Almost a year earlier, Ideal had set a milestone in the young NDW scene with their debut album and it's still a fantastic record and a year later the second followed, which is again a strong statement from the Four. Der Ernst Des Lebens has become a bit more mature and smooth in terms of sound and the rough Punkroots (so I want to call it) are a bit lost to the mix, but the record still impresses with its good variable songs and they do this in an expressive way, no Ideal album is fucking boring!! As you can easily see, this is the promo version with a different cover and the lyrics are printed in English and French. Recorded again with the line-up of Humpe, Deuker, Behrendt & Krüger. Conny Plank was the producer and all songs were recorded in his studio, released then at WEA. At the time, the label emphasized almost like a prayer wheel that it was a "dance combo (from West Berlin)" and that the music was "definitely dance music". There was talk of "strict rhythms that demand movement and pop music" as well as "music without frills, without superfluous ornamentation. The roots in the New Wave movement are not denied. And yet the possibilities of studio recording have not been neglected". The descriptions may seem wooden, but ultimately the hodgepodge of descriptions is understandable. Ideal combined melodic features of the Schlager with the drive of New Wave, mixed with a bit more offbeat passages. Catchy, hard riffs and the typical subtly psychedelic interjections, with South Seas/Caribbean flair and an emphatically decadent mood, eleven nuggets that still sound fresh.
