The German Wave of the '80s

So my neice Heather recently sang "Puttin' on the Ritz" in her middle-school choir. Upon hearing about this, my dad quickly disappeared and returned with an old, warped vinyl '45 record record. It was a version of that song as recorded/performed by "Taco"!

Naturally, I hadn't thought about this song in a long time!  And it made me recall that there were some other big hits in America that came from Germany in the '80s. For example, "Rock Me Amadeus":

At one point, Heather said (more or less) "I like this. It's educational and it's a good song"...

Seeing the word "Falco" again reminded me of his other hit "Der Kommisar". In the U.S., we knew it from the version recorded by "After the Fire":

And then of course there's "99 luftballons", whose English version looked like this:

At the end, right after Nena sings "I think of you and let it go", my neice said: "That was kind of a creepy ending". I had to chuckle, as i'd just gotten a chill up and down the spine myself :)