Michael Cretu
Michael Cretu (birth name: Mihai Creţu, pronounced " Kretzu " ) ( born May 18, 1957 in Bucharest, Romania ) is a German - Romanian musician and one of the most successful music producers of our time. It is characteristic of him that he usually acts as the man in the background, his face despite his success only few know. According to his own statements (Interview in "Max", 1992) he estimates it to be not recognized on the street and being able to move so freely.
- 2.1 Studio albums
- 2.2 Compilations
Biography
Childhood and youth
The exceptional musical talent of Michael Cretu was very early discovered and promoted. As a child he studied music ( classical piano ), including Bucharest and Frankfurt am Main. Cretu is a German citizen since 1975. After graduating ( concert pianist ) in Germany Cretu turned away from classical music. He discovered his passion for electronic pop music produced and exchanged his piano to a synthesizer. Already at 20 he was successful as a studio musician and as a producer. He worked with Frank Farian together ( Boney M Oceans of Fantasy, Arabesque ).
The first successes
Published in 1978, Michael Cretu 's first album under his own name: Moon, Light & Flowers. In 1980, Michael Cretu his first gold record. Already at that time he also produces other artists and worked as an author for this. In addition to Peter Cornelius (whose 1980 album Two was with the members of Cretu's later band Moti Special recorded ), these include among others Hubert Kah, Nicki, Peter Schilling, Inker & Hamilton, and later Andru Donalds and last but not least just Moti Special. In 1982, he met his future wife Sandra Lauer (then at the girl trio Arabesque ) know that should not be important for his musical career. His first successful album released in 1983 under the title Legion. The last album under his own name was published in German ( The Chinese Wall ) and English ( The Invisible Man) version in 1985 and contained the song Samurai, with whom he had great success in Europe. However, the last solo single gambit failed to match these successes. In the following years he focused mainly on the musical career of his girlfriend and future wife, Sandra. Followed in 1988 under the name Cretu & Thiers album Belle Epoque with his ex- Moti Special partner Manfred " Tissy " Thiers and 1992 with Peter Cornelius Cornelius & Cretu Album. In 1999 he began a collaboration with Andru Donalds and produced his next two albums to Hit All out of Love, a cover of the same song by Air Supply from the 1980s.
Moti Special
After he had contributed to the success of several bands and solo artists such as Boney M (since Rivers of Babylon) or Juliane Werding (Album Without Fear ), Cretu released in 1985 with the group Moti Special Album motivation, on which he as a keyboardist and producer was involved. The single releases Cold Days, Hot Nights, Do not Be So Shy and Stop! Girls Go Crazy were popular hits. Singer of the band was Manfred " Tissy " Thiers, with Cretu 1987, the project " Cretu & Thiers " founded.
Sandra
Cretu Sandra Ann Lauer got to know in 1982 as a member of the Teen Girl trio Arabesque. The two fell in love and became a couple. 1984 Sandra tried with a German version of Alphaville's Big in Japan ( for the second time after a single 1976) as a solo artist. Despite the lack of success Cretu took over the command and produced with Sandra and known as Hubert Kah singer and songwriter Hubert Kemmler the song Mary Magdalene and the accompanying album The Long Play. The song was number 1 in 21 countries and has sold over five million copies worldwide. Many more hits followed, always with Cretu as producers, mostly in collaboration with the composer Kemmler.
From 1988 to 2008 Sandra and Michael Cretu were married. Together with their two children, they lived on an estate near Santa Agnès de Corona, Ibiza.
To date, Michael Cretu has sold 32 million recordings with Sandra.
Cretu & Thiers
Under the name Cretu & Thiers Cretu had with Manfred " Tissy " Thiers, who also belonged to the synth pop band Moti Special, in the late 80s, a duo project. After a cover version of originating in the original Alice Cooper song School's Out Cretu and Thiers took in 1987, the album Belle Epoque on. It it were the singles When love is the missing word and Do not say you love me disengaged. The piece Mona Lisa was musically identical to the piece Silverwater from the album The Invisible Man, but sung with new lyrics by Thiers. The remake of the song Snowin ' under my skin was later the title song for the album of the same name by Andru Donalds, Michael Cretu, the produced for this 1999.
Producer
Except for Sandra Cretu Michael worked for various other pop artists as a producer; inter alia, Hubert Kah for, Peter Schilling, Peter Cornelius and Inker & Hamilton. In 1993 he produced together with Jens Gad the album Welcome To The Soul Asylum by the Munich musician Angel X ( née: Andreas Harde ). 1999 and 2001 he took with the Jamaicans Andru Donalds on two albums. With the Coverhit All Out of Love, they reached number three on the German charts. Appeared in 2007, the album he produced the former singer of the British band Olive, Ruth -Ann ( one of the female lead vocals at various Enigma songs ), which is available exclusively on the online platform iTunes and not more than CD.
New territory for music / Enigma
In the late 1980s, Cretu was running out of ideas and he felt increasingly uncomfortable in his musical climes. After separating from his longtime musical companions Hubert Kemmler, he searched for something completely new and finally found it in the early 1990s in the Enigma project. The first album MCMXC A.D. (to be read as a roman number: 1990 anno Domini ) appeared in 1990 in Europe and 1991 in the U.S. and was a very short time to the worldwide smash hit. MCMXC A.D. became the number one in 24 different countries, took 17 times platinum and 25 gold medals. Enigma was used as a precursor for many other artists who followed Cretu on the path of meditative, religious -themed ambient music.
From the album, the single was released Sadeness ( a play on words from the English sadness and the name of the Marquis de Sade ), which was a big hit. The bonds used in the Gregorian chant were then widely imitated. Also, the original, the monks' chants in the tradition of Gregorian chant, came as a result of the Enigma hits gain great popularity was during this kind of music previously been nearly impossible to sell. The piece caused a stir because of a short, " added very bold " ( Cretu on a talk show ) passage can be heard in the heavy breathing of a woman that could be interpreted as Lustgestöhne.
The success of MCMXC A.D. turned on without that the author was known. Only later it became known that Cretu was the creative mind behind the project. After Cretu's information ( in an ARD television interview in 1994 ) he would have been better if it were not known that Enigma is his project. People who were involved beside him on the production of the first album would eventually be passed this information, so Cretu. He used the pseudonym on the first album "Curly MC". Curly in English means " curly " ( behind which hides a word game with Romanian Background: " cret " is in Romanian frizzy / curly ). MC finally are his initials and also the abbreviation for " Master of Ceremony", a term that many rappers used at that time ( MC Hammer, Ice MC, MC Miker G). On later albums, then appeared also his full name as a producer. To date, Cretu has sold with the Enigma project in the world over 50 million records (according to the record company EMI Music ).
In addition, he entered in 2010, once again breaking new ground when he allowed the Enigma fans to contribute to the emergence of a new song. For the song, which appeared on the 20th anniversary of Enigma, fans could selbstgesungene passages sending, decide on the musical style of the song and design suggestions for a cover. Michael Cretu mixte and produced the song from MMX ( The Social Song).
Discography
Studio albums
Compilations
- 2001: Love, sensuality, devotion ( Enigma ) (as "Greatest Hits " and " The Remix Collection" published )
- 2001: Remember the Future ( Enigma ) (as "DVD " and " DVD re-release " appeared )
- 2005: 15 years after ( Enigma ) ( Box Set)
Awards
RSH Gold