Biography
If a young man aged 21 makes it to third place in a casting show with songs he composed himself, that is already a sensation in itself. However, if the casting show is Stefan Raab's ambitious "Unser Star für Oslo", it should be obvious that it takes a little more than just having a good voice and the right look.
Not that Christian Durstewitz is lacking either of these, but the 21 year old son of an opera tenor doesn't want to fit into the usual clichés that the candidates of these kinds of formats in this country are only too willing to do. And that is not only because of his startling mane of hair and a somewhat - well, let's say - "unorthodox" performance.
After all, the curly-haired boy from Altenlotheim, a nest in the deepest province of Hesse, is a musician. Through and through. An example of the rare species who needs no more than an instrument and his own voice to be happy.
"I have always made music. At home, alone in my room, on stage, with jazz bands, hard rock bands, pop bands. Not because I don't care about the genre, but rather because I can find something interesting, something evocative in every kind of music."
At least after his success on "Unser Star für Oslo", it was finally clear to Christian which path his life will take. The next step will be his debut album. He worked on it in just as passionate, willful and determined a way as he does with everything else to do with making his dream of standing on stages playing his own songs come true.
The fruit of his work is Let Me Sing, an album that unites all the qualities of the young boy wonder: the songs, which Christian produced in his home studio, are all his own compositions and perfectly demonstrate the musical diversity that enabled him to play in various bands even as a teenager without seeing it as some kind of contradiction. On Let Me Sing, dynamic electro sounds meet pure pop, hard rock guitars meet heart-wrenching ballads, Disney choruses are merged with Tarantino soundtrack moments, all carefully layered on a state of the art R'n'B foundation that was polished in the successful Valicon team's studios (Silbermond etc.). Christian plays with clichés in his lyrics just as skillfully as he juggles various genres in his arrangements. In"„Stalker" for example, the first single to be released from the album, he slips into the role of a fanatical fan who will do anything to get close to their idol. Despite all this irony, it is as obvious in that track as it is on the whole album how much passion and enjoyment goes into every moment of his music.
With Let Me Sing, Christian Durstewitz shows once and for all what made him a secret favorite on "Unser Star für Oslo": Christian may well be a charming, headstrong guy, but he needs the 'exotic bonus' just as little as he needs to be pigeonholed in any particular genres. His debut album proves one thing about him more than ever: he is a musician to the heart. And what is more, one of the most talented in his generation. It goes without saying that his live stage performance will back that up.
