According to self-created lore, Berlin’s new indie pop “star” Dagobert spent five years living alone in the Swiss Alps writing love songs. After sounding his soul’s depths in his native land (he’s from a small town in northern Switzerland), he returned to Berlin and has recently become the leading voice of new sincerity in Germany’s urban indie pop scene.
New Sincerity? According to a growing chorus of cultural critics, we lived in an age of irony for a long time (dates are hard to come by, but maybe the last 20-30 years?). During this time, we didn’t trust ourselves enough to express straightforward feelings because they’d all been drained of meaning by commercial culture. And we’d given up fighting that, so we had to get out in front of those canned feelings or look stupid. Enter irony.
Recently we’ve been getting tired of that though. It’s a little exhausting trying to be so clever all the time. So, apparently now we’re saying exactly what we feel again, loudly sometimes, and doing things like falling in love, talking about having kids and buying houses, and this time all without embarrassment. Enter New Sincerity. It’s a crude sketch, but you get the point (if you want to dig deeper, check out this interesting exchange on the topic: How to Live without Irony & Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age’s Ethos).
On the front end of this trend, Dagobert channels many of the idioms of a now formerly ironic hipster culture in this new sincere direction. Sporting a 1920s style suit with coattails and standing in front of a simple neon sign with his name, Dagobert’s shows and his black and white videos reference Weimar Era silent film and cabaret stages. With his 20s attire and reserved demeanor, he could easily be a host at Raines Law Room or another of NYC’s myriad speakeasies. But Dagobert brings to the table a Swiss-German variety of new sincerity you can’t find in Williamsburg or the Lower East Side.
American sincerity, as we’ve seen recently with bands like fun., can be loud and boisterous. Here we seem to be screaming raw feelings at the top of our lungs. Dagobert occasionally breaks out into a heartfelt belt, but his sincerity is more controlled. He works in a minimalist idiom, decorated at times with soft touches of old school irony. Mostly his songs are earnest pleas for simple desires. Offstage his mood is one of bemused joy that, after all that irony, we can still have simple, straightforward feelings.
I’ve posted his first single release, “Morgens Um Halb Vier” (Three Thirty in the Morn), from his debut album Dagobert. It’s a simple song that develops a haunting quality at the end.
The closest thing I’ve found on this side of the pond is Vampire Weekend’s recent release “Step.” It’s more intellectual and explanatory, but I think the song is after something similar. Are we becoming the philosophers, and Germans the poets?
Dagobert – Morgens Um Halb Vier (Three Thirty in the Morn)
Stell mir schon wieder vor, wie es jetzt wär mit dir
durch kalte Straßen geistern, morgens um halb vier
Ich nehm dich bei der Hand und flüster dir ins Ohr:
Bleib doch ein Leben lang, ich hab mit dir viel vor
Zuerstmal bauen wir ein Haus direkt ans Meer
und pflanzen Bäume drum, denn Bäume mag ich sehr
und es muss groß sein, viel zu groß für nur uns zwei
dann schauen vielleicht ein paar Kinder noch vorbei
Ein ganzes Leben voller Lust auf immer mehr
liegt uns zu Füßen wie eim Kapitän das Meer
und treibt mich zu dir
morgens um halb vier
Und wenn nicht alles hält, dann bleiben wir halt arm
und geben uns im Winter gegenseitig warm
Es gibt nur eins, was zählt, und das ist nicht nur Glück,
sondern die Frage: Welche Liebe kommt zurück?
Ein ganzes Leben voller Lust auf immer mehr
liegt uns zu Füßen wie eim Kapitän das Meer
und treibt mich zu dir
morgens um halb vier
Ein ganzes Leben voller Lust auf immer mehr
liegt uns zu Füßen wie eim Kapitän das Meer
und treibt mich zu dir
morgens um halb vier
I keep imagining how it’d be with you
roaming through cold streets three thirty in the morn
I take you by the hand and whisper in your ear:
Stay for a whole life, I’ve so many plans for us
First we’ll build a house right by the sea
and plant trees all around, ‘cause I like trees a lot
and it’d have to be real big, too big for just us two
then maybe a few kids would come along
a whole life full of pleasure evermore
lies at our feet like the sea before a captain
and drives me to you
at three thirty in the morn
And if everything doesn’t last, then we’ll just stay poor
and in winter we’ll keep each other warm
there’s only one thing that counts, and it’s not just happiness,
but the question: what love comes in return?
A whole life full of pleasure evermore
lies at our feet like the sea before a captain
and drives me to you
at three thirty in the morn
(trans. by a. f. erwin)
Vampire Weekend – Step
For more on Dagobert, see this short documentary: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI0L9AHcha4>
The Flow 