"Here is Roland! Roland – the Emperor!" Whoever has survived the decades of the Hecksch'art hit parade, the steel bath of German pop music, with grandeur, can also retain their dignity at Florian Silbereisen's "Schlagerbooom" in the Dortmund Westfalenhalle, this Mayday of Discofox. Entertainment music is indeed more than just layering old hits with thumping beats as party hit mixes.
Roland Kaiser's work dates back to the late 70s. It began with the first, almost unintentional hit "Sieben Fässer Wein"; a drinking anthem that was actually supposed to be belted out by Rex Gildo. After the hit "Santa Maria", it all came in quick succession: "Lieb mich ein letztes Mal", "Dich zu lieben", "Manchmal möchte ich schon mit dir", "Joana", "Ich glaub es geht schon wieder los" or "Alles, was du willst". When strung together, this today results in a casual, almost fifteen-minute medley of hits; pretty laid-back, presented by Kaiser and his live band.
In terms of fashion, Roland Kaiser is always at the forefront – instead of desperately squeezing himself into too tight slim fit jackets like his colleagues, he always stands on stage in well-fitting suits with vests, pocket squares, and cuffs. His colleague Maite Kelly knows that he wears the shirts with cuffs even in the hotel breakfast room, while morning sluggishness is celebrated around him. And when the channel arte sent Kaiser and Götz Alsmann together "through the night" from Münster a few years ago, they first praised each other for their suits.
Style, combined with suggestive-frivolous songs about scheduled sexual intercourse, is the recipe for the success of the resident of Münster. He has also laid the groundwork – for the song "Santa Maria", Kaiser initially wrote a dull text about Columbus and the discovery of America, which did not appeal to the record company. Consequently, Kaiser, overnight, wrote a new version with schlager lyricist Norbert Hammerschmidt, an exaggerated accumulation of clichés that the record company wouldn't allow anyway. But they did end up accepting it, and since then, the German music repertoire has been enriched by lines like "Santa Maria / at night on your snow-white beaches / I held your youth in my hands / happiness for which there is no name".
While other schlager singers usually pine away for their fictional romances, Roland Kaiser always gets down to business, even if only in fantasy: "Sometimes I just want to spell out the word desire with you for a night". After the air had somewhat deflated in the 2000s, Maite Kelly wrote the duet "Warum hast du nicht nein gesagt" in 2014 about a man and a woman who blame each other for their affair but are actually already keen on each other again. A classic, steadily escalating Discofox hit, where both entwine on stage, but with the appropriate dose of irony. The Kaiser still has it. And he continues on. Tony Bennett is still recording albums with Lady Gaga at the age of 95.
