Product Description
99 Luftballons - Nena (#ad)
When the German New Wave band of the early 80s Nena released "Neunundneunzig Luftballons" in 1982 not many expected it to have any sort of impact on the European musical scenario least the world music scene.
But after 12 months since the release of "Neunundneunzig Luftballons" the band Nena were burning the midnight oil, to release the song in English with a slightly modified lyrics best suited for the English language.
The German version of "99 Red Balloons" (#ad) exploded, took the Deutsche music industry by surprise, was sung at many locals pubs of Berlin, requested on radio a zillion times and even pushing aside Michael Jackson's Thriller down the charts.
In other words if Nena had not released an English version of "99 Red Balloons" somebody else would have done it and must have claimed the copyright for the same.
In the 1980s Copyright laws were at it's weakest and most claims were never challenged.
Thankfully Nena released an English version of "Neunundneunzig Luftballons" before anyone else did and the rest is history.
The concept of this anti-war song was conceived by the band's guitarist Carlo Karges while attending a Rolling Stones concert.
At the end of the show balloons were released and some started changing shape making Nena band's guitarist Carlo Karges believe as if they were UFOs.
Nena altered this concept to make full use of the East and West Germany conflict, as the balloon drifts into the Soviet ruled East Germany, where an opportune East German Leader blames west for sending poisonous Air balloons aimed at decimating the East German population.
A full scale war between East and West Germany lasts for 99 years decimating the population on both the sides... when finally the lead singer of Nena, German singer Gabriele Susanne Kerner retrieves the balloon amidst the ruins.
"99 Red Balloons" topped the charts in Germany, where it went multi-platinum and was narrowly beaten to the top spot by Michael Jackson's Thriller in many other European countries including France, U.K and Belgium.
