Happy Birthday, Nena
Nena was born Gabriele Susanne Kerner on 24th March 1960 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. She rose to fame in The U.K. in 1984 when The New German Wave song 99 Red Balloons (previously released in Germany as 99 Luftballons)hit the top of the charts.
The Spanish word Nena translates to little girl and was the nickname she received while on Holiday with her parents in Spain. She left High School at 17 and initially trained as a Goldsmith. Her musical career started in 1979 when Rainer Kitzmann offered her a lead singing role in his band The Stripes.
She moved to Berlin in 1981 with her boyfriend Rolf Brendel. It was here they met the future band members of Nena. They released their first single in 1982, Nur getraumt (Only Dreamt), which allegedly sold over 43,000 copies after a live performance on the German Television show Musikladen. The first album, Nena, was released in 1983 from which the single 99 Luftballons became a German Number One. A year later the English version became a Number One in The U.K. and a U.S. Number two. The band split in 1987, Nena herself then going solo.
All at 80sLegends would like to wish Nena a Very Happy Birthday.
Short URL: http://80slegends.com/?p=684
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I remember seeing footage of a German House Party and the German version was played late on………the crowd got very noisey and emotional to say the very least…WUNDERBAR!!!!