It's fun to find new music, to listen to what someone else is listening to and maybe find a new band or genre to explore.
Periodically I'll give you a new band, a new genre or a new artist I've found. Give a listen, see what you think.
My first pick is Tokio Hotel. While not new to the music scene in Europe, where they are a huge success, not everyone on this side of the pond has heard of Tokio Hotel. They get classified as emo or glam rock, which is more a reflection of their look and lead singer Bill Kaulitz's flair for fashion. To me, they are sort of indescribable, although they do produce a nice solid rock sound.
Tokio Hotel was formed in Germany in 2001 by Tom and Bill Kaulitz, along with Georg Listing and Gustav Schaefer. They're all in their early 20s. The review below is of their lastest 2 CD/DVD set of their greatest hits. Give them a listen.
It's hard to imagine that a band whose members are as young as Tokio Hotel can actually have enough material to put out a "best of" CD/DVD, but they do. In fact, they even have unreleased songs and new tracks on the double English/German CD set; "Madchen Aus Dem All" (2003) and "Hurricanes and Suns" (2009). And those makes a nice addition, giving us a whopping 18 songs on each CD. As with past double CDs, one CD is in English, one in German.
Many of the songs are from the Humanoid CD and tour, along with standard favorites like "Rette Mich" and "Ubers Ende Der Welt" and of course the iconic "Scream." As with all of Tokio Hotel's music, the songs mesh very well together, considering how the band has evolved over the arc of their musical development and there's at last 6 years' worth of music on these CDs. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.
And with all of that comes a DVD with 18 videos and 6 making of... videos. All in all, a nice package for the price. I also think it would be a nice CD for someone not familiar with Tokio Hotel. It gives a balanced look at their work over the years and it's always fun to watch the older videos when they were even younger. Being able to look...and listen...back over their work puts the band in context with where they are now, shows us how they've evolved and are still evolving, both stylistically and as individuals. We get the range of Bill's voice as he matures and the growing sophistication of their music and lyrics in more recent tracks from Humanoid.
And the videos gives us the panorama of Bill's ever-changing hair styles and wardrobe, along with a look back at Tom's dreds. As much as I appreciate the current fashion-forward person Bill's becoming, I still miss the Volcom t-shirts and ripped jeans.
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