Before this question is posed elsewhere, let’s take a quick look at one of pop’s supposedly most important questions of excitement: the music that the wonderfully anarchic Viennese riotous electroclash sponti SALÓ made for his second album, “Problemzone Mensch” – is that still punk? A no-future attitude towards life, a rebellious pose, the main thing being against it, or simply: three chords, played fast and a bit of shouting to go with it? All nonsense: the most important definition of punk is and remains self-authorization. In “Problemzone Mensch”, SALÒ explores the whole drama, but above all the ridiculousness of earthly existence. Pretensions, all the rebellion and failure, the inner struggles, love and the abysses of human existence are dealt with a lightness, a mockery, but also the insight that SALÒ is of course always singing about himself. The result is the most diverse music of this career to date, which nevertheless remains 100 percent SALÒ at its core: NDW, post-punk, electro clash are still the central coordinates here, but through the voice and the way these styles are combined, “Problemzone Mensch” goes far beyond this plain list.
