“Deutschland sucht den Superstar” is currently in its last season. It is therefore worth taking a look at the past 20 years and our author thinks that some jurors should really have been left out.
“Germany seeks the superstar” brought back Dieter Bohlen for the final season of the talent show and Pietro Lombardi, Leony and Katja Krasavice placed at his side. Whether that was the right choice, because the jury members make up a large part of the fun, will be seen in the end. Next to crazy candidates even the pros behind the desk can make mistakes. Over the past 19 seasons, there have been quite a few judges who were just a bad idea for a variety of reasons.
Bruce Darnel
Interestingly, before season 9, DSDS hardly made any bizarre decisions as far as the jury was concerned. Then came Bruce Darnel. Where experienced music managers, label employees and singers had previously sat, RTL now brought the “Germany’s Next Topmodel” cult judge comes into play and he should judge whether someone can be a musician. Of course, Darnell was primarily about the performance of the contestants, but still someone with a little more musical training would have been better.
Kay One
At the peak of his success seemed for Rapper Kay One everything to be possible and despite his continued musical presence and a good relationship with Dieter Bohlen, he was a disaster for the 2014 jury: “Top ass, top eyes, shit voice. But since we’re not on The Voice, you get my yes.” And that was just one dropout of many.
Heino
Also with that Schlagerbarden proved RTL 2015 a knack for musical experience and scandalous choices. In some circles, singer Heino is simply considered a hit guy who has been around forever. In principle, the majority of his catalog consists of covers – whether of pop songs or old German songs. And Heino has at least an interesting relationship to the German past. Sometimes he covered songs that were also in the SS song book, sometimes he sang all three verses of the Deutschlandlied for teaching purposes. This bizarre mixture alone made him a not particularly good juror.
HP Baxxter
Whole two seasons spent Scooter frontman behind the desk at DSDS. 2016 and 2017 it obviously didn’t matter if someone could sing or at least had a musical understanding. Scooter is a phenomenon and you can only give the band their success, but someone who can’t singwho doesn’t compose any melodies and is otherwise just there for a long time, shouldn’t be a juror.
Maite Kelly
It is true that there is definitely musical competence here. That was too not Maite Kelly’s problem as a juror in 2021. She was a bad choice because she was a lot more annoying than all the candidates. Always somewhere between: I want to be your girlfriend but also the tough mom who rebukes everything and everyone. That didn’t work at all. The voice often overturned and neither she nor Mike Singer were able to add anything clever to Dieter Bohlen’s opinion. At least Singer was still cheekily interestingKelly was just exhausting.
