''Rekord'' is the ninth full-length studio album by
German hip hop
German hip hop (locally known as ''Deutschrap'', ''Deutsch'' meaning German) refers to hip hop music in the German language. Elements of American hip hop culture, such as graffiti art and breakdancing, diffused into Western Europe in the ea ...
group
Die Fantastischen Vier
Die Fantastischen Vier (, "The Fantastic Four"), often shortened to Fanta 4, is a German hip hop band from Stuttgart. The members are Michael Schmidt (Smudo), Andreas Rieke, Thomas Dürr, and Michi Beck. They were, together with Advanced Chemi ...
. It was released on 24 October 2014, marking the 25th anniversary of the group.
Musical content
On the album, which mainly contains hip hop and pop songs, Fanta 4 also experiment with the styles of
Dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...
("Heute", "Wie geliebt") and
R'n'B
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
("Lass sehen"). A reviewer in ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...
'' said that the band's performance on this album shows "Unbeirrbarkeit, Humor und einem großen Gespür für die Haken" ("imperturbability, humor and a great sense of the hook"), and hails the "Fantastic Four" as pioneers of hip-hop.
Writing and production
For the anniversary song "25"
Don Snow
Don Snow (born 13 January 1957 in London) is a British vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, who plays the Hammond organ, piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums and saxophone. He is primarily known for his work with the new wave bands Squeeze, the Sin ...
a.k.a. Jonn Savannah sang his hit "25 Years" with slightly different lyrics. "Disco" features
Miss Platnum
Miss Platnum (born Ruth Maria Renner; 27 September 1980), formerly known as Platnum, is a Romanian-German singer, songwriter and musician, currently signed to Virgin Records Germany.
Biography
Early life
Platnum was born in Timișoara, Romania ...
.
Release and reception
''Rekord'' was published on 24 October 2014. From the album, the titles "Und los", "25", and "Single" were released as singles.
The album peaked at number one of the German charts a week after publication, was awarded gold and sold more than 200,000 copies.chartsurfer.de /ref>
On
laut.de
''laut.de'' is a German online magazine covering music and entertainment. It was founded in Konstanz in 1996 by Rainer Henzelaut.de /ref>