Maximilian Hecker

Followers
14,553
Listeners
23,895

Bio

Maximilian Hecker is a German singer-songwriter and writer from Berlin, known for his melancholic, ethereal Dream Pop that has particularly become popular in countries such as Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Hecker was initially signed to Kitty-yo Records in 2001, has worked with V2 Records, PIAS, Pastel Music and Gold Typhoon Music amongst others and has played about 20 East Asian tours and about twelve in Europe as well as one worldwide tour in cooperation with German organisation Goethe Institut in 2003/2004. Collaborating with producers such as Youth (The Verve, Embrace, Paul McCartney), Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Erasure), Guy Sternberg (Michael Wollny, Mary Komasa) or Johannes Feige (Axel Prahl, Dota Kehr), the enigmatic falsetto singer has released ten studio albums to date. His songs – that he himself calls »lullabies for grown-ups« – were used in popular K-dramas like »The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince«, »High Society« or »Hello, My Twenties!« and in Korean and Chinese TV ads for Samsung, Motorola or Dunkin' Donuts. Aside from Taiwanese indie pop stars Faith Yang, Sodagreen, Waa Wei, as well as K-Pop star Leo (VIXX), Hecker has collaborated with American singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata, namely on the duets UNTOUCHABLE (2015) and HEADSTONE (2019). He portrayed his career as well as his experiences on his travels through the Far East in the autobiography THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIMILIAN HECKER (2012). His debut novel LOTTEWELT, an autofictional story about unrequited love and self-discovery in the maze of Seoul, was published in 2023.

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9.5K Followers
9K Subscribers
YouTube Videos
Gallery
Julija Goyd, 2023Julija Goyd, 2023Saeho Kim, 2018Minsu Sun, 2016Dirk Merten, 2015Gutschera & Osthoff, 2012Stefan Sappert, 2009Sven Bänziger, 2009Dirk Merten, 2004Hit Music, 2007Shenzhen, 2023Shanghai, 2023Beijing, 2023Chengdu, 2009Guangzhou, 2008Tour 2008Fan art #2Fan art #1Taipei, 2006Lottewelt (2023)The Rise and Fall of Maximilian Hecker (2012)Neverheart (2024)Infinite Love Songs (2001)
Press
Rolling Stone, January 2024
The hearts of the protagonists on NEVERHEART are torn: Giving themselves away and yet staying alone. But however tragic their dissociated and unfulfilled existence should be – the accompanying bittersweet melody is just as comforting. An atmosphere so dense, a sentiment so immediate. [4/5]
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BBC Collective, April 2004
On LADY SLEEP, his third album, the criminally underrated Maximilian Hecker returns to his recurring fascination with affairs of the heart. Although simpler (ie, less electronic) than his last album, ROSE, LADY SLEEP is just as evocative: opulent orchestral symphonies sway with a shimmering elegance, the neo-Baroque chamber pop hints at stunning torch songs for the 21st century and Hecker’s softly spoken vocals are gently affecting. Less camp than Antony and the Johnsons, although just as grand, Berliner Hecker deserves to be a star. [4/5]
The New York Times, albums of the year, December 2001
In a long list of precious, fragile, heartbroken artists to emerge in the last two years (Tom McRae, Ed Harcourt, The Kingsbury Manx), Mr. Hecker, by legend an oft-disparaged Berlin street musician, whispers the most precious and fragile heartbreak of them all.
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Frankfurter Rundschau, January 19, 2024
Hecker, who has already been compared to one of the greatest songwriters, namely Nick Drake, is long since – and above all: still – one of the most important local voices in the only here and there truly virtuosically ploughed no-man's-land between Schlager and indie. In any case, a musician like Tristan Brusch (who masters the un-kitschy kitsch similarly well), and who recently has been celebrated by the music press and the feuilleton, wouldn't perhaps have a chance these days without the great art of a Maximilian Hecker.
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NME, May 2003
ROSE, Hecker's second LP, is as beautiful and barbed as the flower itself and proves that sinister can also be suave and beautiful. While his sexless Germanic vocals threaten to get smothered in drippy melancholy, he’s wise enough to ease off with the string quartets as things progress, transmuting his snail pace into the kind of pin-drop quiet electro Fischerspooner would make after a pint of heroin. Lovely. [8/10]
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Tour Dates

Apr 12, 2025

SengGi Studio

Seoul [KR]

Info

Apr 19, 2025

Omni Space

Beijing [CN]

Apr 20, 2025

The Boxx

Shanghai [CN]

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Apr 22, 2025

536 Art Space

Jiaxing [CN]

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Apr 25, 2025

9-Club

Hangzhou [CN]

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Apr 26, 2025

Omni Space

Guangzhou [CN]

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Apr 27, 2025

Houlive

Shenzhen [CN]

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Apr 29, 2025

Littles Live

Chengdu [CN]

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Apr 30, 2025

Replay Live

Chongqing [CN]

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Spotlight Release
Neverheart (2024)

Release Date

01/19/2024

Record Label

Blue Soldier Records/Believe

Genre

Singer-Songwriter / Dream Pop

The title of Maximilian Hecker's tenth studio album does indeed allude to J. M. Barrie's Neverland, i.e. to the island where Peter Pan is living a life in eternal youth. However, Hecker's neverheart, unlike Barrie's Neverland, is not at all positively connoted, for the tongue-in-cheek neologism has to be regarded as a Wilhelm Hauff cold or rather: stony heart (see Wilhelm Hauff, »Heart of Stone«, 1827) – that sort of stony heart that the protagonist of NEVERHEART is constantly confronted with in his wretched, or more precisely: two-toned love songs. Be it his own neverheart that constantly screams »devotion« and yet performs avoidance, or that one of the respective playmates who – in the sense of a mirroring of the singer’s emotional ambivalence – use to say »white« and yet act black, and who leave the whispering pleader »alone to stay with him all night« (Fall in Love, Fall Apart), who »drive him away and pull him into their hearts« (Two-toned Love, part I), who »fall in love and fall apart« (Fall in Love, Fall Apart), while the falsetto singer »blooms in their shades and fades in their lights«, »breathes in their fears and drowns in their hopes« (Fall in Love, Fall Apart), always »reaching out to rise and yet to fall« (Neverheart).

Spotify Audience

Top countries

Brazil15.46%Philippines15.65%Taiwan16.65%Germany24.9%United States27.34%

Top cities

Berlin15.67%Singapore15.76%Seoul17.54%Taipei19.55%Sao Paulo31.48%
Chartmetric Indicators

Career Stage

Developing

Legendary

Superstar

Mainstream

Mid-Level

Developing

Recent Momentum

Steady

Explosive Growth

Growth

Steady

Gradual Decline

Decline

Network Strength

Dormant

Influential

Prominent

Established

Ascendant

Dormant

Audience
Social Footprint
209.2K
Primary Market
No data available
Primary Gender
Female
Primary Age
25-34
Instagram Audience

Gender

Male 34.58%
Female 65.42%

Ethnicity

Hispanic 2.77%
African American 1.71%
Asian 63.11%
White 32.41%

Gender by age

13-1718-2425-3435-4445-6465-0%5%10%15%20%25%30%
Male 34.58%
Female 65.42%