The coronavirus still has a firm grip on the world. For the music industry, the lockdown de facto means a professional ban. No concerts, no income. The artists reacted to this in a wide variety of ways over the past year. Some look for another job to be able to pay their rent. Others use the time at home and write new music. Songs with which they artistically deal with the pandemic and the lockdown. A selection of isolation tapes.
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TV Smith – The Lucky Ones
A song about the lucky ones who survived Corona. Timothy Smith had great success with his band The Adverts in the late 1970s. Among other things with the song “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes”. Since the nineties, the Briton has been traveling alone more and more often under the pseudonym TV Smith. Only with guitar and amplifier. This year the 64-year-old recorded his solo album “Lockdown Holiday”. Self-directed in his home studio in Devon, South West England. All alone.
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TV Smith was stuck at home for weeks after contracting the coronavirus: “Life is not the same as it was before. Something is happening here that has changed my life. This is not normal flu, it is very dangerous. I am happy, that I’m still alive. Millions of people will find their lives worse afterwards, the after-effects are not yet in sight. ” TV Smith has the worst behind it, but is still suffering from the long-term effects of Covid 19. Fatigue, difficulty concentrating, pain.
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Lockdown Holiday
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Sleaford Mods – Out There
The pandemic and lockdown also kept Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn busy in Nottingham. With “Top Room” and “Out There” there are two songs on the new album “Spare Ribs” that deal with Corona. “The two songs came about mainly because of the boredom in lockdown,” says Jason Williamson, “that you wake up every morning and do the same thing. That you try to keep the children happy. Which was ultimately impossible. We are one unit merged and this unity has filled our house with a certain immobility – almost like in a trance. The songs “Out There” and “Top Room” have something to do with it. But also with how we had to stand in line outside to get food during lockdown. People won’t forget that anytime soon. And we wanted a little reminder of that on the album. “
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Iggy Pop – Dirty Little Virus
If there was an award for Person of the Year, this time it would certainly go to Covid 19, says Iggy Pop. The virus affected his life more than anything else in the past year. He also sells mouth and nose protection on his website with his bearded chin printed on it. For 13 pounds each. In “Dirty Little Virus” he sings:
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“She’s only 19, but she can kill you. She ain’t my type. But it is what it is.”
Iggy Pop on Covid 19
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She’s only 19, but she can kill you. It’s not my type, this Covid 19, but it is what it is. Iggy Pop is now 73 years old and has to be very careful not to get infected.
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Iggy Pop – Dirty Little Virus (Official Audio)
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Laura Jane Grace – Shelter In Place
Laura Jane Grace is the singer in the punk band Against Me !. Until eight years ago she was on stage as Tom Gabel and then decided to continue living as a woman. At the beginning of October she released her first solo album “Stay Alive”. Completely without notice. With songs that were actually intended for a new Against Me! Album.
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Taken in Chicago, where she lives. In Steve Albini’s legendary Electrical Audio studio, who has already recorded “Surfer Rosa” from the Pixies or “In Utero” from Nirvana: “Music makes me feel alive. I just don’t want to lose that and surrender. I sat around for a month and waited to see what happened. Then I said to myself: Fuck it! I can always do the other record with the band later. But now I want to record something, and if it can only be done solo, then I just have to dim the effort and just book a studio here in town. I’ve always wanted to work with Steve Albini. So I just called him and asked if I could book his Electrical Audio Studio for a few days. Just me. No band. As safe as possible. We wore mouth and nose masks the whole time. I only took it off when I was singing alone in the booth. That was all. “
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Phoebe Bridgers –Kyoto
Phoebe Bridgers from Los Angeles landed at the top of all the best lists with her album “Punisher” in the Corona year. Also in ignition radio. In 2020 she played several streaming shows on Youtube or Instagram. And in the Zündfunk interview in April 2020, she was confident that she would get through the lockdown halfway unscathed. Although as an independent artist she is in dire need of concert income: “Of course the situation worries me, but I know that a lot of people have to suffer much worse than me. I don’t feel like a victim of the pandemic. Take a look at the sports section, for example. Many millionaires are freaking out right now because they don’t know where to get their next million. They’re probably a lot more stressed than me. I can sort it out somehow. Curiously, it’s actually the perfect time for such a pandemic. We are all well connected through our smartphones and the internet. So you are well taken care of pretty much everywhere. That’s why you can very well give a free concert on Instagram. And I can talk to all of my friends at any time. I am very confident that people will find creative solutions. “
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Phoebe Bridgers – Kyoto (Official Video)
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Kadavar – Everything Is Changing
Everything is changing. Everything is in the river. Kadavar react to the surreal living conditions in lockdown by adapting their sound to the environment. A radical cut: from Black Sabbath to Pink Floyd. Instead of hard riffs, soft keyboard carpets: “After our tour was canceled and we sat at home, we noticed that life was getting slower and slower around us,” explains Lupus Lindemann walked more to school, the shops were closed. So it was almost eerily quiet. That’s why it never occurred to me to beat fat guitar riffs into this calm. Something calm was required and that’s how the idea for these keyboard carpets came about. Music that you sometimes have to sit down and listen to. “
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KADAVAR – Everything Is Changing (Official Video)
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Tocotronic – hope
Tocotronic have also released a song about the corona crisis. Some of her songs have long revolved around topics such as isolation and the self-chosen withdrawal from the unbearable world. “Hope” is the name of the new track and describes the involuntarily experienced isolation in which we live and the fear it creates in us. A very dark song, but one that somehow gives comfort.
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Tocotronic – hope
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Danger Dan – pasta & toilet paper
Daniel Pongratz aka Danger Dan, rapper of the Antilopen Gang from Düsseldorf, is also unusually quiet. He reports from quarantine with a sad, beautiful love song. Full of longing for normality. Only with piano accompaniment, not with fat beats as usual. At the same time an ironic allusion to the absurd hamster purchases before the lockdown.
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Danger Dan – noodles and toilet paper (antelope course)
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Madsen – quarantines forever
The three brothers who have burned themselves into our collective memory as a noisy indie band with songs like “Die Perfektion” or “Nachtbaden”. The band used the lockdown to take a deep look into their own past. When they were still performing in youth centers and worshiping bands like Slime, Daily Terror or Schleimkeim. Actually, they wanted to produce an album that had already been written and play a tour with it. Then came Corona and another Madsen indie album turned into a flawless punk album, says singer Sebastian Madsen: “At some point after a week we had already written and recorded six songs. Then I thought: What do we actually call this project? Then I asked a buddy and he said: Yes, Madsen! He said, all these Schluffis who are filmed at home in the living room or who film themselves and look at the camera, it sucks. Do something now with Madsen, which you don’t expect at all. Then I thought: Okay, then we’ll do another week to write a total of 12 songs and then just put it out. “
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MADSEN – QUARANTINE FOREVER (Official Video)
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ZSK – I have better things to do
“I have better things to do”. With this sentence Christian Drosten rejected an interview request from the Bild newspaper. The virologist liked the song a lot. ZSK had a single vinyl single pressed from it and handed it over to him personally.
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