FALCO - Der KOMMISSAR 2000 [[[ who is FALCO? ]]]

FALCO
...was born as Hans Hoelzel on February 19th, 1957 in Austria. He grew up with just his mother and grandmother as family, after his parents divorced when he was young.  He was a child prodigy, as he was playing instruments as young as 2 years old, and writing music at the age of 5.

He dropped out of school at the age of 16 and worked a handful of jobs before going into the Military Service.  It was during this time that FALCO started to further his musical career, via Bass Guitar.  Leaving the military behind he then went on to study, over 6 months, at the Vienna Music Conservatory.

This is when FALCO started his professional music career.  The first band he was in was called "Transformer Station", although he did play in various experimental bands, dabbling in music which was far from the mainstream of American and British music.  However this was a style of music that was becoming more popular in Europe at the time, and is still popular today in the underground music scene.

GANZ WIEN ^{(1977 - 1981)}
It was in 1977 that Hans Hoelzel changed his name to FALCO, a name he adopted from the successful German Ski Jumper Falko Weisspflog.  This was also a time where FALCO found himself hugely influenced by the music of David Bowie, and especiallyBowie's work with producer Brian Eno.  About this time as well there was another style of music emerging in Germany labelled "Neue Deutsche Welle"  This style introdced Rap and Funk N Groove music with the likes of Grandmaster Flash and all.  This is a style that would greatly influence FALCO a few years later.

[[[ FALCO ]]]

Back in the band scene, FALCO was one of the founding members of the band "The Spinning Wheel" along with several other Viennese musicians.  He used the commercial success of this band to springboard his new interest with "First Vienna Musical Theatre", which would later become "The Hallucination Company".  His next gig was playing the Bass in the band "Drahdiwaberl", with whom he recorded his breakthrough hit "Ganz Wien" which he wrote himself.  This song is later included in his debut album release "EINZELHAFT"  Both Drahdiwaberl and FALCO were noticed by Markus Spiegel of the Austrian label GIG Records whom signed both under contract for releases.

DER KOMMISSAR ^{(1982 - 1984)}
The contract with GIG Records was the start of FALCO's major rise to stardom, when the first single release off the debut album, the song "Der Kommissar", being a huge hit all over the world.  The single sold around 750,000 copies in France alone, and 7 million copies around the world, including cover versions.  The most successful cover version was released by English band "After the Fire", which went straight to the top of the U.S. single charts.

FALCO's first two albums, "EINZELHAFT" and "JUNGE ROEMER", were written in collaboration with producer Robert Ponger.  While the first enjoyed enormous success brought on by the song Der Kommissar, FALCO's follow up album was not the big hit everybody had hoped.  Although it was a big hit with the critics at the time, the public had wained because of the different style from the first, which was more guitar oriented with a messier mix.  The new style was made up of a more smooth production along with a new Rap and funk n groove sound.  The album did contain a couple of mainstream pop/rock tracks, the hit title track "Junge Roemer" and the minor hit "Kann Es Liebe Sein".  This was the start of the suave charismatic FALCO, which was a trend that would follow on with his next release.

[[[ FALCO ]]]

ROCK ME AMADEUS ^{(1985 - 1986)}
Looking for a refreshing change in style FALCO began a collaboration with successful Dutch producers/musicians Rob and Ferdi Bolland.  Working together they would release FALCO's next album, which would become his most successful album ever, "FALCO 3".  This album spawned three successful single releases, the first being the Worldwide and U.S. No. 1 single, "Rock Me Amadeus".

The phenomenal success of "Rock Me Amadeus" was just the fuel that FALCO needed to launch him into the International spotlight.  In fact, in gaining the No. 1 spot in the U.S. singles chart, FALCO had reached higher than any other Austrian / European Pop Star had done before.

FALCO followed this success with yet another hit song, "Vienna Calling", which made it's way into the Top 10 Charts in the U.S. and Europe upon it's release.

The next single to be released from the album would be FALCO's most controversial.  The name of the song is "Jeanny".  Many people upon hearing this song were outraged at it's content, for the song seemed to deal with the idea of a man stalking and kidnapping a young girl.  This was not helped by FALCO's use of this imagery in the actual video, due to his wonderfully playful sense of humour.  Not surprisingly the song was banned in many European countries.  Of course if you were a true FALCO fan, or just an open sense of mind, you could see through all of the outrage and discover the song meant something else entirely, being more a beautiful lyric to unrequanted love than a tribute to the afforementioned dark subject matter.

EMOTIONAL ^{(1986 - 1987)}
1986 found FALCO back in the recording studio, once again he was working with the production team of Bolland & Bolland.  The resulting album, "Emotional", featuring a more richer and full sound than his previous album it was a hit for FALCO once again in Europe.  However, the album and singles failed to make the impact that he'd hoped for in the US.  That aside, the singles, Emotional, The Sound of Musik and Coming Home (Jeanny Part 2), were all still popular and featured moderately well in the European and UK charts.

WIENER BLUT ⁽¹⁹⁸⁸⁾
After a couple years of hard touring throughout Europe, FALCO was once again full of ideas to make his next great album.  However, something happened this time whilst he was in the middle of his newest creation.  FALCO seemed to want a change to the direction his music was heading.  He felt that he was losing a little bit of control of his unique sound, and ultimately to his image.  This led to half the album being produced by the Bolland's, and the other half to a conglomerate of FALCO with other producers, and the last song he would produce himself.  As a result the album is made up of two distinct 'sounds'.  This, in my opinion, does not reflect on the album badly, it just gives a little more variety to the sound and is a refreshing change.

...to be continued.

The copyrights to the lyrics, images and sounds contained within this website are not owned by myself. This site is meant only to be a tribute to FALCO and is not used to make any profit on my part. However, if you own the copyright to anything that is used within this site and you wish to have it removed, then please let me know by sending me an email. Thank you.