Doing it Aurally

I like music for the same reason I like sports -- as a form of collectivism and communal experience. There's nothing inherently exciting to me about banging on a piece of metal in a regular fashion, or blowing gusts of wind through a wooden cylinder; I enjoy listening to music for its ability to connect me to (sub)cultures. As I youngster, I was embarrassed about living in a middle-class household in a working-class district, so I got into punk. Maybe I couldn't be a throwaway youth -- someone who has decided to burn out rather than grow up because earning a good living is not really possible -- but I could listen to their music and get angry just the same. I feel as if I can bore my way into the minds of a specific group of people by listening to the music they do. For example, I named my blog last summer "Crack in Chelsea" because I would always listen to a certain Dropkick Murphys song on my way home from work, "as I put on my most bad-ass face and dodge through the crowds at Grand Central Station," as I wrote at the time. I was a New York bad-ass, and bad-ass New Yorkers listen to hard-edged skinhead music. So I did the same.

That's why I knew that my early-2000s American rock collection was not going to cut it in Austria. I tried listening to almost everything in the U-Bahn during my first few weeks here (rap, ska, indie, punk, folk), but it always felt a bit wrong, as if I was disappearing into an American world between my ears and letting Austria pass me by. Interestingly enough, international pop hits like Airplanes seemed to work well, but I can't ignore my American socialization, which tells me that those songs can only be occasional guilty pleasures, long enough for them to serve as a sustainable solution to my dilemma. Since I still wanted to listen to music on the trains, I needed to amp up my German-speaking music collection. Here's some of what I've found so far:



Fürstenfeld (STS)



I've had three separate conversations with Austrians (from the more rural parts of the country like the Steiermark and Oberösterreich) in which this song has come up. Everyone is surprised that I know it -- but it was actually my first experience with Austrian Dialekt all the way back in my high school German 4 class.

Das geht ab (Frauenarzt & Manny Marc)





Halloween night might have been awkward in certain areas, but musically speaking, it was "voll geil" (dope), with summer throwbacks like Waka Waka and Wavin' Flag (who doesn't have World Cup nostalgia?) and this pseudo-gangsta rap.


Moskau (Tschingus Khan)




I first heard this song at one of the Goethe-Partys back in Schwäbisch Hall. An oldie but goodie.

Stark (Ich + Ich)




I downloaded this song after my first trip to Austria in 2008 but never really listened to it until this month. I find it really powerful when grown men acknowledge their insecurities, which is what the lead singer is doing in this song.

I am from Austria (Ambros, Danzer, & Fendrich)




And of course, the unofficial national anthem of Austria. I'll admit it, I sometimes get a little weepy when I listen to this song as I'm walking through the first district, where all the famous buildings are and where the air is so thick with history you can taste it. I love this country so much.