The musical walk of Tokio Hotel (PART 1)

I decided to create a couple of blogs dedicated to the music power of Tokio Hotel, explaining the meaning and the messages of their songs and maybe try to change idea to all the people finds those 4 guys: swollen heads, fake, stupid and able only to copy the others. They aren’t nothing of all this: as a lot of other artists they worked really hard for arrive where they are now, they are the composers of their songs, nothing is copied, everything born from their experiences and from their emotions.

This is the musical walk of Tokio Hotel.

SCHREI – From suburban band of Magdeburg to the most desired band of the world. (pt.1)

Recording SCHREI, Bill, Tom, Georg and Gustav have signed their destiny. They worked for almost 2 years with the producers Patrick Benzner, Dave Roth and Peter Hoffmann in a studio in Hamburg.

Over 600,000 copies sold in Germany and over a million in all Europe.

A success like this for a first album is rare, overall in a sluggish label industry for a little bit of time. An incredible success for a German rock band with musicians under 20. Merit maybe to Bill’s look or not, Tokio Hotel are the most successful German band of the last 20 years.

In this album there’s a mix of beats and sounds: German rock, romantic ballad, a touch of electronic, guitar riffs and powerful drums.

Music has always talked to the people, and youth needs to someone, to same age guys who sing what they want listen; the youth recognizes in Tokio Hotel through the lyrics, through the themes of that songs. But Tokio Hotel talk not only to the youth but also to all the people, because they aren’t a teenage band, they aren’t a boy band, a lot of mature people listens them and finds them really great artist.

The combination among freshness and incisiveness of the texts to explain because SCHREI has got a lot of success, before in Germany, then in Europe and now in the whole world.

The songs (click on the title for listen the song or watch the video):

SCHREI

The sonorities

Authentic rock hymn of our days, the song plays all on the contrasts. After the alarm siren of the beginning and a guitar chord which enters in metal sonorities, this opening song leaves the space to Bill’s voice, with a music more soft than the beginning but all this assumed quiet is denied from a crescendo that explodes in the refrain based on the first “break all” riff allows to Bill to throw in his legendary loud: Schrei! Follow another verse more quiet and a second refrain, before to arrive to a false final, 2 seconds of silence with only the beat of a heart and then the song plays for another 30 seconds with Gustav who beats on the drums and Bill sings his “Nein!” and ends with a scream really loud.

The message

The album debuts with one of the favorite Bill’s themes, singer and songwriter of the band: freedom. Sometimes feels like a scream of rebellion against the school, the song embraces a widest theme and can talks as a teenage as a slave of the routine at work (“Du stehst auf, und kriegst gesagt wohin du gehen sollst. Wenn du da bist, orst du auch noch was du denken sollst”, “You get up, and somebody tells you where to go to. When you get there, everybody’s telling you what to think to”). Aimed against the inactivity which rends slave the most part of the people and lock them in a dangerous passivity for their personal evolution, SCHREI’s lyrics invite to scream so loud for re order the ideas and drive away all the daily frustrations (“Schrei! Bis du du selbst bist!”, “Scream, until you are still yourself!”)

“Schrei talks about all that time we spent at school to annoy us. It’s clear that we have only bad memories. Today, Schrei is not only a scream of rebellion against the school, o against the adults, and more in general. It’s a scream of rebellion against the daily weight, a scream against all force you to give up to your dreams” tells Bill.

DURCH DEN MONSUN

The sonorities

In this ballad of nostalgic atmospheres, the main theme is played to Georg’s bass in the high note. Relaxed and hypnotic in the beginning, it has a turn in the final part when the guitar starts its bridge riff with melancholic effect. This part of the song calls up the storm and it’s the most known song of the album and of the band, the first single released in the far August 15th, 2005. Its suite composed to a crystalline fallout and to a refrain drives to the distortion is able to pull in the mind the lyrics.

The message

The text uses the metaphor of the nature for describe the daily difficult fight to every human being. Bill draws up the romantic dimension using the loved person how cling against the fury of the elements (“Und wenn ich nich mehr kann denk’ich daran. Irgendwann laufen wir zusammen durch den monsun”, “And when I can’t do it anymore, I think that sooner or later you and me will through the monsoon”). An authentic declarationof solidarity for who, in the daily life, fights for conserve the hope and the trust in a better future.

“The call to the elements’ fury and the storms is a metaphor for underline that, in the life, there are good and bad sides and everyone of us must clings to own values, to own dream” says Bill “the lyrics of this song was born to a phrase I wrote: Hinter die welt (Until the end of the world), then I developed the rest of the words”

LEB’ DIE SEKUNDE

The sonorities

Energetic intro with the limpid roll’s drums of Gustav offers the bounce for the punk riff of Tom, making take off the song. The rhythm stays there, doesn’t go down, not even of the melodic punk verse, and the refrain throws the song always more higher. Some electric beat gives modernity to the track. Almost 4 minutes of energy for one of the big numbers of the band, over all in live style. This is only the 3rd version, there’s another one, includes in the demo DEVILISH and another one before played only by Bill and Tom during the first period of their precocious career. The song has been written by Bill when he was only 7 and it’s the first song he wrote.

The message

Perfect illustration of “Carpe Diem”, the text means joy and want to live. Personified the idea of a youth where the main words are speed, dynamism and doesn’t want talk to the past (“Gestern war vor 100.000 Jahre”, “Yesterday was 100.000 years ago”). The message is really simple and permits some “madness”, over all in the second verse where Bill evokes the totality of the world where he lives, and the crossing of Internet or science boundaries (“Ab heute gibt es jeden Tag ‘ne neue Welt Planeten sin dim Ausverkauft”, “Today born a new world every day. Galaxies are sold out”). In the last years the relation with the outside is evolved so much and new generations know so well that can’t sleep in velvet if want have the time to profit of the different possibilities that life offers, just like Tokio Hotel have done: their life is the music.

“It’s a appeal to live, to profit of the life. It’s one of our older songs (I’ve written it when I was 7): means that in the life must throw oneself, to do everything for to be able and don’t throw away an only second. It’s a authentic rebellion to the boring. In the end, at that time, I wrote it at home for kill the time” explains Bill.

TO BE CONTINUED…