...but when the bowl is empty and you still have half the night (2.5 hours) to kill in front of the computer, what do you do??
Well if you're me, though you're so clearly NOT, you head over to nena.de to see what is new in the world of post-99 luftbaloons German song.
If you're unfamiliar, Nena was the name of a German band that formed in the early 80s and had a monster hit in 1983 with the song "99 Luftbaloons." The lead singer, named Nena Kerner, was sexy due in large part to her sheer German-ness, all the more exotic in this era of pre-Berlin Wall demolishing, late Cold War malaise. The original video for the song was a cheap and easy "live performance" of the song in its original German. The only visual effect, other than Miss Kerner cavorting on stage in her sweaty t-shirt and black leather pants, was (if I remember correctly) a slow motion shot of a balloon rising, slow motion, in the air at the end of the video. Despite its rickety construction and because of the baffling popularity of the song the video rotated more heavily than a Richard Simmons aerobics class. This may also have much to do with the fact than seemingly only two dozen videos existed on the planet at the time.
The song was translated into an (inferior) English version meant, I suppose, to capture the hearts of music fans who harboured deep anti-German feelings... for whatever reason. A one-side German one-side English full length followed but failed to spawn another hit of the same caliber. The next English album "It's All in the Game" came out in 1985, with English translated lyrics supplied by Canadian Lisa Dalbello. It wasn't terrible, but the potential for a quirky, slightly awkward New Wave band to further ride the novelty of a foreign language hit was very slight, and they disappeared off the North American radar...
...which isn't to say they stopped. Nena is still going strong 20 years later, scoring a recent minor hit in the form of a duet with fellow 80s sexpot/light pop-rocker Kim Wilde. You can find it on the internet. It's easy.
There really isn't a moral to this story... if it's even a story.
Maybe it's that the 80s weren't terminal after all... or...
...some German comebacks are harder than others... or...
...well, it's o.k. to like Nena, long after you should've forgotten...
...some of us have an infinitely number of back burners.
I am one of those.
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