Doesn’t fit into any (German) pop mould: Jens Friebe’s “Vorher Nachher Bilder”

2004 was also the year I started conducting ‘professional’ interviews with a dictaphone borrowed from my friend K. One of my first victims was Jens Friebe, before his concert at Hafen 2 in Offenbach. Since I eventually returned the device, the original wording will remain a secret forever – preserved on this unplayable mini cassette.
Just one year later, Klaus Walter invited Jens to appear on his legendary show ‘Der Ball ist rund’ (The Ball is Round) – a star was born….

Jens Friebe
„Vorher Nachher Bilder“
(ZickZack 2004)

2004 was a pretty good year for so-called indie pop and rock: Franz Ferdinand, The Organ, Arcade Fire and The Zutons released their debut albums, while The Libertines, PJ Harvey, Mando Diao, Stars, The Hives, Leslie Feist, Modest Mouse and TV On The Radio put out sensational records. And ZickZack, the legendary Hamburg label owned by the even more legendary Alfred Hilsberg, who died in August 2025, released Jens Friebe’s first album, ‘Vorher Nachher Bilder’ (Before After Pictures).

Friebe recounts how incredible and significant this was for him in his obituary for Hilsberg at kaput. Friebe’s arrival at ZickZack was apparently thanks to a recommendation from Jochen Distelmeyer, who brought Jens Friebe into the picture as ‘his successor’. Friebe, who hails from Lüdenscheid, had played in the band Parka for several years before deciding to pursue a solo career. His song ‘Wenn man euch die Geräte zeigt’ (When they show you the equipment) ended up on the 2003 ZickZack compilation ‘Bis auf Weiteres eine Demonstration. Geräusche für den Tag danach’ (A demonstration until further notice. Sounds for the day after), a 36-track collection of grandiose and obscure tracks, from which Friebe nevertheless stood out. One understands what Distelmeyer meant, even though Jens’ music never really resembled Blumfeld’s.

When ‘Vorher Nachher Bilder’ (Before After Pictures) was released in the spring of 2004, lovingly packaged like a Ravensburger board game, the first thing that struck listeners was the love of Italo and Euro disco beats, the revelry in the artificial and enigmatic, combined with authenticity. The song ‘Deutsches Kino’ (perhaps the most elegant German-language diss track), with its completely concrete lyrics, stands alongside pieces such as the aforementioned ‘Geräte,’ which can be interpreted in many ways (is it about the RAF?), or the dance hit ‘Gespenster,’ which deals with internet sex in a clearly ambiguous way. Friebe likes to keep things up in the air: in ‘Bring mich zum Wagen’ (Take Me to the Car), for example, he sings about never having loved anyone so much, but there are no gay confessions in the song or on the album. There are three break-up songs on the debut (‘Stehen geblieben’, ‘Dann sagst du auf Wiedersehen’, ‘Bring mich zum Wagen’) and a cover version with German lyrics (‘Cast A Shadow’ by Beat Happening, also covered by Adam Green). Friebe will be translating his favourite songs into German more often: ‘Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing’ by The Magnetic Fields becomes ‘Alles macht nichts wenn wir tanzen’ (‘Nothing matters when we dance’), Leonard Cohen’s ‘First We Take Manhattan’ appears with German lyrics on Jens’ latest album ‘Wir sind schön’ (‘We are beautiful’).

‘Vorher Nachher Bilder’ already has everything that will characterise Friebe’s work in the future: the change – or rather the combination – of guitar-driven indie pop, Scott Walker-inspired ballads and Euro disco dance. Bringing this together has confused some, but for fans it results in a coherent and dazzling overall picture. The mixture of attentiveness with a touch of smart arrogance, glamour and down-to-earthness, the tangible and the fleeting, does not fit into any (German) pop template and made Jens Friebe a unique artist as early as 2004. And strokes of genius such as ‘Lawinenhund’, ‘Frau Baron’ and ‘Schlaflied’ were yet to come.
Christina Mohr

PS: … 2004 also saw the Punk Congress take place in Kassel, where I interviewed Alfred Hilsberg. We also talked about Jens Friebe, whose poster hung above the ZickZack stand.