And who’s Mittel-Europe listening to? A master of disguise, that’s who!

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[4.50]

Jonathan Bogart: You can hide behind that string quartet and those German lyrics all you want, but I still see you there. You can’t hide from me, Jack Johnson.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Oh-so-murky cello whirlpool loses its churn when German Jason Mraz comes trespassing.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: My German’s not good enough for me to tell if this is really as pretentious or portentious as I fear, but my love of the cello (das Cello, please) means I’d forgive it long after Google Translate tries to ruin it for me.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: Everything here puzzles me. The intro promises some sort of nouveau cabaret business, instead we get German John Mayer (or something). A quick run through a translator seems to indicate that this is some sort of “sorry I’m late, had to save the world and check my email” kind of number (really, I had no idea there was such a thing). I get the feeling that the idioms might be a little lost in translation. At any rate, I’m afraid this just isn’t very good; I don’t think German was made to be sung in a “sensitive” singer-songwriter kind of way. At all.
[2]

Pete Baran: It starts in an odd register, and continues by illustrating a section of German pop which, from a commercial point of view, appears to have disappeared from English speaking pop. The heartfelt male mid-tempo confessional in English would at least stretch to a guest rapper, some atmospherics or beats. The furthest this goes is a gypsy violin, which also means the furthest this will go is Austria.
[3]

Brad Shoup: My knowledge of German is limited to Tina Fey gags, but internet indications are this song’s about saving the world once the email inbox has been cleared. Chamber-pop on the Citizen Cope tip; we’re making a big show of worrying over something. Nice to hear string instruments providing the heavy lifting, but it’s giving me weird flashbacks to the first Jars of Clay record.
[5]