Recorded in their rehearsal room in Kreuzberg - Produced by Moses Schneider
Boombox is the sixth studio album by Beatsteaks, released on January 28, 2011. The band worked on the album for 1 1/2 years. While thinking about suitable album names, they wrote possible names on a wall in their rehearsal room, Bernd Kurtzke recalls: "I think Peter wrote "Boombox" on it in very small letters, not even in the expectation that anyone would be interested. It also corresponds exactly to what we're doing right now. five people in a box, and it's booming, right? We also listen to the rough mixes that come in every day on a boombox, that is, on such a small ghetto blaster. [...] if it sounds good, it works on every shitty system in the world." Upon its release, the album immediately reached number one in the German album charts, bringing the band to the top of the German charts for the first time. Guitarist Bernd Kurtzke is especially proud of the album.
The style of Boombox is much quieter than of its predecessor, Limbo Messiah, these songs having their own, unusual style that the Beatsteaks had never tried before. As with the previous albums, some band members have taken over some vocal parts, Peter Baumann sings some stanzas on Under a Clear Blue Sky and Bernd Kurtzke sings the entire song Behavior. The reason for this is that "several voices make the music on an album more colorful" said singer Arnim Teutoburg-Weiß in an interview.
The first single Milk & Honey was released on January 14, 2011 as a maxi CD and was made available as a download on December 3, 2010. The sheet music of the song had been released months before, Beatsteaks asking people to cover it. Ultimately, the band selected the two best cover versions and released them on the single. On March 25, 2011, Cheap Comments was released as the second single. On July 1, 2011, the third single Automatic was released, on which you can find several cover songs and versions of Automatic in addition to the song itself.
Songs recorded:
Fix It
Milk & Honey
Cheap Comments
Let's See
Bullets from Another Dimension
Under a Clear Blue Sky
Access Adrenalin
Behaviour
Automatic
Alright (originally called Shit & Shine)
House on Fire
Head On (B-Side of the Milk & Honey single, The Jesus and Mary Chain cover)
Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits (B-Side of the Automatic single, The Magnetic Fields cover)
Yeah! Oh, Yeah! (B-Side of the Automatic single, The Magnetic Fields cover)
S.N.A.F.T. (B-Side of the Automatic single, Ton Steine Scherben cover)
Tonight (B-Side of the Automatic single, The Soft Boys cover)