“Not Even Trying” Single and Video Inspired by Human Complacency
Pink Turns Blue is a darkwave band that formed in Cologne, Germany, in 1985. The original lineup was Tom Elbern (guitars), Marcus Giltjes (drums) and, Mic Jogwer (vocals and bass). Tom Elbern left before the release of their seminal debut album If Two Worlds Kiss. They were part of the first generation of goth-inspired post-punk in Germany.
Pink Turns Blue has just released their final single and video for their upcoming new LP, Tainted. In the shadow of our worldwide destruction, due to human complacency, the band drops their single “Not Even Trying.” It is all about humanity’s lack of accountability in the face of global annihilation.
Vocalist and frontman Mic Jogwer offers insight into themes within the track:
“When I travel the world, I encounter two types of people. Many are sad and void of hope that mankind is able to change. Others just don’t care or are sarcastic about just everything. I guess this makes me angry. I see all those toddlers with their lives before them, playing and laughing and inheriting a world in disarray just because of the greediness and irresponsibility of their parents.
A call to try so much harder! Instead of using excuses for missing or inadequate action, mankind really has to get its shit together – now. Obviously, young people seem to realize the cost of our shortcomings much better: all the carelessness about using resources, polluting the environment, the threatening effects of global warming, a poisoned environment, and extinct species. They are at the beginning of their lives, and the world is in crisis already.
Most of us are using excuses or alibi “actions” to cover up our indifference or complacency. We pursue our own advantage at the expense of others even if the calculation does not add up in the end.”
Pink Turns Blue History
Pink Turns Blue gets its name from a Hüsker Dü song of the same name. Tom and Mic from the PTB were both fans of the song and the band. The lyrics about love that turned from something wholly special to a drug addiction stuck with the duo.
The reflective nature of Hüsker Dü informed Pink Turns Blue’s approach to songwriting in an icy and apocalyptic feeling Cold War Berlin.
During the 80s, the band was almost juxtaposed to the Neue Deutsche Welle genre, with its more humorous take on electronic music. Pink Turns Blue was always more serious and darker, which led them to be founders of the darkwave genre.
Mic Jogwer on what motivated the band: “We wanted depth, doubts, darkness, eeriness. We wanted to sulk. We wanted to probe the depths of darkness. This music was the soundtrack to the ones who wanted to live on the other side, who had a higher artistic or intellectual aspiration than what was being offered in the world of 80s Top 40 and pop music at that time. We wanted to appeal to the poets and the romantics of the age, not to the consumerist mentality that was so rampant then (and now).”
Pink Turns Blue counts Joy Division, Killing Joke, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, and Laibach as the band’s influences.
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