Born: 24 March 1960
Real name: Gabriele Susanne Kerner

Nena was born in Hagen in what was then West Germany. She got her nickname while on holiday in Spain where ‘Nena’ means ‘little girl’ in Spanish. After finishing school, she studied to be a goldsmith. However, she was spotted dancing in a nightclub by Rainer Kitzman, the guitarist of a band called The Stripes, and he invited her to be the lead singer in the band. They would apparently have a minor hit with a song called ‘Ecstasy’ but would disband in 1982. Nena moved to Berlin with her boyfriend and here they met the people who would become members of the band they would call Nena. Their first album contained the hit ‘Nur Geträumt’ which went to number 2 in Germany and they followed this up with the number 1 hit, ‘99 Luftballons’. The song, and the English version of it (which they recorded as ’99 Red Balloons’) would be a worldwide smash hit going to 1 in the UK and 2 in the US. Nena would go on to see 43 German hits, either as part of the band Nena or as a solo artist. She would see a second chart topper in 2005 with ‘Liebe Ist’ (as a solo artist). Other than ‘99 Red Ballons’/’99 Luftballons’ she would only see 1 further UK hit with ‘Just A Dream’ which peaked at 70. She would not see any further US hits.

Nena were 1 of 29 German acts to chart and they ranked 11^th out of those 29 using a top 30 points basis and 9^th using a top 20 points basis.