Frau Fleischer, a French Nice-based industrial metal band formed in 2020, has finally released it’s cover version of “Boys (Summertime Love)” from Sabrina Debora Salerno aka Sabrina. The band has been playing the cover for quite a while now in their set as a joke but much to their surprrise it met with an immediate positive respons from the public.

A double nipple gate in the eighties

“Boys (Summertime Love)” was originally released in May 1987 as the third single from her self-titled debut studio album. The song topped the charts in Europe and a whole generation of boys and girls had an immediate crush on Sabrina – not always because of her song qualities – and hung up posters on the walls of their sleepingroom. The video filmed at the Florida hotel in Jesolo, Italy shows Sabrina splashing about in a swimming pool, while her bikini top keeps sliding down, repeatedly revealing varying amounts of her nipples. A double ‘nipple gate’ was born and we all flocked to the television screen to see it. The BBC added black bars around the image.

She maintained her image as a European sex symbol in the next few years thanks to the raunchy videos that accompanied her next singles. But although she cultivated the image of a naïve C-cup girl, in real life she was anything but naïve and made moves to improve her career even if it meant dropping her management and label. She was also the hostess of the weekly prime time TV-show Ricomincio da 2 with Raffaella Carrà on Rai 2 and also became quite a succesful actress. In 2010, Sabrina and that other sex bomb English singer Samantha Fox released a cover version of Blondie’s hit “Call Me” as a duet.

And, Sabrina also featured on Neon Neon’s song “Shopping (I Like To)”, from the duo’s second studio album “Praxis Makes Perfect”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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(Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash ) Here’s a story of something many people are unaware of. When Coldplay released “Talk” (taken from the band’s third album “X&Y”), it was quite clear it was built around a motif from the Kraftwerk 1981 song “Computer Love”.

The birth of the song wasn’t exactly an easy one. A reason to include it and rework it so many times can of course be found in the fact that the band received permission from the electronic music German band Kraftwerk to use the main riff from its song “Computer Love”, from its 1981 studio album Computer World, for “Talk”, replacing Kraftwerk’s synthesizers with guitars. This ‘ok’ added an extra pressure to keep the song.

Coldplay had difficulties with the recording sessions for months, as to the sound of the track. During the recording sessions, which had seen the band scrap huge amounts of material, the song was even left out when they sent early versions of the album to its record label, Parlophone. The song, however, made it to the track list, after it was properly mixed.

Ralf Hütter (Kraftwerk) said ‘YES’ to Coldplay

But what many still don’t know is how the band got the ‘ok’ from Kraftwerk’s founding member Ralf Hütter to use the sample. Chris Martin had sent a letter through the lawyers of the respective parties and several weeks later they received an envelope containing a handwritten reply that simply said ″yes″. Over time the story changed several times, was it handwritten, was it a fax, was it really just a yes or a complete phrase like bassist Guy Berryman once claimed? We’ll never know.

Ralf Hütter said ‘NO’ to hiphoppers

But it’s well known that Kraftwerk is not really ok with unsolicited use of their material. Kraftwerk for instance have won a long-running copyright battle over a two-second clip of their 1977 track “Metal On Metal”. The European Court of Justice ruled that musicians cannot “sample” other artists’ records without permission. Kraftwerk brought the action against hip-hop producers Moses Pelham and Martin Haas in 1999 over the Sabrina Setlur song “Nur Mir”.

About Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk formed in Düsseldorf, West Germany, in 1970, founded by Ralf Hütter (organ, synthesizers, vocals) and Florian Schneider (flute, synthesizers, vocoder, vocals), who had previously played together in the group Organisation. Wolfgang Flür (electronic percussion) joined in 1973 and Karl Bartos (electronic percussion, vocoder) in 1975, forming what is regarded as the band’s classic lineup. “Autobahn” (Philips/Vertigo, 1974) was the group’s international breakthrough, followed by “Radio-Activity” (1975), “Trans-Europe Express” (1977), “The Man-Machine” (1978) and “Computer World” (EMI, 1981).

Flür left the band in 1987 and Bartos in 1990; longtime engineers Henning Schmitz and Fritz Hilpert became the touring and recording unit through the 2000s. Schneider left in 2008 to pursue solo work and died on 21 April 2020. Kraftwerk’s most recent studio album, “Tour de France Soundtracks,” was released on EMI in 2003. The live album “3-D The Catalogue” (2017) won a Grammy Award for Best Dance/Electronic Album in 2018, and the band received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

Ralf Hütter has periodically referenced new material in interviews without confirming a release date. In 1981, Chris Martin wrote to Kraftwerk requesting permission to build the Coldplay song “Talk” (from “X&Y,” 2005) around the synthesizer riff from “Computer Love” (“Computer World,” 1981); Hütter granted the request. Coldplay’s “Talk” (2005) was built around the synthesizer riff from Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” (1981), with Ralf Hütter’s direct permission.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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A verdict in the EU top court – which lasted for 22 years (!) – is defining the rules of musicsampling. The legal battle involved the German band Kraftwerk versus rap artist Moses Pelham who sampled 2 seconds of Kraftwerk’s “Metall auf Metall” single from 1977. Pelham looped the sample into the hip-hop track “Nur mir” produced for vocalist Sabrina Setlur in 1997.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg ruled in favor of Kraftwerk, stating that a permission needed to be obtained to sample another musician’s song. Even if the clip used is very short, in this case 2 seconds. However, if the sample is modified in “a form unrecognizable to the ear” the music producer’s rights would not be violated.

Moses Pelham’s actions remain peanuts compared to the German rapper Bushido who really hit the jackpot as far as stealing music. He had to pay over €60,000 to the French gothic band Dark Sanctuary for having lifted – and this is not a joke – 16 of their tracks without consent and calling them his own. Bushido also ‘stole’ music from Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows, Dimmu Borgir, Nox Arcana, etc..

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Genre/Influences: Electro-pop, cabaret-pop.

Background/Info: “Ortonesque” is the seventh full length released by London based Mechanical Cabaret. Set up in the late 90s by Roi Robertson (ex-Nekromantik) he now together with Steve Bellamy released the first new Mechanical Cabaret work on WTII Records.

Content: Mechanical Cabaret has always dealt with a unique approach to electro-pop music. “Ortonesque” doesn’t sound that different and has been introduced as being their darkest work to date. I experienced the new songs as some of their most intimate work to date. There’s a twist between slower and minimal-like cuts, which are sometimes a bit cabaret-like at one side and more danceable and purer electro-pop sound at the other.

Some songs might appeal to lovers of De/Vision and even Depeche Mode, but globally speaking “Ortonesque” sounds more experimental and unpolished.

+ + + : Mechanical Cabaret will never become the most typical formation in their genre and there is the feeling of defying the pop standards a bit. That’s an approach I’ve always liked instead of becoming a new Depeche Mode clone. It sounds minimal although always connected with electro-pop. I like some of their melancholic passages, but I’m more into tracks like “Protect And Survive” and “Beautiful and Boring”.

– – – : I experienced the opening cuts as hesitant, but especially produced in a raw and unpolished way. No doubt about it this has been a deliberate choice, but it can’t convince me. The softer cuts, which sometimes make me think of a kind of cabaret style are a nice experiment, but here again not the most convincing part of the work.

Conclusion: Mechanical Cabaret remains a good alternative to the classical synth-pop music, but this new work can’t totally convince me. I’ve heard much better albums from this formation. Nevertheless the final part of the “Ortonesque” features a few cool cuts.

Best songs: “Protect And Survive”, “Beautiful And Boring”, “Sabrina”.

Rate: (6).

Band: www.machanicalcabaret.com / www.facebook.com/mechanicalcabaret

Label: www.wtiirecords.com / www.facebook.com/WTIIRecords

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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