Annett Louisan: Longing for the Old Lightness

That old blog post shows up in my statistics more reliably than any tax reminder. It’s been sitting at the top for years: the entry about the time Annett Louisan actually got a mention in Playboy, and how most people who google their way to it leave the page looking pretty disappointed. Old news, I know. But it reliably reminds me how long I’ve been a fan of this singer, and how many albums have appeared since then without my affection dimming in the slightest. Now comes „Sehnsucht.“ On the market since September 11th, presented live at the Elbphilharmonie on the 12th, in the very hall where Louisan once stood during the pandemic in front of empty seats. I’ve listened to the album over and over — in the car, while cooking, while writing this piece. And at some point I had to admit it to myself: I miss the old spark. Not the quality. The lyrics are smart, the production clean, the voice as beautiful as ever. But the wit, that winking lightness that used to bubble through her songs like prosecco, has become rare. Louisan is getting older. We all are. And apparently you can hear it in her songs now: more contemplation, more farewell, more taking stock. „Herz mit Gebrauchsspuren“ — a heart with signs of wear — is a lovely title for this phase, and it’s meant sincerely. And yet: well-crafted music can simply come out too heavy. The line about the savings account and the backside, which still shows a flash of the old mischief, is the exception on this album. Not the rule. And honestly, that unsettles me more than any individual lyric could.

The public broadcasters are celebrating precisely what bothers me as a sign of artistic maturity. Talk of arriving, of letting go, of a brighter phase following the brooding predecessor „Babyblue.“ Louisan herself speaks of clarity, of coming home again. All of that may well be true. Only in pop music, „coming home“ suspiciously often sounds like: things get quieter, they get more serious, there’s less to sing along to with a grin on your face.

The stricter music critics are even harsher about it. Sites like laut.de responded coolly within the first few days, dismissing the album as nothing more than prettily arranged chanson-pop, with no real surprises. That’s not entirely wrong either. Louisan found her style years ago and she’s not moving away from it — not upward, not downward. Anyone who always found her too shallow won’t be converted this time around.

And yet here I sit, liking the album despite my own objections. Maybe it’s unfair to demand from an artist the lightness of her twenties and thirties when she’s long since moved on to somewhere else. Maybe I simply don’t want her to grow up while I’m doing the same — reluctantly, with a similar defiance weighing on me. That’s my problem, not hers.

Back at the Elbphilharmonie during the pandemic, she sat alone in front of an empty hall and sang as though every seat were filled. This time the hall was full, and I imagine the audience quietly humming along to „Ich geh nur schon mal voraus“ — solemn, moved, without a trace of a prosecco smile. Perhaps that is precisely the real point of this album. Not the longing in the title. But the longing that stays with me when I pull up that old blog post again and realize just how long ago all of this began.

Photo: Mischa Lorenz for Semmelrecords, all rights with the artist.

This English version was created with the help of AI (translated from the German original) and may differ slightly from a professional human translation.