Hansa music production

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Logo of the Hansa label

Hansa Musik Produktion was a German production company for pop music with its own record label ( Hansa Records , short: Hansa ).

founder

Hansa was founded in 1962 by Peter and Thomas Meisel , the sons of the operetta composer and publisher Will Meisel , and the composer Christian Bruhn - encouraged by the success with music productions that publisher Peter Meisel was able to publish on other labels, e. B. with Drafi Deutscher , Manuela , Siw Malmkvist or Cornelia Froboess . (Nonetheless, Meisel continued to produce these - or new, e.g. Marianne Rosenberg  - artists for third-party labels.) Composers and lyricists during this period were mainly Christian Bruhn, Peter Moesser , Heino Gaze , Rudolf-Günter Loose , Gerhard Hämmerling , Hans Bradtke or Georg Buschor .

Beginnings

Hansa was founded - as a counterweight to the German industry giants Electrola , Polydor , Ariola or Teldec  - as an independent record company based on the American model (Independent Record Company) . Peter Meisel was able to win over the then marketing director of light music at Teldec, Hans-Eberhard Blume , as managing director .

First million-seller:
Il Silenzio (farewell melody)  - Nini Rosso (Hansa 18 316 AU)

With the creation of the in-house label in November 1964, Christian Bruhn, who found his way around the musical rather than the commercial side of the business, left the young company (Bruhn: "Probably the biggest mistake of my life."). The first single records with hit productions under the Hansa label were released in November 1964 by Ariola (at that time still in Gütersloh ). The first single, catalog number 11 088 AT, was Ichetze alles auf einer Karte / Aus (Shout) by Peggy Peters (later known as Tina Rainford ); A-side composers were Heino Gaze and Fred Ignor . The Hansa label landed its first million -seller with 1.6 million copies sold in May 1965 with Il Silenzio by Nini Rosso . Other successes in 1965 were He's Back ( Marion ) and Winter in Canada ( Elisa Gabbai ).

successes

From the beginning of the 1970s, it was essentially the German hits that represented the company's financial mainstay. In the ZDF hit parade , up to four titles published on Hansa were often represented. At the end of the seventies, Frank Farian's productions with Boney M. and Eruption achieved extremely noteworthy success worldwide (with the exception of the USA). Between 1978 and 1981, The Teens were the company's most successful group of artists.

With Dieter Bohlen's engagement as a house producer in the mid-1980s and the Modern Talking project , there was further success. At the end of the eighties it was again Frank Farian who achieved  worldwide success with Milli Vanilli  - and again in the mid-1990s with La Bouche .

After co-founder Peter Meisel left the business in 1984, he returned to the music business in May 1990 and landed in 1999 with his discovery Lou Bega and the cover version Mambo No. 5 the global summer hit . The publication of the productions from the television series Deutschland sucht den Superstar in 2003 brought the company its most successful year.

the other song

In order to create a platform for artists outside the mainstream, the Meisel brothers founded the label der other song ( label code 3943) in 1973 . Here were primarily songwriters and comedy performers such as B. Frank Zander , Ulrik Remy , Jürgen von der Lippe , Gunter Gabriel , the Blattuß brothers , Hans Marquardt , Horst Koch , Jasmine Bonnin , Klaus Lage and Hugo Egon Balder under contract.

In a self-deprecating allusion to the name of the founding family, the plate label adorned the image of a blue tit .

More labels

Other labels from Hansa Musik Produktion were Hansa International (LC 0835) and Oasis (LC 4516).

sale

As Hansa Musik Produktion GmbH , the company belonged to the Meisel family business until it was sold to the entertainment group Bertelsmann in 1985 and later renamed BMG Berlin Musik GmbH as its 100% subsidiary . Other areas of the company, such as publishing, printing and the Hansa recording studios , remained in private hands. In the spring of 2005, the remaining creative company in Wittelsbacherstraße in Berlin-Wilmersdorf was closed by the parent company, and artist contracts were taken over by SonyBMG . The Hansa label (LC 0835) as such will be continued by SonyBMG in Munich.

Hansa recording studios

In order to be independent of external companies in music production, Hansa set up several of its own recording studios in Berlin in the 1970s, but these could also be freely booked by third parties.

"Hall of Fame"

For the following artists, "the Hansa" was the springboard of their careers:

Number 1 hits

These titles published on Hansa reached the top spot in the German single charts :

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Klaus Eidam , Rudolf Schröder : The Hit Factory. Chronicle of a Berlin music publisher. Edition Intro Meisel, Berlin 2001. ISMN M-50066-230-3.
  2. ^ Christian Bruhn : Marble, Stone and Lovesickness. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-667-4 .
  3. Cover text on long-playing record Hansa 300 428-370.

Spoken version

Coordinates: 52 ° 29 '43.59 "  N , 13 ° 18' 33.89"  O