99 Luftballons: A Modern Musical Icon

The primary aspect of becoming iconic is worldwide recognition, as Kemp emphasizes in Christ to Coke (Kemp). At the beginning of his text, he writes “an iconic image is one that has achieved wholly exceptional levels of widespread recognizability ” (Introduction, pg. 3). This is exactly what we observe with the astonishingly rapid spread of “99 Luftballons” around global radio charts. It hit first place among twelve countries within just one week of its release. These countries ranged from neighboring ones to Germany, such as Austria and Switzerland, all the way to the US and Japan ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">“99 Luftballons”</a>), demonstrating the impact this piece had on society worldwide. The fact that this piece remained — throughout the entire first year of its release — the second most listened to song in Germany, fifth in the Netherlands, sixth in Switzerland, sixteenth in France and twenty-eighth in the US is remarkable and points at its prolonged impact on the West. This begs the question: what in the piece itself makes it truly iconic? This leads us to the second criterion of iconicity. <a href="https://medium.com/@viandove/99-luftballons-a-modern-musical-icon-ac8096d1cbd6">Website</a>