Nena - Nena

The first Nena album was released at the start of 1983 and became the dominant sensation of the West German music scene throughout the year. Starting with the 1982 breakthrough debut single "Nur Geträumt," Nena arrived at a very distinct period of German pop history, the period of the so-called Neue Deutsche Welle or NDW, the German new wave. However, by 1982 German new wave music had been watered down by various bandwagon jumpers who transformed the tension- and doom-laden atmosphere of the music of the original late-'70s new wave bands into upbeat synth pop with jokey, ironic, and even romantic lyrics. Nena was immediately pigeonholed as an NDW act, but she and her band were in fact a more unique proposition: a group of musicians with a strong intuitive grasp of both classic pop and rock formulas. All five members contributed to the song writing, with Carlo Karges and Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen providing the essential core of the repertoire. They arrived on the scene with a fully formed, confident music vision of their very own. The sound of the Nena band had in fact nothing to do with the stripped-down structures typical of actual new wave music. Even the use of the then in-vogue synthesizer sound (acting as the leading instrumental sound throughout the album) was firmly incorporated into the general basic power pop-oriented drive of a classic hard rock line-up. The pristine production and the unique touch of a slight but characteristic early-'60s melodic pop influence (including leaning toward essentially romantic imagery in the lyrics) were one thing that made the music special. The other factor was Nena Kerner herself. Her vocal style, remarkably reminiscent of early-'60s Connie Francis, and the excitement generated by her personality -- by turns sweet or moody -- proved thoroughly captivating. However, she always insisted that she saw herself as a member of the band and not as their leader. The classic across-the-board appeal of the band's music led to such a level of success that it practically buried the whole NDW movement beneath it by 1985. The album is still regarded as an unsurpassed classic of German pop history, although later Nena albums are not far behind in quality. The second single, "99 Luftballons" -- a fable of nuclear war brought about by a bunch of balloons in the sky being mistaken on radar for a pre-emptive missile attack -- went on to become a number one hit in the U.S. and worldwide in early 1984. But you knew that already.

Nena - 99 Red Balloons

It’s an unmistakable opening: a spacey synth lifts before a woman’s voice sets the stage. For German new wave band Nena, ’99 Luftballons’ quickly became their signature song. Written by band members Carlo Karges and Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the song was originally inspired by Karges watching balloons get released at the end of a 1982 Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin. Karges wondered if the balloons would alert the ever-vigilant troops stationed at the top of the Berlin Wall on the east of the German capital. With that, the idea of an innocent balloon being the spark of a Cold War crisis was born. The original version of the song, ’99 Luftballons’, was recorded in Nena’s native German language. After the track became a hit single throughout continental Europe and Japan, Nena were persuaded to record an English-language version of ’99 Luftballons’ for release as a single in the United Kingdom. The English lyrics were written by Kevin McAlea, who chose not to directly translate the German lyrics. Instead, he took the story and message from the original song and made an English-language reinterpretation of it. Since it would have been ’99 Air Balloons’ if the song had been translated directly, McAlea made a slight alteration to make it ’99 Red Balloons’. The mix between both versions of the song became increasingly blurred as the years went on. 1980s compilations and radio stations often flip between using one or the other. Tastes vary, but both ’99 Luftballons’ and ’99 Red Balloons’ have become Nena’s collective calling cards for almost four decades.

Nena & Kim Wilde - Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime EP

Once upon a time (2003) Kim Wilde was on tour in Europe and was asked if she would contribute vocals to a re-recording of a track by Nena for a greatest hits album. I’m a bit of a closet Kim Wilde fanboy and I’ve got a passing knowledge of Nena so I was as happy as a pig having sex when Anywhere was released. Now yeah, it is extremely European pop sounding with squeaky keyboards and German / English lyrics it was a best-selling hit all over the European continent, but not released in the UK or US. Originally recorded in Nena’s native German as “Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann” an all-English version was included on Nena's 1985 album It's All In The Game (the English-language version of Feuer und Flamme). The really cheap looking video was filmed outside the London Guildhall and in and around Change Alley, London EC3.