Musikladen 1972

Bremmen, Germany. December 13th, 1972


Der Musikladen (The Music Shop) was Germany's long-running pop music series which took over from Beat Club in December 1972 until November 1984 when it was replaced by Extra-Tour.



The legendary German live-music TV show Beat Club ended its run on December 9, 1972. Newly christened as Musikladen, the show picked up exactly where it left off with its first episode running a mere four days later. Musikladen would run for 12 years, with its final episode appearing November 29, 1984. In its 12 years, an incredible number of performers would grace its stage. Together, Musikladen and Beat Club had a huge impact on how music is presented on television, not just in Germany but also the rest of the world.

Early Musikladen seemed the show was trying to keep going with what it had built as Beat Club. Anyone familiar with Beat Club knows that they embraced new video effect technologies whole-heartedly and used lots of eye-popping insanity on the performances. This continued with Musikladen, but the fact that the technology was improving rapidly at the time and the equipment to produce it was increasingly cheaper meant that the video effects were ever more complex and used much more often, sometimes to stupefying effect. In some of the early episodes of Musikladen, there were also slightly ribald, adult-oriented cartoon breaks between the bands. Another thing to distinguish Musikladen from Beat Club was the Go-Go girls who would regularly accompany the bands with dance numbers, in various states of dress, from fully clothed in something invariably gaudy and/or sparkly to nearly nude. The Go-Go girls were so popular that they had their own segments, dancing along to songs with no band in attendance.

In Beat Club, all of the performances were played live and, in the early days, this was true for Musikladen. Over time, performing live on the show would become the exception rather than the rule, and in the last few episodes of the show, there are no live performances to be heard.
Cory Vielma: 22nd June 

"This was their first appearance on Musikladen, the Mama performance was un-broadcast until about 5 years ago.  The producer of the show had certain acts do a rehearsal, but kept the cameras rolling."

Gary Jordan: 3rd July 2012



Musikladen boxsets were made available but have been stopped because of legal issues.



My thanks to Cory Vielma for much of the Musikladen info. 


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