Nena

[hobbitomm]

It's odd. I've just been watching VH1 (not a lot happening at work, as you might have gathered!), and the '1 hit wonders' section included Nena's 99 luftballoon. In German. For an american hit. That surprised me, for a couple of reasons, really. Firstly, someone singing in german had a hit in the States, and secondly, that they released the german version over there in the first place. Because I recall that over here it was released in English (as per usual, the group could sing quite competently in English, thank you very much ;). Perhaps the lyrics were too downbeat for the US? Dunno. Just a bit odd.

Comments

[nevok.livejournal.com]

Oh that piece of history can be easily explained

1983 was the year, when 99 Luftballons really hit Germany. It stayed on number one for 23 consecutive weeks, which's not a bad achievement. Either way, the success itself came as a bit of a surprise actually. The fact, that it was released in German first in the US was a bit of an unofficial coup thanks to then still occupation forces of the US Army. One single found its way to a DJ in the US, by a friend, relative or something along these lines, and pretty fast 'conquered' the new world.

In order to net more international success, they finally released the single in English as well. Note: The record was only translated and re-recorded *because* of the smashing success in the US. NDW, Neue Deutsche Welle, was a phenomenon in Germany, not-quite-punk, but certainly stemming from these roots. Lasted for quite a while, too, but that's not what this is about, now, is it?

So, that ought to answer the question. If you BFBS people would have picked up faster than those AFN people, the 'mericans would have gotten the English version instead.