Kuschelrock
Comics about German music that I thought everybody knew
Hello, everyone! Well, it’s more of a pleasure than a chore to come back to my Substack newsletter today. It always feels a bit surreal to be posting these old comics, amidst the sobering news I see posted everywhere online… but going through these old comics is part of what helps to get me through these challenging times. Thanks for keeping me company, here!
I’m due to post some new comics about Bob Dylan from my old sketchbook journal The Drawing Book. There’s just one problem, though… I don’t have an infinite supply of Bob Dylan comics! I still have a few more up my sleeve, but I’m not quite ready to post them yet. (If you really want to read something Dylan-related, you might want to check out what the amazing Bob has been doing on his most recent (and most surprising) tour, during the past couple of days! Here’s an article about that.)
I looked through the drawing book to see if I could find something related to music. I found Kuschelrock.
Ok, so what is that??? It’s a German word that kind of means “Soft Rock,” although it literally means “Cuddle/Snuggle Rock.” Music you can listen to while snuggling with someone, I guess.
But the real question is: is it cool to like Kuschelrock? Back in 2003 when I drew this, I had the feeling it was definitely a guilty pleasure…
(By the way, Roxette’s tune “Spending My Time” was actually a 90s song, not an 80s song, but who’s keeping track.)
I don’t feel guilty anymore about liking Kuschelrock. People should like whatever music they want to like!
While I was writing this newsletter, though, I realized I still had one of those old cassette tapes, made for me by my German exchange student friends, so that I wouldn’t forget them when I went home to Canada. Nope, I haven’t forgotten them - or that music - all these years later!
But here’s something kind of funny. That exchange was a long time ago, but even today, I’m still finding songs that I heard when I was a teenager in Germany, and which nobody in Canada has ever heard of. Sure, some of them are actually German songs, that you wouldn’t expect to hear elsewhere - like “Für Immer” by German heavy-metal songstress Doro. But a lot of them are songs in English, by English-speaking singers and songwriters. How come people here in North America don’t know these songs? I realized a few years ago that no one I knew had ever heard of Nick Kamen’s upbeat 1990 tune “I Promised Myself.” Really?? I’ve had that song in my head for decades! And I only recently found out that no one I know has ever heard of the amazing ballad “Tears in the Rain” - the original version by Robin Beck. It isn’t even on Spotify (I looked!). Ok, so it’s kind of cheesy (you’ve been warned), but so is lots of the music from around that time. For me, it’s mostly just been weird to realize that these iconic songs I thought I shared with my generation, are actually not shared at all.
Bochum
While I’m talking about German music, I guess I have to mention Herbert Grönemeyer, the best of all German pop music people. Well, why don’t I just share this comic I wrote about how I was first introduced to his music. This wasn’t a comic from my old drawing book: this was one of the monthly comics I wrote for my community newsletter, between about 2012-2016. You can see more of those comics here (most of them are about local neighbourhood stuff, not German music).
And now, of course, listen to “Bochum!” And then think about whether you know a song about the regular, everyday place that YOU call home. We all need songs like that, to celebrate those places we love.
And then… play those songs for your friends, so you won’t find out thirty years later that you’re the only one who knows them!