Modern Talking broke up 20 years ago

In his memoirs, Thomas Anders uses no metaphor too loud to describe what happened on June 7, 2003. “The bomb had exploded,” the singer recalls in his book “100 Percent Different,” which bears the auspicious subtitle “The Truth About Modern Talking, Nora and Dieter Bohlen.” The moment he witnessed at the time was an “experience like a mighty thunderstorm,” Anders writes. “People look up at the sky, see the lightning – and then, with a slight delay, comes the deafening bang.”

What happened? Well, it wasn’t the end of all days, as one might deduce from the symbolism invoked. But it was the end of a pop duo: Modern Talking, one half of which the 60-year-old was then, blew apart. Dieter Bohlen – the other half – said on the evening of June 7, 2003 to a completely bewildered audience in Rostock’s Ostseestadion that it was over. Modern Talking go their separate ways. And quite a few suspected: That was it for good.

One tends to find it all a bit silly in retrospect. The biblical importance that Anders’s words speak to the reader doesn’t quite match the musical lightness that Modern Talking has been credited with throughout its life. Or maybe yes? The separation is now exactly 20 years ago. Time for a conclusion.

It all started in the mid-80s

First the facts: It all started in the mid-1980s. Dieter Bohlen, above all composer and producer, and Thomas Anders, above all singer, joined forces to form Modern Talking. And the whole staging boiled down to the fact that the two men should be perceived as opposites – the stylish popper with curls, lip gloss and plenty of tan (Anders) met a rather robust, blond North German with pastel-colored tracksuits (Bohlen).

In January 1985 “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul” entered the hit parade. After that, Modern Talking quickly became a phenomenon. Sneered at by some, loved by others – and immensely successful. Millions of records have been sold to date. In 1987, Modern Talking broke up for the first time, accompanied by a war of words.

The comeback followed in 1998 – and it wasn’t a small one. Bohlen and Anders joined “Wetten, dass..?” on, the largest trade fair that was read on German television at the time. Embedded in the kitsch scenery of the dome show “Herzblatt”, moderator Thomas Gottschalk took the vow from the two musicians to get along in the future. Then basically everything started from the beginning: First they played a new version of “You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul”. And success came back.

“Nothing but the truth”

Until 2003. If you leaf through the books that Bohlen and Anders left for posterity, appearances by Anders – without Bohlen – in the USA are said to have led to a dispute before the concert in Rostock. The impression, which is as solid after reading the books and many interviews as the chorus of “Cheri Cheri Lady” after the second listen, is: Two people just didn’t fit together at all.

Bohlen, the composer, patronizingly judges Anders, the singer, in his book “Nothing but the Truth”: “Of course it is also clear to me that he suffers when in the newspapers under the heading “The eternal second” Bayer Leverkusen , Pepsi Cola and Thomas Anders are (…)” But it’s like this: “There can only be one. That’s me. But for him there’s the post of Vice Greatest.” This is one of the nicer passages in Bohlen’s book. In “Behind the Scenes” he accuses his ex-partner: “If you get an offer from the Flippers or the Kastelruther Spatzen, grab it immediately before they can change their minds.”

Anders, in turn, writes: “There is probably no celebrity in Germany who is more public than Dieter.” In 2011, he once said about the collaboration, which was both difficult and successful at the same time: “Maybe it is also the will of God that great successes always have to be borne with a sacrifice.”