The summer can be a party! In Germany, this Feiern (partying) can take very special, interesting forms. A very well-known form is Ballermann, a word combination of the words ballern, which is only used colloquially for drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, and the word Mann, which just means man. Probably this combination was chosen because ballern can rather be ascribed to men. This is not a very widespread practice, however. The more widespread use of the word concerns the music that is associated with this “party style”. It is a combination of Eurodance, some electronic techno-style music and the German Schlager. The texts are – and even for German pop singers this is not always the case – in German. They often concern themes like partying, love, or just something entirely made up without any logic or theme as background. A nice example is the Fliegerlied (Kite Song) 

Some well-known artists are Tim Toupet, as in the song above, Markus Becker, Jürgen Drews, Mickie Krause and Helene Fischer.

In the summer, Ballermann, both the party style and the music, can be found a lot on party islands like Mallorca, also called Malle in Germany, in the Mediterranean Sea. So in this summer, that island will be full of Germans again that want to enjoy the summer, sun and beach. A very well-known place that establishes the mood every year here, but definitely is not the only one in the scene, is the bar Ballermann 6 in the capital city of the island, Palma.

Other than in the summer Ballermann is present in the winter at Après-Ski events, or during the Kölscher Karneval in Cologne. Ballermann is a registered trademark – and thus every party, club, CD or other event that carries the name needs to apply for it to be allowed to call it Ballermann.

Have you heard of this before? Do you have a very own way of partying in your culture? What do you think about the song? Leave a comment!