Mambo No. 5

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of ...)
  DE 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 05/03/1999 (29 weeks)
  AT 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 05/30/1999 (23 weeks)
  CH 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 05/09/1999 (50 weeks)
  UK 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 09/04/1999 (15 weeks)
  US 3 08/28/1999 (22 weeks)

Mambo No. 5 is the title of an original mambo and jive dance piece by Pérez Prado from 1949. A later version by Prado served as an instrumental model for the song Mambo No. 5 . 5 (A Little Bit Of…) by Lou Bega , who became a global million seller and summer hit in 1999 . In terms of global sales, Mambo is No. 5 the most successful German music production of all time in the pop music sector.

History of origin

The genesis of the original begins in 1949, when the Mambo orchestra conductor Pérez Prado wrote the song Mambo No. 5 composed. Since then he has been registered as the author with BMI and hereby won a BMI Award. A total of 433 titles are protected by copyright for Prado. From Mambo No. 5 there are countless recordings by the original artist; Often other instrumental tracks Prados are mistakenly named Mambo No. on CD covers . 5 specified.

Pérez Prado - Mambo No. 5 (blue vinyl from 1950)

When Prado, the "King of Mambo", performed the instrumental piece Mambo No. 5 and other tracks, he was under contract with the Mexican record label Mexicana , a subsidiary of the US major label RCA Records . The latter then signed a record deal with Prado because of its local success to facilitate releases in the USA. Prado's first single for RCA was then Qué rico el mambo / Mambo No. 5 (RCA 47-3782 and 20-3782). Both recordings were made in Mexico City on December 12, 1949 (A-side) and November 1949 (B-side). This single, available as a 78 rpm as well as a 45 rpm, took North America by storm with its vulcanizing horn sections and convincing percussion and triggered the Mambo fever there. With the catalog number RCA 51-5062 a record with blue vinyl and the titles Mambo No. 5 / Blue Mambo out. With his music, Prado found an increasing following in the USA and began a national US tour in April 1951 at the “Puerto Rico Theater” in the Bronx, New York. Dave Barbour was the first to record a cover version with his orchestra under the title The Mambo , which reached number 27 on the pop hit parade in September 1950.

Lou Bega's million seller

Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of ...) RCA version

24-year-old Lou Bega was still unknown in the music industry when Mambo No. 5 was selected from the repertoire by the Hamburg repertoire managers of the American music publisher Peermusic (Germany) GmbH, which has its European headquarters in the Hanseatic city. According to its own statements, the music publisher holds the rights to over 500,000 music tracks from the past decades. The repertoire managers systematically analyzed the stock of their music publishers in search of titles whose genre could be successful again on the current market.

One of those titles was Mambo No. 5 , which fell into the hands of a team led by Goar Biesenkamp . Biesenkamp, ​​who worked in various functions at BMG Ariola from 1987 to 1996 and founded the music production company Unicade Music in 1997, sat down with Frank Lio ( Achim Kleist ) and Donald Fact ( Wolfgang von Webenau ), both from Syndicate Musicproduction “(Responsible for Bro'Sis or No Angels , among others ). There was also the progressive record label “Lautstark” (label code: LC 2180 / LC 02180), which was only founded in 1997 and belongs to the BMG group. Its artist development specialized in “extraordinary” talents. This cooperation between parts of the German music industry is considered to be the discoverer and developer of Lou Bega and his hit.

Pérez Prados Mambo No. 5 received a text and a new refrain melody from Lou Bega and Christian "Zippy" Pletschacher. The producers Frank Lio and Donald Fact took care of the dance style of the original mambo in the Munich recording studio (Baldham / Vaterstetten) , from which original parts were cut ( sampled ) into the recording . Since it was - from the point of view of the time - an adaptation in the sense of copyright law, the Prado heirs, as legal successors of the composer, had to obtain permission from the music publisher Peermusic, which they represented. Later, it was legally controversial whether Bega's version was just a cover version of the old Prado song or whether it was an independent work because of the editing parts (see below). According to the BMI, Bega's version is independently protected, but together with Prado as a co-author. This work also received a BMI award.

Publication and sale

Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of…) was released on April 19, 1999 in Germany and internationally on August 17, 1999, and in the summer of 1999 it became a global hit. In Germany it was number 1 in the single charts for eleven weeks and reached six times platinum status . The dance title was number one in the national charts in over 20 countries, for example in Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Australia and Canada. In the US, the single rose to number three and the associated album A Little Bit of Mambo also reached number three and triple platinum status. At the end of July 1999, 1.3 million singles had already been sold in Germany alone, and over 2.2 million across Europe. At the end of 1999, 3 million records were sold in Germany and France, 882,000 in Great Britain and 4.13 million worldwide. In the USA alone, another four million were sold. More than 12 million CDs have been sold worldwide. Bega has meanwhile marketed a total of 53 million records worldwide.

In 2000 Bega was awarded two echoes for this success .

Awards for music sales

Country / Region Award Sales
Awards for music sales
(country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA) Australia (ARIA) Platinum record icon.svg 4 × platinum 280,000
Germany (BVMI) Germany (BVMI) Platinum record icon.svg 3 × platinum 1,500,000
France (SNEP) France (SNEP) Diamond record icon.svg diamond 1,532,000
Netherlands (NVPI) Netherlands (NVPI) Platinum record icon.svg platinum 75,000
New Zealand (RMNZ) New Zealand (RMNZ) Platinum record icon.svg 3 × platinum 30,000
Austria (IFPI) Austria (IFPI) Platinum record icon.svg 2 × platinum 100,000
Switzerland (IFPI) Switzerland (IFPI) Platinum record icon.svg 2 × platinum 100,000
Sweden (IFPI) Sweden (IFPI) Platinum record icon.svg 3 × platinum 90,000
United Kingdom (BPI) United Kingdom (BPI) Platinum record icon.svg 2 × platinum 1,200,000

Litigation

Immediately after the peak of success, Goar Biesenkamp began to doubt whether Lou Bega's version was merely an adaptation of Prado's original version or whether Bega's version was an independent composition. Bega and "Zippy" Pletschacher had combined some elements of this purely instrumental piece of music with elements they had composed themselves and a text they wrote, although the relative weighting of these various elements was controversial. A first musicological report was already available on November 19, 2001, which confirmed to the client Biesenkamp / Unicade that the rhythm and harmonies had been taken over from Prado, but that Bega had made a work of their own with the melody. Ultimately, the legal dispute was aimed at retrospectively withdrawing the royalties collected so far from Prado and its music publisher Peermusic (Germany) GmbH , which according to experts were estimated at around 2 million euros. Two further reports were prepared for Biesenkamp on March 11, 2003 and October 1, 2003. They also came to the conclusion that Bega's version was a completely independent composition, because it only used subordinate elements ( "riffs" , but no protectable melodies) from Prado's original , so that only Bega and "Zippy" should be regarded as authors be.

Biesenkamps Musikverlag Unicade Music GmbH took legal action against the music publisher Peermusic (Germany) GmbH in the first instance, the Regional Court of Munich I. While Bega and "Zippy" Pletschacher sought a finding that together they are the sole copyright of their hit Mambo No.5 were carrying in their version of the suffix "A Little Bit Of ...", the Hamburg music publisher Peer had against the GEMA indicated that it is only a work variant and thus an adaptation of the original version without its own copyright protection. In its judgment of November 17, 2004, the Munich District Court I agreed with the plaintiffs and saw Bega's version as an independent composition. The plaintiffs' victory did not last long, however, as appeals brought the proceedings via the Munich Higher Regional Court to the Federal Court of Justice .

In the second instance, on appeal by the defendant Peermusic, the Munich Higher Regional Court overturned the Munich Regional Court's judgment and dismissed Unicade Music's action in its entirety. The final decision on the complex procedure was made by the BGH . Interesting details in the pre-litigation process can be found in the judgments. Then the plaintiff Biesenkamp (or the music publisher Unicade Music GmbH, which belongs to it) had sent the defendant Peer Musikverlag a demo CD with a recording of Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) and asked for permission to process it. Biesenkamp initially assumed that Prado's original had only been edited and that no independent, new work with copyright had been created. Peer had tied the approval of the planned production with editing permission to the fact that the copyright rights for the new version of Mambo No. 5 by Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) would have to stay with Peermusic. That is why Bega and “Zippy” gave Peermusic an exclusive and unrestricted right to publish the text they created for the piece Mambo No. 5 , whereupon Peermusic added the authors Bega and "Zippy" to GEMA as subtext poets for the version Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) registered.

While two of the three musicological reports submitted by the plaintiffs clearly confirmed their legal position, for the third reviewer commissioned by the plaintiffs the elements adopted were so important that Prado was to be regarded as the co-author, although the creative contributions by Bega and "Zippy" would predominate to such an extent that 70% of them are to be regarded as music authors. The report on behalf of the defendant came to the conclusion that it was a cover version (or even just a subsequent text). Incidentally, there can be no question of the fact that in the musical work Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) no longer contained any music copyright work by the composer Pérez Prado. The reports submitted by Unicade do not do justice to the situation. Instead, the appraisal of the defendant Peermusic tries to determine the music copyright relevance of the Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) elements of the Prado composition. According to this, Bega and “Zippy” only acquired dependent copyrights under Section 3 of the Copyright Act ; these were transferred to the defendant Peermusic by the contract of October 12, 1999 - with the express consent of Unicade. For this reason, both the Munich Higher Regional Court and the BGH come to the conclusion that the question of which expert opinion should be followed does not have to be investigated further because Bega and "Zippy" had transferred their - dependent - copyrights to Peermusic. Overall, therefore, neither the Munich Higher Regional Court nor the BGH saw any legal basis for payment claims by the plaintiff or Begas or "Zippys" against Peermusic, so that no claims for information or invoicing arose either.

In this legal dispute, it should not be overlooked that Unicade / Bega / “Zippy” were only able to generate significant income because they had used the existing work by Pérez Prado as a template. The question of which of the four musicological reports is to be preferred and thus the question of whether Bega's version is a cover version or an independent composition, did not need to be answered by the BGH for legal reasons.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) in the German single charts
  2. ↑ Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) in the Austrian single charts
  3. ↑ Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) in the Swiss single charts
  4. ↑ Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of ...) in the Official UK Charts (English)
  5. ↑ Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…) in the US singles charts
  6. ↑ Mambo No. 5 in the German single charts ( memento of the original from August 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.musicline.de
  7. ↑ BMI entry for Mambo No. 5  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / repertoire.bmi.com  
  8. ↑ http://www.peermusic.de/
  9. ↑ Gilded mambos from the archive . In: Spiegel Online Kultur , July 27, 1999
  10. ↑ BMI entry for Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit Of…)  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / repertoire.bmi.com  
  11. ↑ List of million seller
  12. ↑ ARIA single charts. ariacharts.com.au, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Gold / platinum database. musikindustrie.de, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  14. ↑ NZ charts. nztop40.co.nz, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Gold & Platinum. ifpi.at, accessed on June 30, 2018 .
  16. ↑ precious metal. hitparade.ch, accessed on June 30, 2018 .
  17. ↑ sverigetopplistan. sverigetopplistan.se, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  18. ↑ BPI Awards. bpi.co.uk, accessed August 28, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Legal dance around Mambo No. 5 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Süddeutsche.de, March 16, 2005@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.sueddeutsche.de  
  20. ^ A b c Munich Higher Regional Court, judgment of February 23, 2006 , Az. 6 U 1610/05, full text.
  21. ↑ a b c BGH, judgment of December 4, 2008 , Az. I ZR 49/06, full text.