Dieter Bohlen

Dieter Bohlen was born Dieter Günter Bohlen on February 7, 1954 in Berne in the district of Wesermarsch and is a German music producer. music producer composer, lyricist and singer. He became famous in the 1980s as a member of the pop duo Modern Talking. In addition to successful productions of national and international musicians, he is a permanent jury member of the casting shows “DSDS – Germany is looking for the Superstar” and “Das Supertalent”. Dieter Bohlen is sometimes also called the “pop titan” because he mainly plays pop music and is a successful producer of this genre of music.

Career

Bohlen was already composing music during his school days. From the end of the 1970s, he was employed by the Hamburg music publisher Intersong and worked as a composer and songwriter for numerous pop singers. Together with Holger Garbode, he founded the duo Monza, for whom he wrote and produced the single Hallo Taxi Nummer 10 in 1978.

From 1980, Bohlen worked as a producer for the Berlin record company Hansa and as a solo artist under the pseudonym Steve Benson. His first single was Don’t Throw My Love Away (1980). Two more singles followed with the titles Love Takes Time and (You’re a Devil With) Angel Blue Eyes. None of these records made it into the Top 100, which led to the dissolution of the project in 1981.

In the same year, he joined the formation Sunday, which was featured in the ZDF hit parade at the beginning of 1982 with Halé, Hey Louise. Around 1982, Bohlen, who met his idol Falco for the first time in the Hamburg scene bar Onkel Pö, wrote songs for Bernhard Brink and Elmar Gunsch and was a producer and composer for The Teens, Katja Ebstein and Bernd Clüver as well as for Andreas Cramer & Die Westkurven-Fans (Halé HSV). In 1983, he took part in the preliminary round of the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson for the first time; Bernd Clüver sang Mit 17, a song composed by Bohlen, and came third.

After Bohlen had released six unsuccessful singles with German lyrics with pop singer Thomas Anders from 1982, he produced the duo Bohlen/Anders under the name Modern Talking from fall 1984. The group reached number one in the German singles charts five times with You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul, You Can Win If You Want, Cheri, Cheri Lady, Brother Louie and Atlantis Is Calling (S.O.S. for Love) and was also successful in other European, Asian and African charts. Bohlen’s sound engineer was Luis Rodriguez.

Modern Talking split up in 1987 in a dispute. Bohlen went on to produce and write for other artists, including C.C. Catch (Heartbreak Hotel), whom he discovered. He continued to perform under the name Blue System (Under My Skin). Modern Talking reformed in 1998 and gave two concerts in Moscow on New Year’s Eve 2002, but split up again in 2003.

In 1986, Bohlen wrote the film music for several episodes of the Duisburg detective Horst Schimanski. The episode Der Tausch features the song Midnight Lady, which he composed and which was interpreted by former Smokie singer Chris Norman. This song also became a number one hit. Two years later, Norman and Bohlen collaborated again for the episode Gebrochene Blüten (Broken Blossoms) entitled Broken Heroes.

In the same year, he contributed the theme song “Silent Water” to Tatort: Moltke with his music project Blue System and made a guest appearance. For the last Schimanski crime scene Der Fall Schimanski, he contributed the title music for the last time under the pseudonym Howard Houston with the song Against the Wind interpreted by Bonnie Tyler.

Bohlen wrote the theme music and produced the soundtrack for the eleven-part ZDF family series Rivalen der Rennbahn (1989), which reached number 2 in the charts in Germany, number 4 in Austria and number 5 in Switzerland. In 1987, he composed the theme music for the ARD sports program. In 1989, he won the preliminary rounds of the Grand Prix in Germany and Austria with his songs.

Nino de Angelo competed for Germany with the song Flieger and achieved 14th place in the Grand Prix, Thomas Forstner competed for Austria with the song Nur ein Lied and achieved fifth place. In 1992, Tony Wegas entered the Grand Prix for Austria with the song Zusammen geh’n, written by Bohlen, and came tenth.

In 1997, Bohlen ended his Blue System project after the last releases had been received very cautiously by the media and the public. A new Bohlen album was released in March 2006, containing twelve new and six old tracks as well as the last unreleased Modern Talking single Shooting Star and the title song from Dieter – Der Film, Gasoline. In 2006, Bohlen took part in the Romanian preliminary round of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 as producer of the duo Indiggo with the song Be My Boyfriend and came seventh.

In 2010, the album Schwerelos, produced by Bohlen for the singer Andrea Berg, reached number 1 in the German album charts and was awarded triple platinum. The second album Abenteuer, which Bohlen produced for Berg, also reached No. 1 in 2011. Berg’s double album Atlantis, released in 2013, contains some songs by Bohlen, as does Seelenbeben from 2016. For her album Mosaik (2019), he wrote Du musst erst fallen and Davon geht mein Herz nicht unter.

In order to avoid being assigned to a specific musical genre, Bohlen, mostly as a producer, repeatedly uses changing pseudonyms such as Art of Music, Dee Bass, Fabricio/Fabrizio Bastino, Jennifer Blake, Joseph Cooley, Marcel Mardello, Steve Benson, Ryan Simmons, Barry Mason, Michael von Drouffelaar, Atisha, David Bernhardt or projects such as Mayfair, Monza, Foolish Heart, Countdown G.T.O., Hit the Floor or Major Tom.

TV

“DSDS – Germany is looking for the superstar”

In 2002, Dieter Bohlen took over the role of host of the German version of Pop Idol at the request of Gerhard Zeiler and after persuasion from TV manager Tom Sänger. As a judge on the RTL casting show “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” (DSDS), he presented himself with controversial comments such as “You sing like a garden gnome on ecstasy”. During the show, he recorded the single “We Have a Dream” with the ten finalists, which became the best-selling song of the year in Germany. The DSDS album “United”, produced by Bohlen, also proved to be commercially successful.

The collaboration with DSDS winner Alexander Klaws and DSDS third-placed Daniel Küblböck was occasionally successful, as was the cooperation with Yvonne Catterfeld . Bohlen signed advertising contracts with various companies and received a fee of 1.2 million euros per season of DSDS. The second season of DSDS in 2004 was unable to build on the success of the first season. Nevertheless, Bohlen once again wrote twelve songs for an album of all the finalists entitled “Magic of Music”.

The collaboration with the winner of the second season, Elli Erl, ended because she no longer wanted to work with him after her winning song “This Is My Life”, which was written by Bohlen. In the fourth season in 2007, which Mark Medlock won, Bohlen wrote the winning song “Now or Never” and successfully produced several albums and singles with Medlock.

In 2009, Dieter Bohlen was the producer of the winning song for the winner of the sixth season, Daniel Schuhmacher, who landed a number one hit with it. Mehrzad Marashi won the seventh season in 2010 and Bohlen wrote and produced the winning song “Don’t Believe”. In the eighth season from January 2011, he once again sat on the jury and was responsible for the song “Call My Name”, which won both the winner Pietro Lombardi as well as the runner-up Sarah Engels first and second place in the German singles charts.

Bohlen wrote the song “Don’t Think About Me” for Luca Hänni, the winner of the ninth season in 2012, which went gold in Switzerland after four days and reached number one in the charts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Bohlen also produced Hänni’s debut album “My Name Is Luca”, which reached number 1 in the charts in Austria and Switzerland and number 2 in Germany and was awarded gold in Switzerland and Austria.

In the tenth season, he wrote and produced the winning song “Mein Herz” for Beatrice Egli which reached number 1 in the German, Austrian and Swiss charts in the first week of sales. He was also responsible for the production of her debut album “Glücksgefühle”. In 2015, Severino Seeger won with Bohlen’s winning song “Hero of My Heart”, which entered the German charts at number 19 and thus achieved the worst chart position of a DSDS winning song to date.

In the following season in 2016, Prince Damien triumphed with the final song “Glücksmoment”, written by Bohlen, which reached number 1 in the German charts. The winner of the 2018 season, Marie Wegener, reached number 3 in the German charts with her song “Königlich”, written by Bohlen. He also produced her debut album of the same name. In 2020, the winner was Ramon Roselly won the 17th season with Bohlen’s song “Eine Nacht”, which also reached number 1 in the German charts. Bohlen was also responsible for the production of Roselly’s album “Herzenssache”.

In the 18th season of DSDS in 2020, the jury consisted of Dieter Bohlen Mike Singer Maite Kelly and Michael Wendler. Jan-Marten Block was the winner of the relay.

In the 19th season 2021, in which RTL did not renew the contract with Dieter Bohlen as juror, the jury was replaced by Florian Silbereisen Ilse DeLange and Toby Gad were completely replaced. The final was won by 21-year-old Harry Laffontien.

According to RTL, the 20th season of “DSDS – Deutschland sucht den Superstar” in 2023 will be the last. The jury consisted of Dieter Bohlen, Pietro Lombardi, Leony and Katja Krasavice . Sem Eisinger won the final.

In the 21st season 2024 of “DSDS – Deutschland sucht den Superstar”, Dieter Bohlen will sit alongside Pietro Lombardi, Beatrice Egli and Loredana on the jury.

“The super talent”

In 2007, Bohlen sat on the jury for the first season of the RTL casting show “Das Supertalent” alongside Ruth Moschner and André Sarrasani. In the following seasons, the jury members changed, only Bohlen was always present until the 14th season, before his departure from the jury was announced on March 11, 2021.

Cooperation

Over the course of his impressive career, Dieter Bohlen has worked with numerous artists and shaped their musical creations. Prominent names are Peter Alexander the Austrian entertainer who was sponsored by Bohlen, and Thomas Anders Bohlen’s former Modern Talking partner, with whom he continued to work creatively after the break-up. Other well-known artists who have been produced or supported by Bohlen as authors are Nino de Angelo, Andrea Berg, Vanessa Mai Roy Black, Blue System and Errol Brown.

Bohlen has also worked successfully with DSDS winners such as Alexander Klaws, Daniel Schuhmacher, Luca Hänni, Pietro Lombardi and Ramon Roselly. He has shared his unique musical talent with international greats such as Bonnie Tyler, Dionne Warwick and Al Martino. His creative versatility spans genres and generations, working with established musicians such as Ricky King, Chris Norman and Marianne Rosenberg as well as up-and-coming stars such as Marie Wegener and Isabel Soares. Dieter Bohlen’s musical influence spans a broad spectrum from pop and Schlager to contemporary hits, making him an important shaper of the German music landscape.

Successful collaborations include well-known artists such as C.C. Catch, whose catchy melodies and rousing rhythms have had a significant influence on Bohlen. Yvonne Catterfeld, a versatile artist, also benefited from Bohlen’s musical know-how and together they created impressive works.

Bernd Clüver was able to count on Bohlen’s input and together they created music that reached the hearts of listeners. The singer Beatrice Egli was able to consolidate her place in the music scene thanks to Bohlen’s productions. Also with Semino Rossi, Severino, Touché, the Wildecker Herzbuben, Lory Bianco, Mark Medlock, Daniele Negroni, Mehrzad Marashi, Twenty4tim and other artists, Bohlen has worked successfully with them, promoting their careers and creating unforgettable music.

Private

In 1983, Dieter Bohlen tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend Erika Sauerland. This marriage produced two sons in 1985 and 1988 and a daughter in 1990. The marriage ended in separation in 1989 and the children moved out with their mother. In the same year, Bohlen began a relationship with Nadja Abd el Farrag and moved to Berlin-Grunewald for tax reasons. Later, from 1991 to 1993, he lived in Quickborn and moved to Tötensen near Rosengarten in 1993, where he built a villa with a recording studio. recording studio and paddock.

After separating from Abd el Farrag in 1996, Bohlen briefly married Verona Feldbusch, but the marriage only lasted a month. Feldbusch claimed to have been hit by Bohlen, while Bohlen denied this and only admitted to an impulsive gesture. From 1997 to 2000, he was again in a relationship with Abd el Farrag.

From 2001 to August 2006, Bohlen was in a relationship with Estefania Küster, with whom he had a son in 2005. Bohlen has been in a relationship with Carina Walz since fall 2006, with whom he had a daughter in 2011 and a son in 2013. Dieter Bohlen has a total of 6 children. The couple lived temporarily in a penthouse in Andratx on Mallorca. Dieter Bohlen’s fortune is estimated at around 135 million euros.

Studio albums

• 2007 Dreamcatcher
• 2019 Dieter feat. Bohlen – The Mega Album!

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