Hi everybody! First of all: Sorry for not blogging for a while! I was involved in another project where I had to shoot several videos for Transparent.

Today I want to introduce a very famous singer and Liedermacher (songwriter) to you. His name is Herbert Grönemeyer. Maybe he is the most famous Musiker (musician) in Germany. I guess if you would aks 100 people in Germany if they knew Herbert Grönemeyer, you would hear 100 times „yes“.

The secret of his Erfolg (success) is the language of his songs. At least in my opinion. That means he understands very well to express himself in a poetic way. But at the same time, everybody (no matter if you are highly educated or not) can understand it. He expresses Gefühle (feelings) in a way everybody can comprehend and compare with their own ones.

Born in 1956, Grönemeyer made his first steps as an artist in the early seventies when he worked at a theatre. After some years working as a Schauspieler (actor), he even played some roles for movies and TV. 1981  he played in Wolfgang Petersen’ s Film (movie) „Das Boot“ which was an international success. It still is one of the most famous German movies.

Beside acting, he focused more and more on music. After some unsuccessful productions, the Durchbruch (breakthrough) came with the album 4630 Bochum in 1984. In the same year Michael Jackson´s „Thriller“ was published. But in Germany, Grönemeyer stayed 79 weeks in the charts and made Bochum to the most sucessful album of this year.

November 3rd 1998 his brother died. November 5th 1998 his wife died. After this Schicksalsschlag (blow of fate), he made a pause that lastet for approximately a year. Since then he published further albums, wrote an official song for the fifa world championship in 2006, made the soundtrack for the movie „The American“ with George Clooney and was and is still touring and playing live all the time.

Just a couple of weeks ago, his new album „Schiffsverkehr“ came out and he announced a big tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Here are some of his songs:

Some vocabulary:

der Liedermacher – songwriter
der Musiker – musician
der Erfolg – success
die Gefühle – feelings
der Schauspieler – actor
der Film – movie
der Durchbruch – breakthrough
der Schicksalsschlag – blow of fate