This is the music German teenagers listen to

German teenagers dance to pop songs on TikTok videos and share these with their friends. The music in the clips goes viral. At parties, girls and boys dance to techno using digitally compiled playlists. Concert tickets for German rappers sell out in a matter of minutes and the musicians fill entire halls. But which music genres are most popular with young people in Germany? The answers are provided by a study carried out by the Music Information Centre (Miz). 

In the 1980s, a lot of young people in Germany danced to the hits of the Neue Deutsche Welle, singing out loud to “99 Luftballons” by Nena, for example. In the early noughties, almost every teenager’s bedroom had a poster of Tokio Hotel, who became internationally popular with “Monsoon” – even in Asia. But nowadays, hip-hop and rap in German are particularly successful. This is the music that 79.6 percent of young people aged between 14 and 19 like to listen to, though they like rock and pop music even more (85.1 percent). 

It’s not particularly surprising to hear that only 4.2 percent like traditional folk music, brass band music and chansons. But this category doesn’t include German schlager. The latter genre is now dominated by singers like Helene Fischer and Vanessa Mai, who incorporate pop and house elements into their songs, too. One sixth (14.9 percent) of young people enjoy listening to schlager music. Meanwhile, classical music hardly features at all as a preferred genre among young people  

Song from children’s film becomes a hit as a techno remix 

In addition to rock, pop, hip-hop and rap, techno and house also enjoy widespread popularity (61.3 percent). One example is the remix “Mädchen auf dem Pferd”, which was voted summer hit of the year in 2023 – as determined by Gfk Entertainment, the market research company that also compiles the music charts in Germany. The techno remake became a huge hit on TikTok in particular. The song is originally from the children and youth film “Bibi and Tina”.  

But young people also stream a lot of music featuring a mixture of the most popular genres, namely pop and rap. Perhaps the most successful current hit is the song “Komet” by rapper Apache 207 and German rock legend Udo Lindenberg: it has 60 million views on YouTube. Female artists are highly successful in German rap, too: Ayliva, Shirin David, Nina Chuba and Badmómzjay sing about the image of women and sexuality, exploring role models through their music. They particularly emphasise their femininity.