Nena is 65: Germany’s pop queen celebrates his birthday

Nena (65) is still an institution in the German music landscape. Over 40 years after her big breakthrough in the early 1980s, the singer continues to be successful in business and regularly conquered the German charts with her albums. She is also known to the younger generations as a juror of casting shows such as “The Voice of Germany” and “The Voice Kids”.

The fact that the singer, born in Hagen in Germany, is not only a celebrity on March 24, 1960, but also in many other countries around the world, has a decisive deal of dealing with her biggest hit “99 balloons”. And curiously with the Berlin musician and author Christiane Felscherinow (62), who became known as heroin-addicted young people Christiane F. at the end of the 1970s by the book “We Children from Zoo”.

With her very first single “only dreamed” Nena and her band immediately stormed the charts in 1982 and sold 40,000 copies within a very short time. However, the NDW icon career only really went through the ceiling in January 1983, when the debut album “Nena” came onto the market and delivered the much larger hit “99 Balloons” to the German audience.

The trendy anti-war song climbed the top of the German single charts, stayed there for 23 weeks and triggered a huge Nena hype-which should then spread over other continents with a small delay.

She owes a huge coincidence that Nena also started internationally with her “99 balloons”. And in this context also her colleague Nina Hagen (70) and the then “junkie star” Christiane F .. The latter was in Los Angeles in March 1983 to promote the film “Christiane F. – We Children from the Zoo station” in the USA. Together with Nina Hagen, she was a guest on the show of the Radio-Djs Rodney Bingenheimer (77), which was very well known at the time.

When he asked about her taste in music, she conjured up a cassette brought from Germany out of her pocket and promptly sent the stunned radioomann “99 balloons” over the ether. What she would trigger with it would probably not have been able to imagine the busy Berliner in her wildest dreams: Bingenheimer was so impressed by the groovy synth rock song from Germany that he was celebrating the play again and again in further programs and thus also made it known nationwide in the United States.

Despite the German text, the song became so popular that in March 1983 it rose to second place on the US charts and finally became a millions. Shortly afterwards, “99 balloons” also stormed the hit parades in Japan, Mexico, Canada and Australia. A hastily recorded English -language version of the song made it to the top of the charts a little later in Great Britain.

It is not known which version of the super hit on Nena’s party will be heard for her 65th birthday today. However, she already reported that she wanted to have it really crash on this occasion. There she said: “I am looking forward to a nice birthday party where we will dance extensively. I wanted that for this year. The dance in spring, which makes everything bloom and stands for new beginning.”