Wind of Change: Why a podcast about a '90s power ballad is 'ripe for right now'

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A podcast investigating a rumour that Wind of Change, the 1990 song from German rock band Scorpions, was written by the CIA as a "soft power" bid to hasten the dissolution of the USSR is proving a major hit and lending an unexpected new dynamic to the classic power ballad.

Created and hosted by New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, the podcast – also titled Wind of Change – is the top trending podcast globally on Google and among the top 10 podcasts on streaming services Apple Music and iTunes in both the US and Australia, according to online aggregator Chartable.

Since the podcast's debut on May 11, streams for the Scorpions' song in the US alone have increased by 17 per cent on Spotify to more than 252 million plays, the show's producer Crooked Media confirmed.

The podcast investigates a rumour that the 1990 Scorpions hit was penned by the CIA to hasten the USSR's demise.Getty Images

A somewhat incongruous protest anthem from the German hair-rockers, Wind of Change was among the top 50 highest-selling singles in Australia in 1991, a year that produced such chart-topping standards as Bryan Adams' Everything I Do (I Do It For You) and The Simpsons' Do The Bartman. At the time, the song's whistled coda and moody black-and-white video, with its triumphant footage of the Berlin Wall falling, were routine fixtures on FM radio and Video Hits.

There are obvious explanations for the podcast's success: the amusing absurdity in considering that a cheesy power ballad might have such nefarious origins, or the simple dose of early '90s nostalgia in our pandemically-challenged times. But is there more to its timely resonance?

"One reason the podcast's so ripe for right now is the re-emergence of conspiracy theories in general, and conspiracy theories about Russia and the United States in particular," says Dr Nicholas Tochka, head of ethnomusicology at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music – citing the scrutiny around Donald Trump's 2016 election win.

There's also a renewed focus in the media on the idea of battling superpowers evoked by the podcast, he says, "that Cold War way of thinking about the world as separated between the Communist world and the free world."

"We do see a lot today, from across the political spectrum, that appeals to that oversimplified thinking: especially in the dynamic between Australia and China, or the US and China," says Dr Tochka.