"Oi don't give a shit," Germany's newest pop star sings in her odd accent.
Foto: Andreas Rentz/ Getty ImagesLena-mania is spreading like a virus. The talent-seeking television show "Our Star for Oslo" carried it into the living rooms of Germany. And now it threatens to infect the whole of Europe with the imminent Eurovision Song Contest, the kitschiest, campest competition ever, which sometimes seems to be a test of how well (or indeed, how badly) other nations can sing in English. The final takes place next week in Oslo, Norway.
Ever since Swedish popstars Abba triumphed at the contest with "Waterloo" (with near-perfect accents) in 1974, there has been a strongly held belief that to win you need to adopt the language of the nation that pretty much refuses to adopt any other. And maybe that helps explains why 18-year-old Lena Meyer-Landrut has, perversely, captured the hearts of the nation, by singing in my mother tongue.
But contrary to the opinions of die hard fans who insist her accent is brilliant, Lena sounds really, really weird. Her attempts to adopt the street language of London -- itself a hybrid of US slang, Jamaican argot, and East End vernacular and beloved of British pop stars like Adele and Amy Winehouse, who seem to be Lena's heroines -- end up with her sounding like a Swedish speech therapist imitating Ali G.
Lena's Accent not Mockney, Jafakean, English or German
"Oi don't give a shit," she declares in "Love Me." And although she likes the smell of fresh hay, as she tells us in "Touch A New Day" she won't "inhay it." I think she means inhale, but I'm really not sure.
Lena's isn't a mockney accent, the affectation of London's working-class Cockney tone that the likes of Blur's Damon Albarn were accused of using. Nor is it the full-on "jafakean," the fake Jamaican accent you often hear on the top decks of North London buses, as the preferred slang of the school kids who like to sound like they're from the ghetto. Instead, it is a mixture that borrows from the two, then adds a shot of mixed-up European, presumably made up of her native German and what sounds like Scandinavian. In fact, the Scandinavian accent could be a cunning plan to win over the Oslo crowd.
The mispronounced words aren't in themselves a crime. After all, Icelandic musician Bjork's accent is, well, idiosyncratic. And The Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan's Irish lilt added to her angular songs. In fact, now that I think of it, she sounds a bit like Lena.
Lena's Real Crime Is Poor Imitation
What is a crime however, is that the songs on her new album -- "My Cassette Player" -- are a hotch-potch of Adele's pop songs, Amy Winehouse's soulless soul, ersatz R'n'B and Lily Allen's plastic ska-pop -- all of which she copies badly. It's imitation, rather than invention.
And then there are the lyrics. "Who took my cassette player?" she asks desperately. To which I have to reply: Who has a cassette player these days anyway?
The song that opens the album, "Satellite," which catapulted her to victory in the talent contest for Oslo, is similarly mysterious. Lena's testament of love is so odd it verges on voodoo. She'd leave on the porch light, wear blue knickers and paint her toenails for her love. And I have to say, I don't think I'm the only one who'd fear for their safety getting too close to someone that obsessed. Saying that you're leaving on the porch light for someone is more the kind of thing your mum says.
She can be quite self-destructive too. Proof: In "I Like To Bang My Head" she declares quite openly that she, er, likes to bang her head. In addition to her aforementioned love of hay, she embraces nature by comparing herself to a bee in the song "Bee" and a caterpillar in the rain in "Caterpillar In The Rain." Although in her case a caterpillar is a "Kite-air-pillar." I was glad I had the lyric sheet on hand to translate Lena-glish into English.
It's probably prudent for Germany to think of the ongoing effects of Lena-mania. Thousands, perhaps millions of young German school kids will be taking their English lessons from Lena, which could eventually render them as unintelligible to the English-speaking world as Guido Westerwelle, the current foreign minister. Oh Germany, what have you done?
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Lena Meyer-Landrut, an 18-year-old from Hanover, won a the national competition to represent Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo, Norway, next Saturday.
Children at the school that Lena attends in Hanover watch the finals of the televised contest "Our Star For Oslo."
After winning "Our Star For Oslo," Meyer-Landrut made it into the German singles charts.
Her songs went to number one, two and four. Then she recorded her first album "My Cassette Player."
She's also apparently an average, down-to-earth German girl. When reporters ask Lena's friends about her, the answer is often: "She's a bit of a nutter."
One British journalist describes Meyer-Landrut's accent as her attempt to speak London street slang, a sort of hybrid of Jamaican and Cockney accents, the way her pop singer heroines Amy Winehouse and Adele do, which results in her "sounding like a Swedish speech therapist trying to imitate Ali G."
She sings in a strange English accent, she says strange things, and yet somehow all these funny little quirks have seen her chattering her way into her audience's heart.
Early in May Meyer-Landrut came under fire for what some in the media called "naked pictures" of her. She appeared in a docu-drama sitting in a pool with a young man. Apparently viewers get a glimpse of her chest.
Interviewed about the nude pictures, Meyer-Landrut simply told German reporters that it was just a role she played. "I was acting and that means it was not my privacy," she said. "Give me one reason why I should be upset about this. In our family we have always said: today's newspaper is used to wrap the fish in tomorrow."
Relaxed in a Hanover cafe: A not inconsiderable part of Meyer-Landrut's charm also comes from the fact that she prefers not to answer questions about her private life. "It's about the music," she replies in these instances.
On stage during the "Wanna Bet...?" show. Appearing alongside the world renowned stars the limits of Meyer-Landrut's talent were visible.
Germany's 1998 Eurovision contestant Guildo Horn. It is generally thought that the winning songs are most often in English.
The German winner of the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest. Germany has not won this prize since 17-year-old Nicole Hohloch won that year.
The Lithuanian group InCulto rehearse for the Eurovision Song Contest this week in Oslo, Norway. The final takes place on May 29.
The Swiss contender for the Eurovision title rehearsing this week.
Although the 17-year-old Eurovision candidate from Azerbaijan (pictured here rehearsing for the Eurovision finals) is also a contender, betting shops all over Europe are calling Meyer-Landrut the favorite to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
Search engine giant Google said this week it has tipped Meyer-Landrut to win Eurovision, based on forecast tools that analyze the users' searches. "We analyze the search results all across Europe and blend out the candidates in their own country," Google Germany spokesman Stefan Keuchel told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "At the moment, Lena has attracted the greatest user interest of all candidates in the rest of Europe, too. And despite the fact that this year, for the first time, half the points will be awarded by a jury, you can still see a tendency emerging." He said the method had been tried and tested during the swine flu. "And we were correct about the last Song Contest," Keuchel said.
