Golden Years Tocotronic

• 1 Der Tod ist nur ein Traum 03:59
• 2 Bleib am Leben 03:52
• 3 Golden Years 04:33
• 4 Ein Rockstar stirbt zum zweiten Mal 03:16
• 5 Denn sie wissen, was sie tun 03:19
• 6 Mein unfreiwillig asoziales Jahr 03:39
• 7 Niedrig 03:55
• 8 Vergiss die Finsternis 02:02
• 9 Wie ich mir selbst entkam 04:49
• 10 Bye Bye Berlin 02:45
• 11 Der Seher 03:08
• 12 Ich schreibe jeden Tag einen neuen Song 02:21
• Total Runtime 41:38

Info for Golden Years

The fourteenth album begins darkly and intensely in the light of ‘Der Tod ist ein Traum’, an elegiac start that is also a feint. The following ‘Bleib am Leben’ invites you to smile with its simple rhymes and harks back to the band's early musical days. After the polkaesque-schunkelig-radio-compatible title track, which celebrates analogue life in an almost countryesque way, the Tocos are increasingly on top form musically and lyrically. Musically, they are on the move with the best, varied indie rock riffing, skilfully integrating distorted noise and rock onomatopoeia and contrasting them with undistorted strummed guitar chord sequences. The longer the album goes on, the better and more original it becomes, right up to the fascinating enfant terrible song ‘Der Seher’ and the mischievous singer-songwriter song ‘Ich schreibe jeden Tag einen neuen Song’. The songs before that travel from the starting point of our gloomy present back to a past that shines in golden splendour without any nostalgia. This includes ‘Bye Bye Berlin’ as well as the fascinating, lyrically mysterious ‘Ein Rockstar stirbt zum zweiten Mal’ and the socio-political awareness of ‘Denn sie wissen was sie tun’, a peaceful agitation song against evil. However, the album also repeatedly refers to the personal, it shines with musical variety and also drones heavily with distortion folk as in ‘Mein unfreiwillig asoziales Jahr.

‘Golden Years’ by TOCOTRONIC feels like an unexpected postcard from a loved one. Familiar in the best sense of the word and yet conveying a reassuring clarity in our view of the world. We are still here, don't worry so much. This collection of possible responses to fear, death, loss and the feeling of powerlessness has no expiry date. The album closes with the comforting, almost lullaby-like ‘Jeden Tag ein neuer Song’ (‘A New Song Every Day’), which descends as lightly as a feather and lays a gentle veil of resilience over us - that lasts for at least a few hours.’ (krachfink.de)

TOCOTRONIC

TOCOTRONIC
are one of the most successful and influential German-language rock bands of the last few decades. They were founded in Hamburg in 1993 by Dirk von Lowtzow (guitar and vocals), Jan Müller (bass) and Arne Zank (drums). Their debut album "Digital ist besser" was released in 1995 and combines powerful yet simple guitar rock with lyrics full of slogans that immediately became catchphrases, such as "I want to be part of a youth movement". With the following albums "Nach der verlorenen Zeit" (1995) and "Wir kommen um uns zu beschweren" (1996), Tocotronic managed to make the leap from small clubs to large venues; on the fourth album "Es ist egal, aber" (1997), they enriched their impetuous guitar rock with harmonica and strings for the first time. In the following years, their music became more and more opulent. On "K.O.O.K." (1999) they play a dark, metal-influenced rock; the "white album" from 2002 is a richly orchestrated, colorfully enigmatic record in which realism and fantasy are reconciled. Since "Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen" (2005), Rick McPhail has been a permanent member of the band as the second guitarist; his playing, permeated with flowery feedback, has shaped the sound of Tocotronic in the future. The next phase of work, in an increasingly musically and lyrically refined way, deals with the self-contradictions of our existence, the insoluble dialectic of musts and desires, but also with aging, the happiness of maturity and the fear of death. This phase, also known as the Berlin Trilogy, includes the albums "Kapitulation" (2007), "Schall und Wahn" (2010) and "Wie wir leben wollen" (2013). With the "red album" (2015), the band goes through a new transformation, their music becomes simpler and more direct again, and autofictional motifs are added to "Die Unendlichkeit" (2018). In April 2020, the piece "Hoffnung" is released, it is about the experiences of loneliness and isolation that we have all had during the Corona crisis - and about the hope that "a little piece of lyrics and music / against isolation" will help. "Hoffnung" can also be found on Tocotronic's thirteenth album, "Nie Wieder Krieg", which will be released in September 2021, and it sets the tone for this entire work. "Nie Wieder Krieg" is about the longing for hope and healing; about the desire to no longer be hurt and misunderstood and isolated. It tells little stories of small and large wounds, intimate and universal at the same time. The autofictional element that defined “Die Unendlichkeit” is combined here again with the Tocotronic-typical art of elevating everyday life to the transcendental. The “I” becomes the “we”: the band also seems to be returning to their catchy slogans that invite you to sing along and learn them by heart – “Never Again War”, “Youth Without God Against Fascism” – but beneath these slogans lies a hurt that is more touching than ever before in Tocotronic’s work. “Ich Tauche Auf” is the most beautiful and painful love song they have ever written; “Ein Monster Kam Am Morgen” tells of the existential uncertainty from which we are all currently trying to escape, in vain. “Nie Wieder Krieg” is a great album that lends us strength and comfort without downplaying the adversities of the present in which we need this strength and comfort. In their latest, most beautiful and mature incarnation, Tocotronic are able to show us that true consolation can only be given if one simultaneously grasps the world in all its desolation.

This album contains no booklet.