16August
Who said that the Germans had no sense of humour? Not Frank Popp, who put together a studio ensemble in the dying years of the twentieth century. Their work was a cross between upbeat soul, kitsch pop, and organ-based spy music. The whole atmosphere was quite deliberately a throwback to the late 60s.
The group's first proper LP was Ride On
, released in 2001, and most of the album was used in a television commercial somewhere in Europe. It's from this album that we draw our sample track, Hip teens (don't wear blue jeans)
(m/l: Sam Leigh Brown, Philip Noha, Frank Popp Ensemble). The track was a top 20 hit in Germany during June 2003, and is as good an introduction to the group's wowfabgroovy sound as you're likely to find without using the word wowfabgroovy.
The Ensemble tried to crack the Anglophone market in 2005, but weren't black or talking jive, so stood no chance. Good music stands the test of time.
