lil jon, he always tells the truth

by Rachel Schrier on July 1, 2008

Posted in: Uncategorized

this is my second attempt to post from berlin. while berlin is full of bacchanalia and late night dj sets, i’ve only seen a few local bands play here, and not for lack of trying, but rather for lack of expendable income. my musical memories of berlin have been forged by the few live shows i got to see, 100,6 motor fm – my ersatz-wrmc if you will, and lots and lots of viva and german mtv.

why do i love german mtv and viva so much? let me count the ways … there are episodes of charm school, rock of love, and next uncensored in english to fulfill my brain’s trashy tv quota. there are specials on britney spears involving 3 or more fake “experts” who predict her certain demise. there is the painfully awkward culture of lovelorn german teenagers who spend what must be hundreds of dollars of their parents money every month text messaging these television stations

well in between tokio hotel music videos and episodes of date oder fake? – a show in which a girl has to correctly guess which of the three guys she is on a “date” with is gay, which is taken, and which is single – they play the most amazing and random music video countdowns. my personal favorite of all time was titled “wish you were here” and featured a random sampling of germanys favorite dead musicians. the top five list featured elvis, queen, nirvana, johnny cash and of course number one was the notorious b.i.g. – its a cultural smorgasbord perfectly suited for my pop-culture-saturated tastes.

where is this love letter to german television programming going? namely, yesterday, after watching a hilariously poorly dubbed mark ronson appearance, german mtv served up this little gem:

it seems that my german counterparts can’t get over vampire weekend either, and i have since seen this music video about 80 times in the last week (and i swear im not watching THAT much tv …) – i love it. i love the song, i love the font in the video that is reminiscent of wes anderson, i love that it was all shot in one take, i just love love love it, and i hoped you guys would love it too.

also, germans call them wampire veekend. say it out loud. its funny.