29March
Two years ago, the top web search returned the Imperial. Now, it returns pictures of a fresh-faced young man with a porcupine on his head.
Twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz were born in Leipzig in September 1989. At the age of 12, they formed the band Devilish with Magdeburg natives Gustav Schäfer and Georg Listing. They quickly outgrew the clubs of Saxony, and signed to Universal in 2003. The group's first major-label album, Schrei
was released in autumn 2005, under their new name of Tokio Hotel. It appears that much of the songwriting was done by the hired hands Pat Benzner, David Jost, and Dave Roth - the Kaulitz brothers have joint credits on four of the twelve songs, with two others attributed to the group.
If the music's authenticity is questionable, the look of the group's members is not. Go on, just look at Bill Kaulitz, the lead singer who looks innocent and demure, but sings with dirt coursing through his veins. Tom - the guy with the dreadlocks - is quieter, just standing there and playing his guitar. The band's visual imagery is played out in their videos - a concert in a lake for debut hit Durch den Monson
gave plenty of opportunity for wet t-shirt footage, and a house party for Schrei
was typical of the image the band wants to project.
Ver Hotel's second album, Zimmer 483
, was released earlier this year. Lead single Übers ende der Welt
was promoted with a post-apocalyptic video, while the clip for Spring Nicht
involves some very strange business in a car park.
We rather suspect that Tokio Hotel is filling a similar role to Evanescence - a group playing exquisitely manufactured commercial hard rock, fronted by a singer who half the audience wants to be, the other half wants to um, and these divisions are not on traditional gender lines.
Though possibly manufactured, and clearly formulaic, the group vies with Avril Lavigne for the honour of biggest teen sensation in the world at the moment. Sorry, McFly, but then sorry is not good enough. Tokio Hotel has exploded out of the German-speaking world to hit France, and plans to crack at the Anglosphere later this year, unless the Kaulitz twins are called up to the German army. We're enjoying the novelty while it lasts; by the end of the year, we could well be heartily sick of the group.
