Three of a Kind #115

It's been over two years since the last Three of a Kind post so one's long overdue I think. (I hadn't just forgotten about this series, honest! Much.) The common link between today's featured three is that they're all by female-fronted German bands from the nineteen eighties - Rainbirds, Propaganda and FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle) - and are all right up there among my favourite songs of that particular decade. Oh, and none of them reached the UK pop 40, natch. Some cracking promo videos here, too.

"Er war sehr attraktiv"

I never really got the hang of German - it's like a foreign language to me. This doesn't seem to stop me enjoying songs in German, which is fortunate, otherwise I'd be missing out on the wonders of Andreas Dorau and his marvellous electronic pop music. Even my shaky grasp of the language lets me comprehend the title of this first song.

Andreas Dorau und die Marinas - Fred Vom Jupiter mp3 (available for 7 days)

I've tried to find out a bit about Andreas Dorau, but since most of it is in German and I'm reliant on dodgy automatic translators, I'm not sure how much to believe of what I read. Still, I'll pass it on because it's amusing even if it's not true!

He seems to have had a hit with Fred Vom Jupiter when he was 15, under the name Die Dorau und die Marinas. On the same album as that was Einkauf. My blogging colleague, kippers, tells me it's sort of about shopping. All I know is that every time I listen to it, I'm humming it non-stop for about a week.

Andreas Dorau und die Marinas - Einkauf mp3 (available for 7 days)

This next bit comes directly from a translation of the German wikipedia entry about Andreas Dorau:
He studied at the Academy for Television and Film, Munich (thesis: blow your animal), wrote film music (including manta - the film) and worked as a freelance video consultant (including Mousse T., Xavier Naidoo, Söhne Mannheims).

1982, he joined with Albert Oehlen than evergreens of psychological terror, "everything annoying, concentrated together."

"Blow your animal"?! "Evergreens of psychological terror"? How I want it all to be true! Anyway, Andreas Dorau's website can be found here, and may be helpful to you if you can read German. If you can't, I recommend you head over to last.fm, where you can listen to more music. Or pehaps toddle off to youtube where there are many Dorau videos to be seen.

You can buy Andreas Dorau albums from Atatak.

Now here is Andreas Dorau with Girls In Love from around 1997.