TMI

Listening Post 12. Annett Louisan is Marlene Dietrich redesigned: Shorter in stature, higher in voice, she takes her own route to the same seductive ends. Innocent or naughty, funny or critical, perky or melancholy, she adroitly juggles modern vocabulary and retro style, often crossing the boundaries of pop/chanson into other musical realms. The theme of Louisan’s sixth album, Zu viel Information (Too Much Information), is—in the words of the German weekly Welt am Sonntag—“love, sex and sweet revenge.” Love informs the father-daughter song Besonders (Special); her ode to lifelong romance, Das Rezept (The Recipe); and the torch song Papillon (Butterfly). Infidelity is the subject of Herrenabend (Stag Party) and Dann sag ich’s ihr halt (Then I Tell Her Stop). She also comments on the crosscurrents of life with a Big Band beat in Ey na du (Hey, you); a folk rhythm in Alles erledigt (All Done) and a harmonic flourish in the title track about unnecessary personal details. The pièce de résistance of sweet revenge (video 1a & 1b) is her Wild West-Facebook ballad Dein Ding (Your Thing): Addressing a macho ego, the song’s title is a wordplay that starts with relationships-aren’t-your-thing and segues into “I posted your thing and there were no comments.” It’s a ringing example of TMI. (105 Music GmbH/Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH)

Video 1a: Accessible worldwide, except U.S., Mexico, Australia and New Zealand

Video 1b: Accessible worldwide.