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Falco music biography continued...

prodigy who graduated from the Vienna Music Conservatory in 1977, but he turned his back on classical music to sing in a jazz rock band in West Berlin for several years before moving back to Austria to hook up with the hard rock-punk rock band Drahdiwaberl, where he would stay from 1978 until 1983. By this time, the artist was calling himself Falco as a tribute to a favorite West German soccer player. With Drahdiwaberl he wrote and performed the song "Ganz Wien," which topped the charts in Austria. Falco's first hit was "Der Kommissar", from the 1982 album Einzelhaft. A German language song about drug consumption that combined rap verses with a sung chorus, Falco's record was a number-one success in many countries but failed to break big in the U.S. (even though an English language version would go on to become a hit for Laura Branigan). After a second album, Junge Roemer, failed to provide a repeat to his debut single's success outside of Austria and Germany, Falco began to experiment with English lyrics in an effort to broaden his appeal, and chose a new production team. The song he recorded next, "Rock Me Amadeus," (inspired in part by the Oscar-winning film Amadeus), brought him the success in the American and UK markets that had eluded him up to that point. The tune became an international hit in 1986, reaching #1 in both the U.S. and the UK. The song remained in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and his album, Falco 3, peaked at the number three position on the Billboard album charts.



While the rock ballad "Vienna Calling" was a minor hit, Falco's subsequent efforts, including 1986's Emotional and 1988's Wiener Blut, fared poorly outside of Europe. And just two weeks shy of his 41st birthday, the artist was killed in an automobile accident in the Dominican Republic, cutting short a career that had held such promise. Nevertheless, "Rock Me Amadeus" is still used in American movies and television to this day.