And, if that’s your mindset, Funky Frauleins will certainly deliver on the yuks. The stereotypical ideas of rigidity and authoritarian bent that the sound of German inflection might summon for many indeed provide a humorous contrast to the notions of looseness, flow and improvisation that terms like “funk” and “groove” conjure. Of course, what you might consider kitsch on an album like Funky Frauleins depends a lot on what cultural assumptions you bring to it.

But, aside from the fact that the sense of disjointedness eases as the album progresses, for me it still lacked the pleasing overall cohesiveness of recent similar girl pop comps such as Nippon Girls and some of the better French Yeh-Yeh collections.Īnother thing that, for me, establishes the listen-ability of these kind of collections is how well they balance kitsch with quality. Clearly the unifying theme here is, above all else, that the performers are both female and German, which is probably enough for some. And the potential for disjunction that creates becomes apparent with the album’s very first transition, as we move from the brass-driven, late 60s bubblegum stomp of Ushci Moser’s “Sunny Honey” to the slinky disco groove of Veronika Fischer’s “He, Wir Fahr’n Mit Dem Zug”, which wears its 1977 vintage proudly on its sleeve. However, as its subtitle - “Female beat, groove, funk in Germany 1968-1981” – implies, the second volume of Funky Frauleins casts a much wider net, both in terms of style and time frame, than either its predecessor or other similar compilations dealing with the bygone pop sirens of, for instance, Japan and France. It’s a single picture that evokes a very specific cultural moment as easily as any painstakingly assembled collage ever could, and has the added value of tantalizing us with promises of sex and countercultural transgression. Perhaps few better illustrations of this can be found than the image that emblazons the cover of German label Grosse Freiheit’s Funky Frauleins series: that of a long haired, lithe, and blissed-out looking blond whose naked body has been turned into one big psychedelic canvas. I suspect that the appeal of these female-centric compilations of vintage international pop is due no less to the power of the female voice to both soothe and inflame than it is to the longstanding function of the female form as an era defining marker of style.

Caterina valente mein ideal