2011 in pop

When times get tougher, the melodies get sweeter. That goes for 2011 as well. The year brought the usual crop of new indie bands and heavy club sounds, metal fans took to the fields once more at Wacken Open Air, and mainstream music brought forth massive hits from the likes of Adele and Bruno Mars. Both gave their fans - now in the millions - songs with a melancholy bent that seem to get stuck in everyone's head.

The same could be said of Lady Gaga. Behind her wilfully bizarre appearances on stage, at shows and in the streets, there's a singer who knows how to put together an appealing and catchy melody. Rounding the year out was one artist going by the moniker Mashup Germany who proved with his track "Top of the Pops 2011" that 29 different hits this year can fit nicely into one package of party beats.

Accidentally famous

It's been watched over 100 million times: arguably the most successful music video of 2011. It was almost never on the radio, not to mention sold as a CD, but "Friday" by the now 14-year-old American Rebecca Black is the reigning hit of the year in terms of YouTube hits. That's thanks less, of course, to her charisma or vocal gifts, and more to the pleasure viewers took in the cheesy video and tautological lyrics.

But that's what counts as a success these days, and while the good old recording companies are busy trying to scrub their artists' videos from YouTube, owner Google is making a fortune on advertising.

Master of comebacks

Udo Lindenberg may be relatively unknown outside of Germany, but the gravel-voiced relic of German rock music proves again and again that he's capable of conquering the charts. He did so again in 2011, kicking the year off with a musical that was highly praised by critics and the public during its three-month Berlin run.

Then came the album "MTV Unplugged - Live from the Hotel Atlantik," where the singer proved that even his decades old songs can sound fresh. The 65-year-old got support from a number of guests ranging across the spectrum of German pop. Together with the rapper Clueso, he managed to bring an updated version of the song "Cello" back to the airwaves, four decades after its original recording.

Saving the world - or at least the summer

Germany's pop discovery of the year comes from Berlin. Tim Bendzko's "Nur noch kurz die Welt retten" (in English, literally: Just quickly save the world) was the ultimate German-language hit last summer. Bendzko, whose past includes stints as a theology student and used car salesman, is now a certified pop star.

His voice sounds a bit like fellow German star Xavier Naidoo, but his lyrics take a more ironic bent, and he makes sure to put a catchy groove behind them. Tim Bendzko has achieved all one could ask for in the course of a year.

After conquering eardrums all summer, he racked up three top German music awards. One question remains: does the 26-year-old have enough ideas to fill up an album in 2012?

Lena, Lena, Lena

No music review would be complete without mention of the Eurovision Song Contest, hosted by Germany in 2011. Things are changing at Europe's much loved (and much reviled) international competition. While it once presented the strange and homegrown musical treasures of Europe's countries from large to small, the contest has turned more and more mainstream, particularly after Lena Meyer-Landrut's 2010 win for Germany.

This year, there were still some tear-jerker ballads and schmaltzy local melodies on the program, but pop songs in an international format dominated. Most could predict that Lena wouldn't end up with a second win, but the image of the Eurovision Song Contest as a tortured and embarrassing spectacle of whiny folk tunes seems more and more passe.

Songwriter to Disc Jockey

Bob Dylan celebrated two anniversaries in 2011, and the world took notice. On May 24, he turned 70, and the year also marked his 50th anniversary of performing on stage. Dynamic hardly begins to describe the singer's career. Dylan was booed from the stage when he first tried to combine folk music together with electric guitar. He wrote protest songs that he insisted weren't protest songs and shocked fans during one period in which he tried to convert them to his brand of Christianity during concerts.

One thing has remained strikingly constant, Dylan continues to write great songs that have gone down in music history, and for which he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 2011.

Bob Dylan has toured with his band since 1988 in the "Never Ending Tour," playing concerts that are often good for a surprise or two. Alongside the tours, he has made a name for himself as a radio DJ, presenting American folk and blues classics.

At 70, the legendary songwriter is far from running out of steam. Whether people can say the same of the Rolling Stones as they celebrate their 50th anniversary on stage in 2012 remains to be seen.

Club 27

It seems sometimes like more than just a coincidence. Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and other superstar musicians died at 27. Amy Winehouse had reached that age as well when she was found dead in bed on July 23, 2011. Since the release of her album "Back to Black," Winehouse has belonged to the greats of soul music, sparking a revival of the genre well beyond her native England.

An early death often results in a spike in sales, as James Dean proved long ago and Winehouse demonstrated once again. Nonetheless, Amy Winehouse, equally at home in soul, jazz and bossa nova, was a great interpreter, and her voice is missing in the scene.

Compared with Amy, all others fall short, including the latest hyped up songstress Lana Del Rey.

The barefoot diva

Fame came late for the barefoot diva from Cape Verde. Cesaria Evora was 45 years old when her international career began. But she had always been a singer in the bars and hang-outs of her Cape Verdean hometown of Mindelo until one of her songs, the hit "Sodada," brought a Portuguese music manager to tears.

The longing in her brand of Cape Verde blues became Evora's trademark starting in the mid-1980s. She delivered her songs with so much feeling that people came to her concerts in droves. In September, she announced she would no longer be able to perform due to health concerns. In December, Cesaria Evora died, age 70.

Author: Matthias Klaus / gsw
Editor: Rick Fulker