Schlager

Schlager is the mainstream popular song of the German-speaking countries: professionally written, immediately singable songs of love, home and celebration, performed by star singers in polished studio arrangements. Emerging from operetta and variety song in the early twentieth century, it was codified after 1945 by performers such as *Freddy Quinn* and *Peter Alexander*, sustained through the disco-influenced 1970s, and renewed in the 2010s when *Helene Fischer*'s "Farbenspiel" became one of the best-selling German albums of all time. Its defining traits are direct melody, uncomplicated harmony and lyrics written for communal singing.