Herbert Grönemeyer

German singer-songwriter, composer, and actor Herbert Grönemeyer was born Herbert Arthur Wiglev Clamor Grönemeyer on 12 April 1956 in Göttingen in Lower Saxony (Germany) and is the most successful contemporary musician in Germany, with more than 18 million records sold domestically; his breakthrough fifth album 4630 Bochum (1984) and his 11th album Mensch (2002) are the third and first best-selling records in the country. He got his start in Wolfgang Petersen's celebrated 1981 war film Das Boot but had already set his sights on music, releasing his debut album Grönemeyer in 1979, followed by second full-length Zwo in 1980 and Total Egal in 1982–all for the Intercord Records label. However, with fifth album 4630 Bochum (1984) people really started to take notice. During the '90s, he led environmental protests against CFC gases, and in 1992 founded the anti-racism group Ich Bin ein Ausländer (I Am a Foreigner). He released his first English-language album, Luxus, in 1991 and became the first German act to appear on MTV Unplugged in 1995. All of his German-language studio albums since 1984's 4630 Bochum have made it to number one on the German charts, including career highlight, 2002's LP Mensch, his 11th studio, which featured the chart-topping title track and was certified 21 times gold. In May 2006, his "Zeit, dass wasdreht" was released as the official World Cup anthem for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which he sang with the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam. He composed the soundtrack to Anton Corbijn's 2010 drama film The American and the following year went to the top of the German singles chart with "Schiffsverkehr", the title track of his 13th studio album of the same name. In 2014, he composed the soundtrack to another of Anton Corbijn's films, A Most Wanted Man, followed by his 14th studio album, Permanent Now, that year. In March 2020, he released the song "Heroes of these times" as a tribute to the 'heroes' of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new single, "Deine Hand" was released in November 2022 as the first single from his 6th studio album "Das ist los".