This is another of the good-kind-of-weird I got from MTV Europe

On one level, it’s a fun pop-punk song from a band with a ridiculous name (Die Toten Hosen – literally, the Dead Trousers!). Given grunge was all the rage when it was released, it was perhaps a bit of a throwback, or perhaps it was a bit ahead of its time, prefiguring the bands like Blink 182 at the end of the 90s. Either way, if you don’t speak German, it’s a fun bit of music and not much more than that.

If you do speak German, however, there’s a second layer, which is a bit of biting satire on consumerism. Politics? In my punk music? It’s more likely than you think, even in German! The title literally means Buy Me and the whole song is about the constant pressure to buy stuff that you probably don’t need but if you buy it you’ll be in the ‘in crew’. It’s smart, it’s sharp, it’s memorable and it’s just the tip of a very sharply observed album that also features several punts at right-wing extremism (amongst other things).

It’s a song that made me giggle first, then it made me think. And almost thirty years later, it’s still making me think.

The summer fun playlist can be found on Spotify here.

That’s all for now. Happy reading and listening!