Urlaubshits

Back in the days when people still bought music on things like CDs and vinyl, there were things you could buy called compilation albums, on which unscrupulous record company executives would package various recent chart hits onto one disc, as a way of attracting the casual music consumer into buying music they would otherwise not have bothered with, on the whole offering them a lifestyle choice rather than quality musicianship.

One such compilation album is Urlaubshits.

Urlaubshits (pronounced urlaubs-hits, not urlaub-shits, and no, the joke isn’t lost on me) was released in Germany in 1977, and features such well known songs as “Big Bamboo (Ay Ay Ay)” by the Saragossa Band, “I Do, I Do (I Wanna Walk On Down The Aisle) from Safety First, and Adriano Celentano’s proto-mashup classic “A Woman In Love/Rock Around The Clock”. Remember them? Didn’t think so. I couldn’t even find mention of Safety First on Google; admittedly, I didn’t try very hard, but you would think there would at least be a cursory mention on allmusic. This gem was found in a Berlin record shop by my good friend Dan, and has supplied all who experience it with hours of dubious enjoyment.

Urlaubshits roughly translates as “vacation hits”, although what you get on Urlaubshits are just the popular hits, from Germany, circa 1977. Whether you’re on holiday, or at home, in a discotheque in Germany 20 years ago, or in a club in London now, the imperative is the same: listen, dance, consume, forget, start again.

Today’s dance compilation CD, or today’s podcast in the same mode is no different from the original Urlaubshits. As the trends of the moment pass, eventually these compilations, and the songs on them will be forgotten, and consigned to the bin, be that the bargain bin of your local music chain store, or the recycle bin of your computer’s desktop. As this happens, the new trends take over, and the old ones are forgotten. As this happens, DJs at your local club are generally forced to stop playing anything that’s 6 months old or more, because anything more than 6 months old isn’t really fashionable any more, and the only old tracks that you ever get to hear are the ones that really made it big during the extremely narrow window of relevance that dance music is so cursed by. By the time that white label promo you got from eBay or off the back of the Hype Machine has been properly released to the (dwindling) paying public, it’s already passé.

This cycle is natural for all musical genres, not just dance, it encourages change, and change is a good thing, so long as we are learning something along the way. However, sometimes we are so caught up in constant change that we forget what it was that made things great in the first place. Or sometimes B-sides and remixes are the more interesting inclusions on a single, but somehow never quite manage to become as popular as the A-sides that bear them. And because we are always so concerned with looking forward, sometimes these more interesting tracks never quite get the attention they deserve because something much more fashionable but far less intelligent has taken the spotlight during that month; equally, sometimes the track that took centre stage that month will be worthy of that position, but will become too popular for its own good. As tracks like this get overplayed to the point of saturation, they too are forgotten about, becoming unfashionable because they became too trendy among a wider cross section of the public than the tiny and often insignificant scenes that spawned them. These are the kind of tracks that die the most ignominious deaths, eventually ending up loathed by all, foisted on the wider public by record labels wanting to cash in on the latest musical niche.

As I thought about the copy of Urlaubshits found in a Berlin record shop, I began to think that maybe Urlaubshits should live again. But instead of making it simply a transitory record of whatever happens to be in vogue at the time of writing, it will be a place where great tracks that have been forgotten or ignored, or have become too popular for whatever reason can be given new life; it will be a place where music can talked about in a critical manner, a place of informed retrospection and debate rather than one of knee-jerk glorification. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also want to talk about new stuff or the hottest tracks of the moment now and again. But understand that it will be done in a critical manner, with a degree of healthy cynicism if it is necessary. It is not my intention to engage in scene-baiting here; it would be hypocritical and narrow-minded of me to say that I don’t enjoy certain scenes, but if scenes are to survive, they need to evolve, and learn from their mistakes, or they will become swamped under a tide of inevitable mediocrity. What I hope to foster here is a forum for musical debate, not a dripfeed for hipsters. If this sounds like the kind of thing you want to read, come back for more. If not, go and search the Hype Machine for stuff you already know you’ll like.

So what kind of music, new or otherwise, can you come to expect from this blog? I’m not entirely sure yet, but I hope that as it runs on you will begin to see some kind of picture developing, hopefully with plenty of cross genre and sub-genre pollination. Expect me to start off talking about electro, techno and disco, but to expand to whatever I feel is relevant or necessary. Not all of the music will be good. Some will be intellectually bad, but will be included because it has some debatable level of visceral enjoyment. Whatever happens on this blog, the process has to be as much a voyage of discovery for me as it is for anyone who reads it; otherwise things are going to get very boring very quickly.

So, now that the manifesto is over and done with, what better way to start this blog than with the first ever Urlaubshits mix, which I hope to post at least semi-regularly, and which will hopefully give you an idea of things to come. The first mix I hope will take you on a strange and wonderful journey beginning with some italo disco (or perhaps that should be nu-italo), through some glacial and alienating synth filled electro house, to some of the bleakest and most tribal techno you could ever inflict on yourself, before ending with the psychedelic disco marvel that is the Carl Craig remix of Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom’s Relevee. I hope at least before it ends up consigned to your recycle bin that you enjoy it.

Urlaubshits Mix 1 (86.1mb, 62:39mins)

Tracklisting:

Black Devil Disco Club with The Black Mustang – Constantly No Respect (The Phenomena of The Black Mustang Version) (Lo Recordings) – (BUY)
Vincent Markowski – The Madness Of Moths (DC Recordings) – (BUY)
Xaver Naudascher – Lost (Supersoul Recordings) – (BUY)
Riton - Hammer Of Thor (Souvenir) – (BUY)
LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum (Onastic Dub) (DFA) – (BUY)
Vitalic - Poney Part 1 (PIAS) – (BUY)
Nathan Fake – Charlie’s House (Apparat Remix) (Border Community) – (BUY)
Tomas Andersson – Dubbel Problematik (BPitch Control) – (BUY)
Joakim - Drumtrax (Radioslave Remix) (Versatile) – (BUY)
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom – Relevee (Carl Craig Remix) (DFA) – (BUY)