How the light bulb made karaoke a mortal danger
Step 1: The world lights up
The famous US inventor Thomas Alva Edison is generally considered the father of the filament lamp. In 1879, this invention - according to Edison at any rate - first saw the, hohoho, light of the world. But like some of the 1093 inventions patented by Edison, he had certain, let's say: borrowed from other inventors. In the case of the filament lamp even with a whole pack. Edison bought some of the patent rights, such as the Canadians Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans, who had already registered theirs in 1874. Others were already dead at the time of Edison's "invention" and had not legally secured their idea - such as the Scotsman James Bowman Lindsay, the Briton Humphry Davy and Edward Kinnersley, who had already glowed wires with electricity in 1761. The business-minded Edison simply left most of the lightbulb thought leaders behind: they might have been faster, but Edison was the first to successfully commercialize the lightbulb.
This introduction of the filament lamp changed many areas of everyday life: previously it was difficult to read by candlelight in the evening at home, now bright electric light has become available. The cities were transformed from dark ghost towns with patrolling night watchmen into pulsating, brightly lit metropolises with urban nightlife. Above all, however, households were provided with power lines across the board to enable lighting without the risk of fire - and to connect various electrical devices. The consequences for the industry were far-reaching. After the triumphal march of Edison's new electric light, ...
Step 2: nepotism of the figures of light
... an entire lamp industry, not only in the United States. In the Netherlands, banker and tobacco industrialist Frederik Philips (fancifully a cousin of Karl Marx) and his sons Gerard and Anton Philips were among the first operators of a light bulb factory. Initially, the founding of the Philips company in 1891 looked rather unspectacular - only a handful of employees produced a manageable number of light bulbs in the small Eindhoven plant. The Philips family tried to gain a foothold in the new market. It succeeded - and Frederik Philips expanded production to four million light bulbs per year until 1905. Philips became the third largest light bulb manufacturer in Europe after Siemens & Halske and AEG.
Over the following decades, the company expanded, penetrated further product segments and in some cases even became the global market leader: X-ray tubes, radios, shavers, televisions, electric toothbrushes, CD players and much more. And Philips also became active outside of electrical appliances - around 1950 with its own record label, the subsidiary Philips Phonographische Industrie. The label released recordings of many classical orchestras, but also the ...
Step 3: wax doll in the spotlight
... of a 15-year-old girl from France: Philips signed France Gall in 1963 because she had impressed music producer Deni Bourgeois during a prelude in Paris. Gall came from a household of musicians: her mother was a singer, her father wrote songs for Édith Piaf. France was actually called Isabelle, but adopted its patriotic stage name because another French pop musician was already known as Isabelle, namely Isabelle Aubret.
With the record deal in the back, France Gall decided to give up school. Her success proved her right: on her 16th birthday, October 9, 1963, her debut single "Ne sois pas si bête" ("Don't be so stupid") was first shown on the radio - and became a hit. Gall's artistic director Denis Bourgeois also worked for Serge Gainsbourg and persuaded the famous singer to work with the newcomer. With Gainsbourg's song "N'écoute pas les idoles" ("Don't listen to the idols"), Gall rose to the top of the French charts for the first time in 1964. With other songs such as "Laisse tomber les filles" ("Keep your hands off the girls") or "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" ("wax doll, straw doll") by Gainsbourg, Gall quickly became a pop star that everyone knew in France. In 1964 the singer also learned the ...
Step 4: In the beginning was the end
... know French chansonnier Claude François. He was eight years older and married, but both of them became lovers. Or something like that. It was a passionate, difficult relationship that drove them to heights and precipices for three years. François wanted to maintain his seductive image, so the relationship should be kept secret. Again and again there were quarrels, separations, reconciliations, devotion, hate. François became increasingly possessive, Gall followed him to his concerts.
Added to this was his growing jealousy of her success. The fact that Gall competed for and won the France Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 probably hurt his ego. When she called him backstage after the big gig, he humiliated her: "You sang wrong, you were a zero! It's over between us." Gall went back on stage, the audience thought that there were tears of joy on her cheeks. A violent argument ensued back in Paris, the cracks in the relationship deepened. Until there was another violent argument at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes in 1967 - the last one. France Gall and Claude François bitterly separated.
In the same year, the singer, whom France Gall later only called "the impossible man", processed the pain in one song: The melancholic relationship song "Comme d'habitude" ("As if out of habit") told of a couple with whom Daily arguments as well as gestures of tenderness, cold-hearted rejection, obvious infidelity and goodbye kisses have become mechanically repeated rituals. Gall later said François personally told her that the song was meant for her. But she doesn't recognize her relationship back then. Nevertheless, her ex's sinister song moved many listeners when it was released in November 1967. And among these listeners ...
Step 5: Mafiosi and the bomb in the restaurant
... was also a young Canadian who was on a vacation trip in the south of France and heard François' sinister relationship calculation on the radio. This Canadian, Paul Anka, was himself in the pop business and had already sold more than ten million records with his hit "Diana" in 1958 as a teenager. Since then he has also written songs for other stars. Anka was not completely swept away by the single "Comme d'habitude", but saw potential. He put it a little more directly: "It was a crappy record, but there was something in it." He was certain that it would be a success in the US market. So he bought the rights for a song adaptation - just to forget the song again and let it mold in a drawer for two years.
Until a friendly singer called Anka: Frank Sinatra wanted to meet him in Florida. Anka later said that they met in a restaurant with "a couple of mafia types. Frank dropped the bomb - he said, 'I'm getting out of business. I'm sick of it.'" Anka was completely taken aback. But then he got an idea: to write a last, big farewell song for Sinatra. He took out the notes for "Comme d'habitude", improvised on the piano, changed the piece here and there. Then he sat down at the typewriter and imagined what text Frank Sinatra would write to say goodbye to his career. Anka typed all night - and created ...
Step 6: Anthem to the Ich-AG
... one of the best known and most covered pop songs in music history: Frank Sinatra's "My Way". From the song about a relationship hell, Anka had made the summary of an older man who looks back on his life before facing "the last curtain": "I lived a full life / traveled every single highway / Oh, and much more important than that / I did it my way. "
Frank Sinatra himself, his daughter Tina reveals after the BBC entertainer's death in 1999, was not enthusiastic about Anka's song: "He always thought the song was self-righteous. He didn't like it." And yet Sinatra had a feel for the hit potential, recorded the song on December 30, 1968 and even made it the title of his next album "My Way" at the beginning. Unlike Sinatra, his listeners loved the song: it climbed to number 2 on the Adult Contemporary Charts in the USA, stormed hit parades around the world and became the best-known song in Sinatra's long music career. Like almost no other piece, it celebrated the American dream, the belief in the power of the individual, with dedication and diligence to make it from the dishwasher to the millionaire, to the "top" if you only follow your own rules. Even Paul Anka later wondered about the appeal of his text: "Everyone thinks it's a song about themselves - but how many people really do it in their own way?"
Well over 100 cover versions of the piece were created, musicians from Elvis Presley to Sex Pistols star Sid Vicious to rapper Jay-Z reinterpreted the self-adulation anthem. In England it became the most played song at funerals, Gerhard Schröder let "My Way" play his tricks and Donald Trump on his inauguration ball. But "My Way" had the weirdest and most frightening episodes ...
Step 7: At the end of the way
...On the Philippines. Because there came the "My Way Killings" from 2000. Karaoke is extremely popular in the island nation: there are karaoke machines in bars, private households or in the open, some of which are already in the morning before work. The singing skills are correspondingly closely linked to the pride of people. And they can react to criticism accordingly.
Sinatra's hit even turned out to be life-threatening. "I used to like 'My Way' before, but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it. You can get killed," said Mr. Gregorio of General Santos City in 2010 to the New York Times. The song was already banned in many karaoke bars, often populated by gangsters, pimps and prostitutes - for security reasons. It probably started around 2000: Somebody didn't hit the tone on "My Way", shortly afterwards he was dead. How many people paid the song number with their lives is not exactly known, at least half a dozen are said to be from 2000 to 2010 alone have been.
Just why? One theory is that it was the text. Butch Albarracin, vocal teacher in Manila, said it like this: "The text creates a sense of pride in the singer as if you were someone, even if you are a nobody." That is why, according to Albarracin, the song leads to acts of violence. It could well be the pride of some karaoke singers if they were celebrating full-breastedly, as he had done "in their own way" - and then the audience laughed at his singing. The other way around, the audience could see it as a provocation that an unskilled singer has the cheek to cheer himself up with "My Way". Either way - in the Philippines, everyone who has not yet come to an end has better avoided "My Way".
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DISPLAY
Kringiel, Danny
How Hitler invented the skateboard: in seven steps through world history
Publishing company:
KiWi Paperback
Pages:
320
Price:
€ 11.00
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