Tag Archives: Nena

Music Video of the Day: 99 Luftballons by Nena (2009, dir. Philippe Rouget)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Let’s bring Nena forward to 2009 from where we last left her off in 2002. With the release of Nena feat. Nena, she came back in the spotlight as a solo artist. The story is simple. She did well during the period of time between 2002 and 2009. She even started her own record label called The Laugh & Peas Company in 2009. I assume in order to commemorate that, she decided to make yet another version of 99 Luftballons–complete with a whole new music video. I guess every time there’s a milestone in Nena’s career, we are going to get a new version of 99 Luftballons. I have no problem with this.

Now that a little backstory is out of the way, let me say that I love this version. The original was good. The English version was quite terrible. The 2002 version was a nice retrospective, but it never felt like Nena. Just because the times change, it doesn’t automatically mean you have to radically change your sound to fit-in. This version is the original, but updated without changing her sound. I’m assuming that the reason she sings a few parts in French is because of the War in Iraq. It also ties the shoe-throwing incident with George W. Bush to the shoe-banging incident with Nikita Khrushchev by having them shown back-to-back.

One subtle thing that I want to point out, now that we’ve reached the fourth and final version of this song by Nena, is one word that is easily missed. According to Wikipedia, critic and musician Scott Miller said in his book, Music: What Happened?, something that I would have missed otherwise. It’s that the song has always used the word “kriegsminister.” It’s a German word that translates to “War Minister.” He said it suffers from the inclusion of that word. I’m not sure why. I’m sure there’s some context for that statement that isn’t on Wikipedia, but I just see it as an Easter Egg to pick up on. The last War Minister in the U.S. was Kenneth Claiborne Royall. He is famous for having been appointed to defend some Nazis that had come ashore on Long Island. He did his job essentially, but Roosevelt wanted them to be executed–the sooner the better. It still happened, but he did his best to defend against them being quickly tried and executed behind closed doors by taking it all the way to the Supreme Court. It’s kind of similar to the events Bridge of Spies (2015) is based on. He was later appointed to be War Minister by Harry S. Truman. Truman being the one who dropped the bombs that helped end WWII. The office of Minister of War ended in 1947. That’s the year when people tend to agree the Cold War started because it is when the Truman Doctrine was introduced. I don’t see the issue there since it ties in heavily with the meaning of the song, but I am probably missing something. Maybe it’s because he would go on to forced retirement in 1949 because he refused to desegregate the Army.

I like the music video quite a bit. Go ahead and put aside it showing what the lyrics mean for a minute. A good portion of what you are seeing is heavily focused on the catchy riff of the original, and not being ashamed of what Scott Miller called an “embarrassingly out-of-place disco funk interlude.” The power of the song has always been that it is a lot of fun, you can belt out the lyrics, and dance to it to your heart’s content. Yet, if you actually listen to the lyrics, they are in direct contradiction to the way the song sounds and makes you feel. For me, that is one of the reasons the song has long-lasting appeal rather than having just been a catchy hit-song from 1984. I only bring up Scott Miller because the Wikipedia article on the song does, and I happen to disagree with those particular opinions.

There are other versions of this song by other artists, including a music video for Goldfinger’s cover. However, I am done with 99 Luftballons for now. I have another music video picked out as a capstone before Election Day in the United States. Enjoy!

99 Luftballons versions:

1. 99 Luftballons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)
2. 99 Red Balloons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)
3. 99 Luftballons by Nena (2002, dir. Marcus Sternberg)

Music Video of the Day: 99 Luftballons by Nena (2002, dir. Marcus Sternberg)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CnDvtwYn6I

I guess I should bring Nena forward from 1984 to 2002 first.

While often considered to be a one-hit wonder, they did have some success with a few other songs in German. However, you know how these things always go. One minute you are on top of the world, then your lead singer is caught with their underarms unshaven, the follow-up songs/albums don’t do well, and ultimately internal differences cause the band to come to an end.

I’m not kidding about the shaving bit. Apparently it was big news when Nena toured the UK in 1984 that her armpits weren’t shaved. A woman from continental Europe without shaved armpits is totally unheard of said no one except of course by British red-top press at the time. In response, she shaved them, and has kept them shaved ever since. She even brought it up in her mémoires when she said, “Can a girl from Hagen, who dreams of the big wide world and is in love with Mick Jagger, have no idea that girls can’t under any circumstances have hair under the arm? Yes she can. I simply had no idea!” I can’t wait to see the nonsense people wrote after watching Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus. Taking one look at that, and thinking that it generated so much buzz makes me see an animated GIF in my head of Cyndi Lauper face-palming with a poster of Wendy O. Williams of The Plasmatics behind her and holding a picture of Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons. The music video even references this armpit thing around three minutes and twenty-three seconds by giving us a clear shot of her shaved armpits.

Nena is one of those bands like Alice Cooper where people tend to think that they are seeing a solo artist when in fact the lead singer just happens to share the same name as the band. Nena the band disbanded in 1987. Nena herself went on to a solo career, but it didn’t quite come together till 2002 when an album was released to celebrate a 20th anniversary (I’m not sure what the starting date is here). That explains the existence of this music video. The album that was released was comprised of newly arranged versions of her hits from the 1980s. That brings us to 2002.

The first thing you’ll notice about this song is that it is the German version, not the English one. You’ll also notice that it is more like something you would expect from Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain, or another female pop-singer of the era. I certainly get making it sound nostalgic, but updating the sound kind of bothers me. It just doesn’t sound right to my ears.

I get pairing it with images that start empty and melancholy, then progressively get more empowering from the middle finger bit onwards. I am not sure what the deal is with the colors other than that they act as a reference to the multi-colored balloons and smoke from the original music video. If you are familiar with her songs, then you’ll notice she is walking by their titles that are on the boardwalk railing. You’ll also notice that the last song is 99 Luftballons followed by the name Nena. It’s a nice touch that I certainly missed the first time around. I was too distracted by the merry-go-round at the beginning that made me think of the cover of Dave Matthews Band’s album Under The Table And Dreaming and the black guy who is doing the Limp Bizkit Rollin’ thing with his arms. I guess since Nena is still around today it is appropriate since she has kept Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’.

Director Marcus Sternberg appears to have been doing music videos since the mid-90s. They seem to be mostly with European bands–probably German ones.

Enjoy!

99 Luftballons versions:

1. 99 Luftballons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)
2. 99 Red Balloons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)

Music Video of the Day: 99 Red Balloons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4

I can’t write a lot because I’ve had a hard day (I always write these posts the day before they go up). Thankfully, this is the perfect music video to do since there isn’t much to say.

Yesterday I spotlighted the German version of this song. Despite having taken around three years of German in school, I cannot translate the lyrics to the song. Luckily, I don’t have to. You don’t have to read any of this to be able to understand why this is a terrible version of the song and music video. Listen to the music video at around two minutes and thirty seconds when she says the line, “super high-tech jet fighters.” It sounds rushed, like they were trying to fit it in with the music. This was not a direct translation, and you can tell. You can hear they were trying to make this more for an English-speaking audience without actually changing the music to fit the different lyrics. You’ll notice the difference if you listen to something like The Beatles’ I Wanna Hold Your Hand and the German version Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand. It’s a different language, but it still sounds right. Granted, it is a simpler song, but you get my point.

The visual differences are minor, but interesting. The biggest difference is that they move the end of the music video to the beginning. They cut certain sequences and replace them with concert footage. They also rearrange the order of certain scenes. The gist is that they cut between the original video and concert footage to hide anytime she is lip-syncing the original lyrics. My favorite examples are at the beginning when they have her in slow-motion and later when they cut her concert footage short just after she starts to say ninety-nine in German, which is neunundneunzig. The mouth moves close enough if you cut soon enough.

One of best things about both the original version and this one is what happened during a charity event VH1 Classic once ran for Hurricane Katrina relief. The idea was that people who donated would get to choose what music videos they would play. According to Wikipedia, someone made a $35,000 donation if they would play this and the original continuously for an hour. They did so between the hours of 2:00 and 3:00 pm EST on March 26, 2006.

Enjoy comparing the two!

99 Luftballons versions:

1. 99 Luftballons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)

Music Video of the Day: 99 Luftballons by Nena (1984, dir. Bert van der Veer)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2D4joJF5xo

Back in the mid-2000s I took a class on the history of Jazz & Rock. At some point our teacher brought up that until the late-90s or so, Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba was really the only song sung in a foreign language that made it big in the United States. He’s right on average, but that didn’t stop the students of the class from instantly rallying off song titles at him such as Oye Como Va by Santana. I waited till it died down a bit to bring up this song. This song is a little different. It made it big here in German, but was also recorded in English. The English version is universally disliked by people and the band. That makes it not only a song that made it big in German here in the States, but one that we rejected in English. That’s kind of amazing. As I recall, he hadn’t even heard of the song. However, I can’t be too hard on the guy. He gave me a story that I take any excuse to repeat. He was in New York City during the birth of punk rock. He lived just a short distance from CBGBs while living with his girlfriend. He says he was such a Jazz Snob that he refused to walk the couple of blocks it would have taken to witness the beginning of groups like The Ramones. He said it was one of his greatest regrets of his life. Now to the music video.

First off, there are actually four different music videos for this song that I am aware of at the moment. Even the music videos for the German and English ones are different enough to be worth discussing on their own. It’s not like the differences between the original and director’s cut of Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box that just adds a little additional footage. It’s more like the differences between the original, explicit, and director’s cut of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball. Plus, the lyrics are not the same in English as in German, which increases the different experience of watching it, in addition to the differences in the visuals.

All that said, the music video is pretty simple. It’s a protest song against nuclear war. To borrow from Wikipedia: The song is about 99 balloons that are mistaken for UFOs, pilots are sent to investigate, they find that they are only balloons, and they decide to shoot them down anyways that in turn, leads to a 99-year war. It’s rather bleak when you know that information. It stands in stark contrast to the sound of the song. The music video hints at this throughout, till we see what appear to be minor nuclear explosions behind them. Up till then, it is simply Nena herself walking through what looks like the result of logging a forest. Yet, as we go further on, it appears more like the aftermath of a war. Then we see the aforementioned explosions behind the band who they cut back to on occasion during the music video. In the end, Nena releases a red balloon into the air.

The inspiration for the song ties back to songwriter Carlo Karges seeing thousands of balloons released at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin in June of 1982. He thought about what would happen if East Berlin saw them on their side and mistook them for UFOs. Of course it’s always worth mentioning the infamous incident that occurred on September 26th, 1983 with Stanislav Petrov that could have brought us to nuclear annihilation anytime you talk about nuclear protest songs–especially this one. You can read a nice write-up about the song here and the Wikipedia entry about the Petrov incident here.

Bert Van Der Veer directed the music video. He appears to have only directed two music videos, but given they were for Nena and Frida, I expect he did many more in Europe. You can find numerous film and TV credits for him over on IMDb. You can also find numerous articles, YouTube videos, and even an entry on Wikipedia. But they are all in Dutch.

Enjoy!