Maybe the advent of MTV and synthpop made Americans a little more susceptible to continental glamor. In the US, though, the version that hit was the German-language one, and “99 Luftbalons” peaked at #2 early in 1984. Instead, Nena recorded “99 Red Balloons,” their own English-language version of the song, and they took it to #1 in the UK.
In 1983, the German group Nena scored a massive global hit with the apocalyptic dance-pop jam “ 99 Luftbalons.” Nena didn’t wait around for anyone to pull an After The Fire on them. (After The Fire’s version isn’t as good as the Falco original, but it’s still a 7.) A year later, though, After The Fire, an English prog band that had switched to new wave, recorded an English-language cover of “Der Kommissar.” Apparently, America just wanted to hear the song in English, and After The Fire’s cover of “Der Kommissar” peaked at #5. In the US, “Der Kommissar” made the Billboard club charts but missed the Hot 100. 1981’s “Der Kommissar,” a bouncy new wave song with some quasi-rapped vocals, was a smash all around Europe and also in Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Upon returning to Vienna, young Falco fell in with the city’s arty underground club scene and made the debut single “ Ganz Wien,” a track with a hook that translated to “all of Vienna is on heroin today.”įalco’s second single was the one that broke him in Europe. As a teenager, he spent a year studying at the Vienna Conservatory, but he left to play in bands in West Berlin for a little while. Johann Hölzel came from Vienna and fell in love with pop music as a kid. It could’ve been gibberish, and it would’ve hit the same.įalco’s brief moment of American stardom was a weird little fluke, but he’d been a big deal in Europe for a few years before he showed up on MTV in that pink wig. Also, “Rock Me Amadeus” has a huge, ridiculous singalong chorus.
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Amadeus had been a huge hit, a Best Picture winner that was also the #14 movie on the 1984 year-end box-office list. Certain terms transcend language: “superstar,” “rock idol,” “punk.” And thanks to the Forman film, Americans had a pretty good idea what Falco was describing. And then there was Falco, the peacocking Austrian whose ode to Mozart somehow elbowed its way onto pop radio and became the biggest German-language hit in American history.įalco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” lyrics are almost entirely in German, and yet you can get the basic gist even if you don’t speak the language. First there was Walter Murphy And The Big Apple Band’s “ A Fifth Of Beethoven,” which translated an 1808 Ludwig Van symphony into a giddy disco party. In the ’70s, prog rock bands went even further, writing long symphonic opuses with multiple movements that would take up entire LP sides.īut there’s something primally satisfying about how the #1 hits that most blatantly reference classical music are among the silliest, most disposable chart-toppers in Hot 100 history. Burt Bacharach forged a hugely successful career by making his arrangements as tricky and fussy as possible.
In the early ’60s, pop producers who aimed for sophistication piled strings all over their tracks. For many of those strivers, classical music has represented something loftier - an escape from the bubblegum trenches.
There’s a theme that runs through all pop music: Musicians who thought they were too good to be making pop music. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.
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