Apoptygma Berzerk’s ‘Exit Popularity Contest’ turns 10: Stephan Groth on streaming and ‘the secret world of APOP’
Stephan Groth on why Apoptygma Berzerk’s 2016 album “Exit Popularity Contest” reaches streaming on 27 October 2026 after ten physical-only years.
(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange. Photos by Tarjei Krogh) The Norwegian EBM and futurepop act Apoptygma Berzerk brings “Exit Popularity Contest“, its instrumental 2016 album, to streaming services on 27 October 2026 via Pitch Black Drive Productions. Released on 7 October 2016, the album has only been available on CD, double vinyl and cassette until now. Bandcamp buyers can already download it ahead of the wider release.
Stephan Groth kept the album off digital platforms by choice at the time of release. The digital edition is the CD version unchanged: ten tracks written by Groth, with “Rhein Klang” co-written by Emil Nikolaisen, closing with “U.T.E.O.T.W. (Extended Version)”, a downtempo reworking of “Until The End Of The World” and the album’s only vocal track.
Side-Line has written about the album numerous times, from our 2016 article “Exit Popularity Contest – reinvention by going back to the roots” and our 2016 interview with Stephan Groth on Spotify vs. vinyl, to the news of its digital release earlier this month and Britta Pirkko’s new review of “Exit Popularity Contest”. Ten years have passed and times have changed, so it was time for a chat with the person behind it to hear what has changed for this album.
Apoptygma Berzerk’s Stephan Groth on ‘Exit Popularity Contest’ ten years on
Side-Line: “Why streaming now?” is a question many will ask after this release being strictly physical for so long?
Stephan Groth: One could say that we’ve “lost the battle to Spotify”, but a point was proven by releasing it only on physical formats 10 years ago in an attempt to stimulate fans to buy a CD, an LP or a cassette again, maybe after many years. Streaming is well and fine, but physical formats are the real way to enjoy most genres of music if you’re a true music lover. I do use streaming every day, however, mostly for discovering new bands and artists. My point is that if an album is to be understood and enjoyed 100% as the artist intended, it has to be listened to on a physical format, IF that album was originally released physically, that is! You cannot just bypass cover art, liner notes, pictures, information and inner sleeves and expect to have the same full experience when streaming. A lot of the intentions from the artists will disappear and be “lost in translation” from a physical format to the digital realm.
An important thing about the release of “Exit Popularity Contest” was that it should encapsulate the feel, the experience and the vibe of a classic album!
Also, I do love the physical format(s) myself, and this album was especially fitting for the physical realm. A physical release is also a work of art, a souvenir, something you can get signed, something to have in your library. But maybe I’m just being nostalgic?
It also has to do with the rights for this album being reverted to me and my label Pitch Black Drive after 10 years. It was tied up until now, and now it’s sold out on all physical formats across the board. We have no plans or intentions as of right now of reprinting it, so it’s also the point of making it available for those that only use streaming services and/or digital platforms for their consumption of music. In this, I also consider “Exit Popularity Contest” an important album in my discography, so I absolutely want coming generations to be able to experience this album when they listen to my catalogue online.
S-L: How has the demand for a streaming version been?
STP: We’ve had a ton of e-mails, comments on social media, and people coming up to us at concerts and festivals, almost demanding we put it out digitally. We’ve always tried to explain WHY we did what we did, and most people have been very understanding in this. We started discussing it last year when we realized the rights were soon coming back to us, and we landed in the “let’s make it available” camp after going through the motions and giving it a lot of thought.
There are a few copies of the CD and the cassette left on our Bandcamp, and a few copies here and there at some distributors and online shops, but apart from that, we’re sold out! This makes a compelling argument too, for this digital release!
S-L: Will there be any extras for this release?
STP: No, it will be the CD version as is, but there are 3 different “Radio Edits” in existence that were used (especially in the US) to promote the album back then, and these are already digitally available as a 3-track “Radio Edits” single.
S-L: This was a bit different than previous APB albums. Will you do more like this?
STP: YES! Absolutely! “Exit Popularity Contest” is heavily rooted in my core foundation of electronic music, and it was a massively important album for me to do, as I was “bored” of electronic music for a while.
That’s how I ended up doing the “You And Me Against The World” album, when I was tired of electronic music. So, the process of making the “Exit Popularity Contest” album made me fall in love with electronic music again, and this could only happen, I think, by going back to my roots of Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Vangelis, NEU! and the like. This was “the ultimate source” and I had to go back to it and remember why I started listening to electronic music in the first place. It wasn’t enough to just listen to the “synth music” I grew up with, I had to go even one step further back, doing the research, finding the music that triggered and inspired the musicians I listened to, and what made THEM make the electronic music that I grew up with. It was such a trip and such an inspiration, and I learned so much on this journey, both about musical history, and also about myself in this.
S-L: And as a follow-up to the previous question: will there be more solo, more electronic live performances like the one at Revolver a few years ago?
STP: Yes! I’m currently working on a set-up that can work in a live setting where I do more or less everything myself, and in this, show people a completely different side of APOP than people are used to! “The secret world of APOP” if you like. The gigs in Jönköping, Oslo and Sarpsborg with this set-up also revealed to me that fans really enjoyed it, and most importantly, I ENJOYED IT, so let’s see where we can take this in the future!
S-L: What’s next and upcoming for Apop?
STP: We’re still not done with the “Kathy’s Song” anniversary, so there will be a new collab single out with Ferry Corsten shortly on his label, aimed at his primary audience. There will also be more remixes and versions on both vinyl and CD that we have put together for this special celebration.
Find “Exit Popularity Contest” on your favourite streaming service: https://orcd.co/p71rkjd
About Apoptygma Berzerk
Apoptygma Berzerk formed in Sarpsborg, Norway, in 1989, when Stephan Groth and Jon Erik Martinsen started working together. Martinsen left early, and Groth, born in Odense, Denmark, on 10 August 1971 and living in Sarpsborg since 1986, has led the project since as singer, programmer and main songwriter. The current line-up has Groth on vocals, programming and guitar, Ted Skogmann on drums and additional guitar, Jonas Groth on keyboards and production, and Audun Stengel on guitar.
After the 1990 demo “Victims Of Mutilation”, the band issued the 12-inch “Ashes To Ashes” on Tatra in 1991, followed by the debut album “Soli Deo Gloria” on 11 November 1993. “7” (1996) kept the EBM and electropop direction, while “Welcome To Earth” (2000) brought a lighter sound and the single “Kathy’s Song (Come Lie Next To Me)”, released on 11 December 2000 with a remix by Ferry Corsten. “Harmonizer” (2002) moved toward synthpop, “You And Me Against The World” (2005) toward a rock-oriented sound, and “Rocket Science” followed in 2009.
After the 2013 “Major Tom” EP, Groth turned to his analogue synthesizers for three instrumental 12-inch EPs on Emmo.biz: “Stop Feeding The Beast” (2014), “Videodrome” (2015) and “Xenogenesis” (2016). Reworked and joined by two versions of “Until The End Of The World”, those tracks became “Exit Popularity Contest”, released on 7 October 2016 on CD and on a cassette limited to 300 copies through The End Records in the US, with a double-vinyl edition in Europe.
Since then, Groth has revisited the catalogue with the 25th-anniversary reissue of “Soli Deo Gloria” on 11 November 2018 and the reworked “SDGXXV” in 2019, the B-sides and rarities collections “Faceless Fear” and “Disarm” (2020) and “Black Pawn” (2022), and a remastered “You And Me Against The World” on 9 July 2021. New material arrived on the “Nein Danke!” EP in 2020, and Groth produced M4C’s “Music For Cars” EP in 2025.
In August 2024, Groth played a solo analogue-modular set as Apop at Revolver in Oslo, his third concert in that format after a first one supporting Page in Jönköping. The 25th anniversary of “Kathy’s Song” brought a digital “Kathy’s Song XXV” release in December 2025, with new remixes by Ferry Corsten, Mental Overdrive and Zone Tripper, and a 12-inch vinyl edition via emmobiz on 10 July 2026. “Exit Popularity Contest” now reaches streaming services on 27 October 2026, ten years after Apoptygma Berzerk released it on physical formats only.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
Sometimes – when I’m not cooking, biking, listening to music or attending concerts, I write stuff for Side-Line.com. Mostly about Norwegian bands, but it’s been some Swedish, English, American, Danish, German and others too… 😉
