It has been 34 years since POPPERKLOPPER first emerged, and aside from their musical outputs in the early 2000s and their unforgettable band name, I actually don't know much about them.
It all started with the three punk veterans from the Eifel in 1989, and my first encounter with them was in 2001, as seen in my review: https://verbotenefruechte.de.tl/cd_reviews-1_13-seite-5.htm. I also remember that I got their first records afterward, which burned their band name into my brain, but then I didn't hear anything more from them. In the following 20 years, they released 5 more albums, and now I have their 11th (?) album titled: "Wahnsinn Weltweit" in my hands (`no, actually just digitally), whose destructive cover immediately catches the eye.
The cover actually reflects the 13 songs 1:1, whether it’s the violence in relationships, lobbying and patriarchy in politics or in the family, flight and displacement, as well as the rightward shift in our society, all that brown nonsense.
I like the lyrics, but musically, I had some difficulties with the POPPERKLOPPER sound during the first listens of "Wahnsinn Weltweit". The melody seems too simplistic to me. Yes, this is punk rock. Twenty years ago, it opened my heart, but nowadays it feels somehow too generic....
What I find even worse are the guitar solos in the songs. I really don’t like that at all....
Did POPPERKLOPPER already have that in the early 2000s? The highlight is the song "So weit – so schlecht", where Chuck Berry has his fingers or his Rock'n'Roll in the mix; sorry, but that is not at all my (punk rock) world.
After 1 ½ dozen listens of the album (I won’t give up that easily, as I somehow heard something from the beginning), the tide has turned a bit. I catch myself whistling or humming some songs. Sometimes I even sing along, for example, the chorus of "Dorfnazi": "Hounding, stirring, harassing, protesting against everything foreign, anyone who isn’t a real German is a Muslim, gay, or terrorist, fears turn into hate because the foreign doesn’t fit in his head, because he’s a shitty Nazi, a shitty Nazi", you just have to sing along, especially since the melody of the song is quite catchy.
So there are definitely POPPERKLOPPER songs with hit potential on "Wahnsinn Weltweit". However, there are also still exactly the opposite in the 40 minutes of playtime.
Nevertheless, I find it very difficult to rate "Wahnsinn Weltweit"...
3-4 songs are really great (but only after multiple listens), at least 1 song still doesn’t work at all, and the remaining POPPERKLOPPER songs (2 in English, the rest in German) are okay....
