Last Saturday, we stumbled upon a surprisingly good-quality four-hour video of Peter‘s Pop Show 1986, a German live televised music show featuring nearly every international chart-topping star of the time. Think Depeche Mode playing right after Tina Turner. Every artist performed two songs, and in between, host Peter Illman made funny but slightly awkward comments¹.

Elke and I have no recollection of this show. We were probably already too old to stay home on Saturday nights when it aired.

The internet is mostly silent about this show. Only the Czech Wikipedia, IMDb, and a few obscure sites have sparse information. Apparently, the show ran from 1982 to 1993 and was hosted by Peter Illman and Thomas Gottschalk.

That‘s a pity because I‘d love some details. For example, what budget would it take to fly in 30 superstars, some with ten or more musicians, for two songs each? Also, considering that bands like Depeche Mode (then in the Black Celebration era) had some cool factor to lose and probably needed extra incentive to play in such a theatrical setting. Maybe the opportunity itself was sufficient to be seen all over Europe, including the Soviet Union? And, by the way, at that time, TV in Germany was exclusively public, so this was not done by a hotshot company spending stock market money. (Something so vastly different from today.)

But I‘m most surprised that a music event of this size left so few traces in culture. People still reminisce about where they were when Live Aid took place in 1985, in London and Philadelphia. Maybe the speed-dating format of two hits per band ultimately was too shallow and had little impact on music fans.

Speaking of Depeche Mode: on Tuesday, we were invited to Mute Records to meet their artist HAAi, whom we talked about in last week’s newsletter. We both remember the label well from the 80s: it launched the careers of Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget and pushed the boundaries of electronic pop music over the decades. A teenage dream came true, especially when we were invited to help ourselves to their stash of promo vinyl².

Discovery of the Week

Whenever I hear or read the word sitar, my mind immediately goes back to my teenage years and to George Harrison introducing the instrument into my musical universe through The Beatles. Truth be told, beyond Harrison’s solo work, I never really explored many sitar players, so I was instantly curious when this landed in my inbox. And I’m very glad I pressed play.

The album opener feels like a musical conversation stretching from Fort Worth to Mumbai, with gliding piano, restless drum patterns, electric guitar, and Chatterjee’s mesmerizing sitar weaving through it all. But what really stayed with me is the feeling that this is only the beginning of a much bigger artistic vision. Watch for yourself, and stay tuned for what else they have to offer.

Cover Song of the Week: The Cure - World in My Eyes

The 1998 album For The Masses was a tribute to Depeche Mode, featuring 18 songs by some of the biggest alternative acts of the 1990s.

The Cure has always had the uncanny ability to sound unmistakably like themselves, regardless of the music they made. So, of course, they nailed their cover of the 1990 song “World In My Eyes.”³ It is great to hear when two bands that have been influential for decades and still fill stadiums today come together.

Five Songs from Mute Records this century

Listen to glamglare five songs on Spotify, Apple Music, or below on YouTube.

• Miss Grit has just released her new album Under The Umbrella. The lead single, “Tourist Mind,” was our Song Pick of the Day.
• Ora The Molecule released her record Dance Therapy last year. “Is This Love?” is an irresistible future-dance track built around a driving bassline and sweeping synth lines. Nora Schjelderup, the mastermind behind Ora The Molecule, was also at Mute’s New York happy hour earlier this week following her NYC show.
• Zola Jesus released only one album, Taiga, on Mute, which takes cues from Laibach, another Mute signee, with its heavy brass and drum lines.
• It is unclear how often Elke and I watched the video for Fever Ray’s “When I Grow Up,” which features a woman who is not Karin Dreijer performing a mysterious dance on a diving board. Fever Ray’s 2009 self-titled debut album remains a masterpiece of electronic music, balancing unease, beauty, and deeply compelling storytelling.
• HAAi’s 2025 album HUMANiSE fits perfectly into MUTE’s lineup with an elegant, creative electronic production with many surprises. We’re looking forward to her next record.

This Week in glamglare history

1 Year Ago: City Builders - Learning to Miss You

“Learning To Miss You” is a big, cinematic ballad from City Builder’s 2026 debut album Healing Revenge.

5 Years Ago: Abby Sage - Smoke Break

Abby Sage scored the second Song Pick of the Day out of five with her breakup song “Smoke Break.” Her latest release is My Whole World, a collaboration with C.Y.M.

10 Years Ago: Wildlife - Dead Century

According to Wikipedia, the Canadian band Wildlife is still active, but the 2016 album Age Of Everything is the last album that is available, and their website is defunct.

Song Pick of the Day

Listen to all seven songs on YouTube, or follow our daily updated Song Pick playlists on YouTube, Apple Music, or Spotify.

• ugly ozo - MISERY
• Stanley Simmons - Temporary Love
• MIN t - Last Day
• Cutscene - Concrete Line
• Eve Garland - The Dig
• Juliet Daniel - Jane Austin
• Slow Fiction - junior year

We publish one Song Pick of the Day every day. You can subscribe to receive them by email.

Nine Photos: Our First Full Day in Lisbon

Less than a month after writing about being back in town, we found ourselves settling into Lisbon once again: walking toward our apartment building, our first quiosque stop after arriving, a peaceful afternoon at Gulbenkian, Campo Pequeno glowing in the sun, and a few very Lisbon-style stair climbs along the way.
Enjoy the photos.

1. At some point, he asked security to lift a girl out of the audience to sit on stage for the Falco set (surely this was prearranged, and legal papers had been signed). She had little to do, not even to shake Falco‘s hand. After the set, Peter joked that she is now so well known that she cannot walk safely on the street in Europe anymore. ↩︎
2. Aside from HAAi’s HUMANiSE, we took Fever Ray’s 2009 debut album home. Would we have liked more? Sure, but space is limited in our apartment. ↩︎
3. According to Far Out Magazine “World In My Eyes” was late Depeche Mode founding member Andrew Fletcher’s favorite song. So it is mine. ↩︎