Where is Tarkan?

By Adelind Osmanlı reporting from Munich, Germany

The high volume of news about Tarkan in the last two months after the release of his 2007 album Metamorfoz has given way to a period of quiet from the artist.

With only the unverified gossip mill continuing to churn out rumours such as a small motorbike accident (a false story) and the usual marriage rumours with his long-time girlfriend, no developments on new projects are forthcoming from the papers, but fans are keeping a close eye on the votes at Tarkan's official site for a new music video.

Music Videos

While fans in Turkey wait for news about the filming of a second music video, German fans can catch the "Vay Anam Vay" video on rotation at German music channel Viva, with an update to Metamorfoz on its artist's page online.

Scans of German papers make no mention of the artist's album release, and there is no current information on any intended German single releases, either. It seems the album was released in Germany to be made more easily available to the Turkish community in the country, although an Urban Records newsletter has mentioned tours in May this year.

Tarkan released a video enhanced Metamorfoz CD in Germany at the start of February, and fans were informed via his official site that the album will be released in Austria, Bulgaria and Switzerland this Friday.

Tarkan Videos Disappearing at YouTube

Meanwhile, the major Society for the Turkish music industry, Mü-YAP, has been busy removing Tarkan's music videos from YouTube.

Representing nearly 80% of its domestic music market, the non-profit phonogram producers' organisation's removal of Tarkan at YouTube seems to have been carried out at the request of the singer, as it is only Tarkan's videos which have been targeted for removal so far.

UPDATE: Tarkan opens official YouTube channel (2012) >>

The anti-YouTube crusade is similar to the drive started by American music artist Prince.

Prince had asked for more than 2,000 illegally uploaded videos to be removed from YouTube, and was also considering action against eBay and Swedish piracy search engine The Pirate Bay.

Turkish newspaper Takvim had reported how viewing figures of Tarkan's videos at YouTube had entered the millions.

The Turkish pop icon artist himself mentioned to reporters at Istanbul's Atatürk Airport that he had checked out comments about him on YouTube while holidaying in the Maldives recently (see the Turkish video footage here).

Causing the deletion of hundreds of accounts that had promoted Tarkan and Turkey to non-Turkish speakers at YouTube, this sudden drive aimed at controlling Tarkan's copyright has angered fans whose accounts have been affected by the ban.

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