German vs. US MTV

               I was interested to see how MTV, an American invention, compared to its German counterpart so I watched a few of the music videos most popular in Germany. While I was expecting a lot of German generated music to be on the charts, I was surprised to find that American songs comprised the vast majority. In addition, when the songs were actually by German-speaking artists many times they were performed in English. For example, while as of September 17^th the number one song was by a German artist, the lyrics were sung in English.

                American imagery was also very common. In one music video for the song, “Spiegelbild,” images of American currency were tattooed on the artist. “So perfekt” depicted an American high school complete with cheerleaders and an American football team.

                In terms of the sound that was most popular, the top hits tended to fall into the pop category. However, there were some other genres such as this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN023L75GgM

                While American music seems to be quite popular in Germany, this doesn’t seem to be too uncommon. I quick scanned the Spanish and Italian MTV websites and the same music popular in the US seems to be circulating globally. However, with the rise in popularity of Latin Music here in the US perhaps some German tracks are next?