Selekting Scooter

Does anyone remember Scooter? I do. When I was younger, they were like the rave band that it was cool to hate, the polar opposite of The Prodigy, although if truth be told, both acts’ propensity to jump around stage like crazy fools, sport daft haircuts and wacky club garb made them more similar than anyone dared to admit.

Scooter were uncool because they were German at a time when it was desperately uncool to be German and because they made kiddie rave techno, unlike The Prodge, who made rave techno for teenagers. The Prodge smashed stuff up and had a menacing air, the kind of big, bad brothers who would turn up uninvited while your parents were away and drive the car into the neighbour’s wall. On the other hand, Scooter were like the goofy exchange student who thought everything was ‘crazy’, laughed loudly, but who went to bed at 10pm with a mug of cocoa.

How times change. Now it’s cool (or should that be uber-cool) to be German and to proclaim everything to be crazy, followed by a few ‘for sures’ for good measure. Unless you have taped old Guinness ads, the Prodge are nowhere to be seen or heard, but the same can’t be said about Scooter. Maybe the band themselves aren’t in the public domain, but one of their biggest hits, ‘Hyper Hyper’ has been appropriated by Modeselektor for their new album, ‘Happy Birthday’.

I like Modeselektor’s music and I have a lot of time for Bpitch, the label it’s released on, but initially, I couldn’t warm to the album. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that the label only issued me with a copy containing one-minute clips of each track. If writing about music is really like dancing to architecture, then Bpitch’s overly paranoid approach to promotion meant that appraising the album was as difficult as repeating one step in a jig on the top ledge of the Empire State.

Thankfully, the label saw sense and gave out full copies - including the creepy artwork - and I could finally give Modeselektor’s music, and their cover version of ‘Hyper Hyper’ a proper listen. Hindsight brings with it great clarity, but there is something great about their version of this formerly maligned track. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they have enlisted the vocal talent of Cyrano de Bergerac-like false nose wearing electro oddball Otto Von Schirach and reduced the high-speed trance arrangement to an electro shuffle – with Von Schirach deeply intoning ‘bass drum’ every time the grainy beat kicks in. In fairness though, they have retained the soaring and undeniably cheesy, soaring trance riffs - none of your Kompakt shininess here, this is real nasty tops off, Omen-inspired stuff -   and the name-check for all the famous and formerly famous German DJs: whatever happened to Marco Zaffarano and DJ Dag? But the best moment is when Von Schirach asks the audience ‘Do you like it hardcore?’ We used to laugh at this phrase when we were smug little clubbers in the late 90s, giggling at the notion that the teeny ravers could relate to it. Now, nearly ten years later, I might be older, but I’m certainly not wiser: the first time I heard Modeselektor’s version, I shouted out: ‘yes, I like it hardcore’. Hyper Hyper!

Comments

[Niall]

It sure is a funny little ditty. Those slowed down synths actually sound quite good. I like the cheekiness of the whole thing.

[beat]

No, Scooter were, and always will be, uncool because their music is complete and utter shit, not because they're dorky.

[Sunil]

>>- and the name-check for all the famous and formerly famous German DJs: whatever happened to Marco Zaffarano and DJ Dag?

Zaffarano is still active I think, he has popped up on a few records in the last few years, the last one I remember was with WJ Henze.

Apparantly Dag decided it was time for a new career challenge and moved to the USA (to truly feel the P.ower of A.merican N.atives!), where things didn´t work out as well as they might have. A while later he moved back to Germany, where unfortunately his star had fallen considerably. He still DJs I think, but is obviously no Sven Vath in stature.

His sets from The Omen were legendary; he was one of my faves in the early to mid nineties, when I was buying tapes in Music Power!

[Prince Billy]

best post iv ever read on this blog; about a band who it was cool to hate, scooter are so shit that i like them. hes like a familiar minded older unkle of svens. scooter were the first techno pop group i could put a face to, which, for a ten year old was difficult to ignore a slightly mad, bleached hair german, always on the tv, screaming similiarly themed trance tunes about hardcore,hyperactivity, midnight raves, and rebel yells. rebel yell goes down as a childhood classic in my eyes and/or ears, cant wait to hear the modeselektor one.

[Paul Chillage]

Scooter and the Prodigy sound the same to me; indeed, so do the Chemical Brothers...