German Longings: A Dialogue on the Promises and Dangers of National Stereotypes

Germanness is always already entangled with the complicated and torn history of Germany, as it continues to be haunted by the specter of the war. This chapter engages with the issue of Germanness in popular music from two different personal perspectives, one Dutch, and one German, and it navigates between issues of national identity and stereotyping through the lens of popular music. It explores the fascination for, and struggle with, and at times, even longings for Germanness as it asks: What is German music, and how do we, as listeners with our specific classed, gendered, aged, and national biographies, negotiate such sounds? By first drawing on the Dutch perspective on Germanness as “exotic other,” the chapter provides an outside view on German stereotypes and irony in popular music as a means of reflecting on other national identifications, such as the author’s Dutchness. Secondly, this dialogic chapter questions stereotypes and irony as productive means of complicating national identification, while also problematizing the increasing banalization and naturalization of the German nation in contemporary German pop. Finally, this chapter argues for a continuous reflection on naturalized productions of togetherness and national belonging instead of alienation and strangeness, and a more reflexive stance towards the tropes of stereotypes and irony for their ambiguity and dangers of infelicitous appropriation.