Beatrice Egli – Mein Herz

“Oh my word, the orchestra hits.”

Tim: They say schlager’s on the way out – there was nothing to really represent it in either Eurovision or even Melodifestivalen this year, and a lot of people are saying it’s just not the done thing any more.

Tom: I really hope this is a leadup to a schlager song, and your punchline isn’t “so here’s some dubstep”.

Tim: So, here’s some…

Tom: Oh my word, the orchestra hits.

Tim: I propose that ‘they’ are wrong, though, as evidenced by this track, which is the first single by the winner of this year’s Deutschland sucht den Superstar (or what the rest of the world would call German Idol), and she actually made it her thing just to sing schlager, and then beat the runner-up with a convincing 70% of the vote.

That’s refreshing, isn’t it? That a young new artist can win a singing contest with this, and then be number one in the charts for two weeks running.

Tom: Blimey, number one with this? That’s not so much refreshing as just full-on startling. It’s good, but it’s extremely old-school and… well, it does go on a bit.

Tim: It does, yes, and it could probably do with a lazy key change – you know, the ones that get criticised for purely being there to give a bit of life to a song that’s reached its limit. That aside, it’s a perfectly standard example of the genre – a decent listenable track and worth mentioning, if only for the nice “cheese is alive” message it sends out.