Germany’s Best-Kept Secret, Barely Kept

Lena Meyer-Landrut won Eurovision in 2010 doing this hyperactive, gap-toothed thing that was so artless it somehow worked—Germany sent in the anti-pop-star and Europe voted for her anyway. What happened next, over the following decade, is that she quietly became the most interesting pop voice Germany has. She learned to use social media without being consumed by it. She gives enough to feel open without giving everything away. The music got more honest and less performative. That transition is harder than it sounds, and most people who start where she started don’t make it.

For the new issue of Tush, photographer Armin Morbach shot her in gold—gold light, gold forms—and the results are exactly as good as that sounds. She’s posing with this half-lazy, half-curious look that reads as genuinely sensual without the whole thing feeling like a contractual obligation. Morbach doesn’t expose her so much as frame her, which is the difference between a portrait and a product shot. She posted about it afterward with I love love love all of this so much, which felt earned rather than promotional.

The timing is deliberate: the album Only Love, L drops April 5th. Songs called Thank You, Dear L, Private Thoughts—the titles alone tell you where the record lives emotionally. The Tush issue is available online and at select magazine shops, including Do You Read Me? in Berlin, if you want to see the full spread. Worth it.