Frl. Menke

Frl. Menke
Background information
Born	(1960-11-04) November 4, 1960
Origin	Germany
Genres	Neue Deutsche Welle
Years active	1982–present
Labels	Polydor Records
Website	www.frlmenke.de

Frl. Menke ^[1] (born November 4, 1960 as Franziska Menke in Germany) was a star of the Neue Deutsche Welle genre of German popular music in the early 1980s. Menke is best known for her hit single "Hohe Berge" (High Mountains), which was a Top 10 hit in the German single charts in 1982 and has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date.

Music career

Franziska Menke is the daughter of the German songwriter, producer and publisher Joe Menke. Her debut single "Hohe Berge" became an instant success in 1982 and was one of the first songs of the Neue Deutsche Welle (NDW) popular music movement that became hugely popular in Germany in the early 1980s. Menke was one of very few female artists to succeed in the genre.

Menke's career peaked from 1982-1984 along with Neue Deutsche Welle, when she had three hit singles and released a self-titled album. She sold more than three million records during 1982 and 1983.

Menke gave birth to two children at the end of the 1980s and composed various jingles for radio stations and advertisement campaigns. In 1992 she released her second album "Ich Will's Gefährlich" with limited success.

She has re-recorded or remixed her most successful singles. In 1990 she was remixed by the German band Masterboy and in 1994 she recorded two techno music versions of "Hohe Berge" and "Tretboot in Seenot." She did another version of "Hohe Berge" for her 2005 album "Einwandfrei" and recorded an industrial version with German band "The Seven Seals" in 2007.

Trivia

• Frl. Menke still tours Germany often with other bands and singers from the Neue Deutsche Welle era.
• Frl. is the abbreviation for Fräulein, which was the German equivalent for "Miss." However, the term is rarely used in Germany these days.
• Menke was voted one of the 10 most popular singers in 1982 by German teen magazine Bravo
• Menke has starred in several musicals in Hamburg, Germany since 2001
• Her debut album was re-released on CD for the first time in 1999, containing several extended versions, B-sides of her original singles, plus two previously unreleased songs ("Du Tarzan, Ich Jane" and "Schuljungenreport")

Chart Information

• Hohe Berge: No. 10 German single charts
• Traumboy: No. 39 German single charts
• Tretboot in Seenot: No. 24 German single charts

"Hohe Berge" and "Tretboot in Seenot" still receive frequent airplay on German radio and television.

Discography

References