WAS's Awesome New Wave Song Of The Week #11: Edelweiss - Bring Me Edelweiss

After last week’s very traditional new wave synthpop entry "New Life", this week we shall jump to the other end of the 80s new wave spectrum !

By 1988 New Wave had peaked … the fresh, new & interesting musical releases that were previously happening constantly seemed to be petering out, and the movement was starting to morph into other things like goth, grunge, industrial, house, alternative and a bunch of other sub-genres.    However that didn’t mean that there weren’t total surprises sometimes!  In a manner reminiscent of innovative musical-fusion huckster Malcolm McLaren - who had previously marketed punk-rock (Sex Pistols), dub-scratching (Buffalo Gals) and operatic-electronica (Madame Butterfly) - an Austrian group calling themselves Edelweiss came out of nowhere and brought us into the never-heard-before world of … hip-hop-yodeling!   

“Bring Me Edelweiss” was a monster of a song that went to the highest mountaintops of the charts all over Europe and hit the North American dance charts too, but never really got mainstream attention and remained a cult hit on this side of the pond.  It’s a unique song that is like a pot-luck special of musical styles and nothing before or since sounds quite like it.  And the only thing more cuckoo than the Edelweiss song … is the Edelweiss video!   Alpenhorns, chameleon-colored cows, drunken buffoonery, massive mammaries, slapping, nose-picking, whips, an African rhythm section sporting lederhosen and a dwarf are all in there... I shit thee not.   So sit back and let’s go to the wintry mountains and enjoy the yodeling-laden one-hit wonder that is …“Bring Me Edelweiss”!

 

-WAS