Schlager music is a style of popular music that is generally a catchy instrumental accompaniment to vocal pieces of pop music with simple, happy-go-lucky, and often sentimental lyrics. It is prevalent in Central and Northern Europe, and Southeast Europe (in particular Germany, Austria, Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic States), and also (to a lesser extent) in France, Belgium, Netherlands, and the UK. In the United States it is also known as 'entertainer music' or 'German hit mix'.

Typical schlager tracks are either sweet, sentimental ballads with a simple, catchy melody or light pop tunes. Lyrics typically center on love, relationships, and feelings. The northern variant of schlager (notably in Finland) has taken elements from Nordic and Slavic folk songs, with lyrics tending towards melancholic and elegiac themes. Musically, schlager bears similarities to styles such as easy listening.

The German word Schlager (itself a calque of the English word hit) is also a loanword in some other languages (Hungarian, Lithuanian, Russian,Hebrew, Romanian for example), where it retained its meaning of a "(musical) hit". The style has been frequently represented at the Eurovision Song Contest and has been popular since the contest began in 1956 although it is gradually being replaced by other pop music styles.

Over time, schlager music has gradually shifted on to electronic music rather than generic pop music, due to its widespread use of synthesizers throughout its various implementations in recent decades.

Germany and Austria

The roots of German schlager are old: the word refers to songs by Heinz Rühmann and other singing movie stars of the 1930s. One ancestor of schlager may be operetta, which was highly popular in the early twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Comedian Harmonists and Rudi Schuricke laid the foundations for this new music. Well-known schlager singers of the 1950s and early 1960s include Lale Andersen, Freddy Quinn, Ivo Robić, Gerhard Wendland, Caterina Valente, Margot Eskens and Conny Froboess. Schlager reached a peak of popularity in Germany and Austria in the 1960s (featuring Peter Alexander and Roy Black) and the early 1970s. From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, schlager also saw an extensive revival in Germany by, for example, Guildo Horn, Dieter Thomas Kuhn, Michelle and Petra Perle. Dance clubs would play a stretch of schlager titles during the course of an evening, and numerous new bands were formed specialising in 1970s schlager cover versions and newer material. In Hamburg in the 2010s, schlager fans still gathered annually by the hundreds of thousands, dressing in 1970s clothing for street parades called "Schlager Move". The Schlager Move designation is also used for a number of smaller schlager music parties in several major German cities throughout the year.(This revival is sometimes associated with kitsch and camp.)

Germans view schlager as their country music, and American country and Tex-Mex music are both major elements in schlager culture. ("Is This the Way to Amarillo" is regularly played in schlager contexts, usually in the English-language original.)

Popular schlager singers include Michael Wendler, Roland Kaiser, Hansi Hinterseer, Jürgen Drews, Andrea Berg, Heintje Simons, Helene Fischer, Nicole, Claudia Jung, Andrea Jürgens, Michelle, Kristina Bach, Marianne Rosenberg, Simone Stelzer, Daniela Alfinito, Christian Lais, Semino Rossi, Vicky Leandros, Leonard, DJ Ötzi, and Andreas Gabalier, who was voted best schlager singer in 2012. Stylistically, schlager continues to influence German "party pop": that is, music most often heard in après-ski bars and Majorcan mass discos. Contemporary schlager is often mingled with Volkstümliche Musik. If it is not part of an ironic kitsch revival, a taste for both styles of music is commonly associated with folksy pubs, fun fairs, and bowling league venues.

Between 1975 and 1981 German-style schlager became disco-oriented, in many ways merging with the mainstream disco music of the time. Singers such as Marianne Rosenberg recorded both schlager and disco hits. The song "Moskau" by German band Dschinghis Khan was one of the earliest of modern, dance-based schlager, again showing how schlager of the '70s and early '80s merged with mainstream disco and Euro-disco. Dschinghis Khan, while primarily a disco band, also played disco-influenced schlager.

Helene Fischer

Since she emerged as a singer and variety TV star willing to revive a distinctly old-fashioned repertoire of uplifting Schlager ballads, Fischer has sold well over 10 million records in Germany alone. Songs like "Atemlos durch die Nacht" ("Breathless Through the Night") have dominated the charts, and the Russian-born pop princess is no stranger to kitschy TV shows like Schlagercountdown.

Heino

Having sold more than 50 million albums since his 1967 solo debut, Heino is a Schlager pioneer known for his trademark dark sunglasses, platinum mop top and rich baritone voice. His smash hits range from "Jenseits des Tales" ("Beyond the Valley") to covers of controversial folk tunes such as "Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuss" ("Black-brown is the Hazelnut") that were sung by the Hitler Youth.

Jürgen Drews

Jürgen Drews landed a mega hit with "Ein Bett im Kornfeld" ("A bed in a cornfield") in 1976. Today, Germans label the seemingly ageless singer "king of Mallorca" because he has for decades been a staple on the German party scene on the Spanish island. Drews actually started his career playing the banjo in a jazz band.

Michael Holm

The 1969 "Mendocino" was Michael Holm's first big hit, and "Tränen lügen nicht" ("Tears don't lie") made it to first place in the charts in 1974. He helped orchestrate a mega Schlager revival in the late 1990s by producing Guildo Horn's hit album "Danke" in 1997

Katja Ebstein

She won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980 and came in third twice, in 1970 and 1971 - Katja Ebstein is regarded as the competition's German grande dame. Ebstein's hit song "Wunder gibt es immer wieder" ("There will always be miracles") is an integral part of the German Schlager repertoire. Ebstein also acts in plays, is involved in social projects and politically active.

Drafi Deutscher

The Berlin-born singer and composer (and songwriter for Boney M. and others) rose from obscurity in 1965 with his immortal Schlager anthem, "Marmor, Stein, und Eisen bricht" ("Marble Breaks And Iron Bends") — an English version later charted in the US. The boy from working-class Wedding was a rebel who had issues with alcohol, but still released some 260 songs before his death in 2006.

Jürgen Marcus

Known for his blonde locks, casual hip swing and beaming smile, Marcus' 1972 release "A New Love is like a New Life" has become one of the best-known songs in Schlager history, a staple of any German record collection. "Music is wonderful because you can capture people's emotions," Marcus once said of the sing-along favorites he performed incessantly until his recent death in May at the age of 69.

Andrea Jürgens

Andrea Jürgens was a 10-year-old in 1977 when she sang what would become one of the all-time Schlager classics, "Und dabei liebe ich euch beide" ("And Yet I Love You Both"), which was composed by Schlager hit-maker Jack White. Child star Jürgens would peak young, but returned with a No. 1 in 2010 with "I Only Have a Heart." She died of kidney failure in 2017 after a 40-year career.

Guildo Horn

Schlager has had its fair share of miscreants and eccentrics who are not afraid to play with the genre's kitschy cliches. With his trademark high-energy hilarity (including climbing all over the stage during his 1998 Eurovision appearance), and gaudy velvet green suit, this Schlager provocateur hit the charts in the 1990s with songs like "I like Steffi Graf" and "Guildo loves you."

Andrea Berg

Berg was 26 when she went from being a nurse to a Schlager hit-maker with the album "Du bist frei" ("You Are Free") and smash singles like "Schau mir nochmal ins Gesicht" ("Look Me in the Face Again") and "Splitternackt" ("Stark Naked"). A 2001 greatest hits album went five-times platinum, selling 2 million copies. More recently, the singer won the Echo Award for best Schlager singer in 2017.

Author: Stuart Braun

Schlager louts: meet Germany's biggest pop stars

Their albums dominate the charts, bought by fans who make a Songs of Praise audience look youthful. This is schlager, Germany's most embarrassing musical genre

Anyone who looked at the German album charts in recent months was probably pretty surprised. Aside from the usual imports from the big pop-producing nations (the US, UK, Sweden), homegrown schlager records dominated the listings.

Schlager, a strange genre of music, emerged after the second world war. It was an encapsulation of all things German and a backlash against American rock'n'roll. Ever since its early days, schlager has used simple patterns of music (just like Eurodance, Germany's other mega-genre) while its lyrics are rarely political, often concerning romantic themes. Whole subgenres are dedicated to niche topics such as being on holiday, country living, life on the Autobahn, living with animals and living with animals on the Autobahn.

Nearly half the albums in the charts are by schlager artists, among them the highly successful Helene Fischer and Andrea Berg. The former has hooked up with TV presenter Florian Silbereisen to become the dream couple of new German schlager.

To understand the late chart success of schlager, you need to think less about whether German booze is getting worse, and more about the age of the record buyers. Schlager fans know so little about technology that they think a torrent is an Afghan cave system. They don't just download schlager songs – they buy the CDs over the petrol station counter, too.

Despite its commercial success, schlager suffers from a lack of credibility. Most radio and TV stations ignore the sales figures and plug their own, highly selective schlager-free charts. Media Control, a marketing research company that monitors German music, omits schlager entirely from its charts.

As a result, the influence of "chart music" is on the wane, which is where, off the chart and away from the musical mainstream, comes a new wave of German punk bands. These bands represent the complete opposite of everything schlager. Top of the pile are Ja, Panic – five unbelievably skinny, camp and phlegmatic Austrians who live in Berlin, write manifestos, love champagne, divide YouTube commenters, avoid ever explaining themselves and have faces that only a mother (or Malcolm McLaren) could love.

April will see the release of their new album, DMD KIU LIDT, which apparently includes more English lyrics than before. Their last record, The Angst and the Money, is the best and most substantial work to come from the German music scene in a decade: "Ohne geld keine angst ... Ohne angst kein geld" (No money, no fear ... No fear, no money).

To sum up: Andrea Berg is a sexy nurse who is loved for her music and you should really check out Ja, Panic (also 1000 Robota, 206 and Chuckamuck.

Since you're here...

… we have a small favour to ask. More people, like you, are reading and supporting the Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever before. And unlike many news organisations, we made the choice to keep our reporting open for all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay.

The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.

Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in power.

We hope you will consider supporting us today. We need your support to keep delivering quality journalism that’s open and independent. Every reader contribution, however big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as £1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Artists German schlager