefan Raab held a contest to find the contestant for Germany’s 2004 Eurovision song contest. He then became bored with the insanity of Eurovision, and decided to devise a Germany-only competition of his own in 2005. However, that’s where the similarities thankfully end. The greatest difference is that just about all of BuViSoCo’s contestants are really good, proper artists who one might very well listen to without seeming risible. For example, germaniac favourites like Subway to Sally, OOMPH! and In Extremo have participated in the show. In other words, it’s an actual music competition rather than a celebration of everything that’s wrong with pop music, like it’s completely bananas big brother Eurovision.

This year, www.germaniac.com is set out to cover every single one of those sixteen bands entering the competition. In the next couple of weeks, you can look forward to seeing introductions to all of the artists and their songs, and of course ways for you to listen to them and where to buy their records. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a lot of great music and even new favourites from such a large selection of music from all around the country. So, don’t forget to tune in! We should have our first post up in a few days or so. But before that, here’s a list of the contestants:

BUNDESVISION SONG CONTEST 2009 ENTRIES
Baden-Württemberg: Cassandra Steen
Bavaria: Claudia Koreck
Berlin: Peter Fox
Brandenburg: Sven van Thom
Bremen: Flowin Immo et les Freaqz
Hamburg: Olli Schulz
Hesse: Fräulein Wunder
Lower Saxony: Fotos
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern: Marteria
North Rhine-Westphalia: Rage
Rhineland-Palatinate: Pascal Finkenauer
Saarland: P:lot
Saxony: Polarkreis 18
Saxony-Anhalt: Angelas Park
Schleswig-Holstein: Ruben Cossani
Thuringia: Chapeau Claque

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Festivus… Whatever you celebrate this time of year, Happy Holidays from all the writers of Germaniac.com! Have a great time with family and friends, eat lots of good food, and try to stay warm in the cold weather!

Coming up in the last week of 2008, you’ll find our list of the best German albums of the year, the new album releases and new tour dates pages for 2009, the final 2 bands remaining on the 100 new bands list, and of course even more of the best German music news. We’ll be back after the holiday!

Everyone here knows how great German music is, but if you are anything like Valtteri and I, it’s probably not the only thing you listen to. You might have a great love of all kinds of diverse musical styles, or you might be interested in foreign music for its cultural qualities. That’s how we feel, so a few weeks ago we decided to start a new project that focuses on a different region of Europe: the Nordic countries.

There is so much great music coming out of Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland, that we just had to find a way to share it with you. So, with the help of a few friends, we are really happy to launch our new blog NordicBoom.com. Go check it out! There are already several articles that were written during the time we were building the blog and there will definitely be many more to come.

Thanks to Valtteri, Paul, and Nadja for giving NordicBoom some life!

Hi everybody,

I’m very sorry about the lack of posts this past week. I have been hit with several unexpected computer problems at the beginning of last week. Then, just one day after I got everything working again, my internet connection stopped working and it took a few more days to solve this new problem. I am glad to say that it looks like everything is working properly now, but I’m still crossing my fingers for the next few days…

The news will continue tomorrow!

-Greg

Just a little bit of news today…
May 25th marks the first birthday of GERMANIACdotcom! Technically, the site plans began before that, but the first news post was made on this day just one year ago, so this is the day we are remembering. And of course, it wouldn’t be a birthday without a proper party, so I am taking the weekend off for some celebration. We’ll be back with some more news tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for your attention and all your support over the past year. I’m really glad to see the site doing well and being read by so many readers. Let’s make this next year even better!

De/Vision holds a remix contest for their 20th anniversary

One of the most famous synthpop acts from Germany, De/Vision has certainly performed their fair share of music for their fans over the past 2 decades. Now, to celebrate the their 20th anniversary, they are reversing the roles by holding a remix contest. Anyone with a little bit of musical talent is invited to create a remix for their song “Life Is Suffering” which is from their current album Noob. De/Vision is holding the contest in cooperation with DigitalMusician.net and they are offering several prizes including music equipment like a Roland synthesizer, a digital recorder, an effects pedal, and 5 pro memberships to DigitalMusician.net. Visit this site to sign up for the contest and get access to the original song files. All entires must be made by May 31st. Good luck!

New Oomph! album this summer

On GermanMetal.com, Joki reports that Oomph! are ready to release a new album this summer. No official release date or tracklisting has been announced yet, but it shouldn’t be too long until we hear something more. The band will also play some festivals during the summer, followed by a full length tour in November and December.

Guitarist change for 4Lyn

It was announced about a week ago that 4Lyn’s guitarist and songwriter René would be leaving the band. Sometimes when a band member leaves, it’s a sign of trouble. That’s not the case here, thankfully. René’s departure was friendly and the band respects his decision to move on. The new fourth member of the band will be Dennis, who has a big job ahead of him. 4Lyn has dozens of concerts scheduled across Germany during the next few months in support of their current album Hello. You can check the dates and the band’s music on their MySpace page.

Visit the “GERMANIACdotcom Labs” page

You may have noticed the new link in the side menu inviting you to visit the “GERMANIACdotcom Labs” page. If not, go check it out. That’s where we will keep you up to date with the progress of all our projects that are currently in development and post any new ideas we think might be a good addition to the site. Naturally, you are also invited to post your opinion in a comment there or offer a new idea that might benefit the site. As you may be aware, our current big project is the forthcoming Germaniac Shop which should be opening in a few weeks.

I’ve just created a Last.fm group for Germaniac.com. If you aren’t familiar with Last.fm, it’s a site and application that tracks what you play on your media player such as Winamp, and then creates weekly, monthly, yearly and overall charts of your listening habits. It can then recommend you similar artists you might like, and also point you in the direction of other people with tastes similar to yours. Last.fm also has some swell community tools, such as groups and forums for them. Now Germaniac.com also has its very own group for all you germaniacs!

So, come and join! You’ll be able to chat with your fellow germaniacs, see what sorts of music they listen to, recommend your own favourites to people, find new bands to listen to… All the good stuff. I hope we’ll be able to have some great fun with this! I go by the nick ruumisauto, by the way, and Greg is flammenstrahl.

If you don’t have a Last.fm account, you can sign up and download the application here. Don’t worry, the program isn’t very large and it doesn’t take much resources to keep it running.

Hi everyone, I’m just letting you know there won’t be any news posted today or tomorrow. I am headed down to Washington DC for the weekend to attend the German embassy’s open house, where Arndt Peltner from Radio Goethe will be DJing.

If you’re in the area, come join us from 10 to 3 this Saturday and take in some German culture. Full details are listed here.

See you Sunday!

New demo from Down Below

Down Below has been hard at work on material for their next album and they’ve got a lot done so far. To give fans the first preview of their new album, the band has decided to upload a demo of their new song “Frei” on their fansite DownBelow-Fans.de on May 2nd. The only catch is you have to register for the site, but that’s not hard to do.

Free web album from Rozencrantz

I first wrote about Rozencrantz’s debut album Salvation in October, and I thought it was really great. Well it seems they created some music for an indie horror movie called Infekt and released it as a free web album some time after that, and I never noticed it until now. Go check it out on the Download page of their website. You can choose from either an MP3 of WAV file download, and you can get the artwork for it too.

More release dates added

I recently finished adding some more items to the 2008 release dates page, 17 in total. May is getting pretty filled up, and I will be working on June’s releases pretty soon.

Lots of you have contacted me asking where to find certain CDs. Others have asked why Germaniac doesn’t have a shop to go along with the blog. So far, I have simply been helping those of you find whatever it is you’re looking for because a shop hasn’t really been a top priority, but the emails just keep coming. Now I’m beginning to wonder just how big the demand for an exclusively German music shop based in North America really is, and I’m asking you for the answer.

Should Germaniac.com open an online shop? If so, what should we have? Would you buy from us? And perhaps more importantly, what features would make you more likely to buy from us than from some other site?

The whole reason for this last question is because it’s very difficult and expensive to import loads of CDs from Europe and then try to offer all kinds of benefits like the lowest price in the world plus free shipping and other features like that. I would love to do all of that for you, but honestly I’m not made of gold so it’s just not possible with anything that has to be imported. Anyone who has bought music from overseas knows that it’s not exactly cheap. I want to help you get the music you want to hear and own, but I don’t want to go bankrupt doing it either. So…

What’s the best way to make this work? Do you have any ideas? Please share your opinions and answers to the questions in a comment. By doing so, you will help us create the best possible shop for everyone. Thanks!