Das große Leben was recorded by AnNa R. and Peter Plate of Rosenstolz during their one-year break from public appearances. In an interview at the time of the album's release, Plate revealed that the album was Rosenstolz's most private to date: "Denn im vergangenen Jahr konnten wir zu uns selbst zurückfinden und dann mit den neuen Liedern das erste Mal formulieren, was so wichtig ist und doch so schwer fällt – zu sagen: ich liebe mich selbst. Mit allen Zweifeln." In another interview, Plate stated that friendship and strong bonds were the main themes of Das große Leben. In a further interview, AnNa R. compared Herz, the band's previous studio album, with Das große Leben, declaring that the former was more upbeat, whereas the latter was more melancholic, but hopeful. Plate added that the idea behind the album's title was to indicate the enormity of each life. In contrast to previous Rosenstolz studio albums, Das große Leben consists almost entirely of ballads. At first, AnNa R. and Plate were unsure about this bias. However, after playing their new songs to close friends, they received encouragement to continue with the album in this direction. To get back to basics, the album was recorded on analogue tapes. In addition, all instruments and vocals were recorded simultaneously to achieve the effect of a live atmosphere.
Release
Two editions of Das große Leben were released on 3 March 2006: a standard edition with 12 songs, and a limited deluxe edition with the same 12 songs plus a bonus DVD. On 24 November 2006, two further editions of the album were released: one containing the original 12 songs plus 7 bonus songs, and the other containing these 19 songs plus a bonus DVD. Five songs from the album were released as singles: "Ich bin ich ", "Nichts von alledem ", "Ich geh in Flammen auf", "Auch im Regen" and "Aus Liebe wollt ich alles wissen". They all entered the top 20 of the German singles chart, whereas "Ich bin ich " was a top 20 hit in the Austrian and Swiss singles charts. "Aus Liebe wollt ich alles wissen" was a charity song to raise money for the Deutsche AIDS-Stiftung. Das große Leben was the biggest selling album in Germany in 2006. Since its release in March 2006, the album stayed uninterrupted in the German albums chart for over a year, including four weeks at No. 1, and eventually sold over one million copies.
Following the release of Das große Leben, Rosenstolz went on a concert tour that took place in over 30 venues in Germany, Austria and Switzerland between April and September 2006. The concert in Arena Leipzig was recorded and released as the live album Das große Leben live, which was also made available as a DVD video album. The live recording includes ten songs from Das große Leben: "Ich geh in Flammen auf", "Auch im Regen", "Aus Liebe wollt ich alles wissen", "Ich hab genauso Angst wie du", "Ein Wunder für mich", "Ich bin verändert", "Nichts von alledem ", "Ich bin ich ", "Anders als geplant" and "Etwas zerstört".
Critical reception
A positive review of Das große Leben was given by Harald Peters of German national daily newspaperDie Welt, who commented that the album contained exclusively mid-tempo piano-saturated guitar pop, lacking the aspects of Rosenstolz's sound that had previously often made the band's music unbearable. Furthermore, Felix Kosel of German music magazine bloom described Das große Leben as a very intimate, emotional album and praised the range of emotions shown by AnNa R.'s voice. However, Das große Leben was poorly received by Artur Schulz of German music magazinelaut.de, who found the album uninspired, trite and banal in contrast to previous Rosenstolz albums. In addition, Sebastian Handke of German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel found the album's lyrics sentimental and simplistic.
Track listing
All songs were written by Peter Plate, Ulf Leo Sommer and AnNa R., except where indicated.
