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-With lavishly remastered recordings 'Heavy Kraut!' traces the rocky path of German bands from the pop and beat era of the '60s to hard rock - just as bands from the USA and UK made it popular here. -The two-part CD documentary from Bear Family Records® on a total of 4 CDs, each with an 96-page illustrated booklet, describes in depth the beginnings of hard rock in Germany, the attempts of bands, musicians, producers and record companies to go their own way, which finally put rock music from Germany on the world map of the genre with the Scorpions or Rammstein. -On part 1 you will find Asterix, Lucifer's Friend, New Lords, Message, Silberbart, Toad, Birth Control, Eloy, Megaton, Weed, Scorpions, Night Sun, Blackwater Park and Janus. -Concept and liner notes by Frank Schäfer, born 1966, Dr. phil., for 20 years the metal expert for various daily newspapers and Rolling Stone. PLEASE, NOTE: liner notes in German! At the end of the 1960s, Germany was still a developing country when it came to rock music. If you want to hear loud guitar riffs, you would listen to bands from the USA and England. They dominated record stores, dance halls and the few radio and television stations. But something is happening in the state of the D-Mark. Bands like the Rattles, Lords, Tonics, Petards, Giants, German Bonds and so on represent the sixties beat, now and again with original approaches. The late sixties witnessed a process of revaluation of popular music. With 'Revolver' and 'Pet Sounds', rock music establishes itself as a new art form. And a young, mostly academically educated generation felt that its honor had been taken: If rock is no longer just entertainment, but is even taken seriously by the bourgeois feuilleton, doesn't a country with this great tradition in serious music have a special responsibility? In the future, it will be about the specifically German contribution to the history of rock music, the search for its own musical identity.

Track Listing

Sales Points

• 2-CD (Digisleeve) with 96 page booklet, 29 tracks. Total playing time approx. 135 min.

Press Quotes

Twenty-nine tracks of prime Deutsche heaviosity. - From the outset, West Germany loved rock'n'roll, and its Reeperbahn nightclubs helped train half the future British Invasion bands. It lacked the studios, labels and producers to really develop, but by 1970 things were changing. This excellent collection - with extensive German sleevenotes - focuses on bands who'd heard Zep or Sabbath and wanted to cut loose. Lucifer's Friend were fronted by English ex-pat John Lawton after he stayed on in 1969 following shows at Hamburg's Top Ten club, while Hairy Chapter changed their unsuccessful previous band name and LP cover photo, then hit big, selling the exact same recordings over again. Meanwhile, MOR duo Cindy & Bert cut Der Hund von Baskerville - a hugely satisfying Sherlock Holmes-themed version of Sabbath's Paranoid with superb backing from Würzburg beat combo the Jay Five. Stirring stuff.

     —Max Décharné, MOJO magazine UK, issue 366, dated May 2024