Formation Alphaville was formed after lead singer
Marian Gold and
Bernhard Lloyd met in West Berlin in 1981. The pair were heavily influenced by UK indie acts like
Tubeway Army,
Gary Numan and
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Gold had written "Big in Japan" in 1979 after hearing the music of
Holly Johnson's band
Big in Japan. They first named their band 'Forever Young' and subsequently changed it to 'Alphaville' after the
1965 science fiction film. Together the three (Gold, Lloyd, and Frank Mertens) wrote and recorded "Forever Young" as a demo. The first Alphaville concert took place on 31 December 1982 in
Enger, Westphalia. In 1984, the newly renamed Alphaville released their debut single, "
Big in Japan". In the early years, Gold said that "none of us could really play an instrument. The music was in our heads, but we were dependent on synthesizers and drum machines and things like that. ... The equipment we had at that time was basically toys – the cheapest monophonic synthesizers you could imagine. We had a little studio in a basement, made a couple of demos and sent them to some record companies to try to get a deal. We didn't have much hope, but we had three offers and from that moment everything happened very fast." In 2024, Alphaville's single "
Forever Young" reached number 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart, 40 years after its original release. The success of the song reaching No. 1 on the charts was linked to its popularity on the social media app TikTok. "Forever Young" remained at number 1 for ten weeks in 2024.
Afternoons in Utopia (1986) In 1986, their second album,
Afternoons in Utopia, was released and its first single "
Dance With Me" was a Top 20 hit in Germany, Spain, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa and in remix form on the
US Hot Maxi Singles chart. It reached the Top 30 in Austria, Italy and in the
US Club Play chart. The album's second single was "
Universal Daddy". For their third single, the band released "Jerusalem" in Germany only, while they went with "Sensations" for Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The final single from
Afternoons in Utopia was "
Red Rose", in 1987.
The Breathtaking Blue (1989) Their third album in 1989,
The Breathtaking Blue, included the singles "
Romeos" and "Mysteries of Love" and was released as a
CD+G, including black & white stills with original lyrics and German translation. As an alternative to individual music videos, the band enlisted nine directors, among them
Godfrey Reggio (
Koyaanisqatsi), to create a film entitled
Songlines based on the album's tracks.
Prostitute (1994) The next album,
Prostitute, was not released until 1994. The first single released was "
Fools", followed by the second and last single from the album, "
The Impossible Dream". During the tour for this album
Robbie France briefly joined the band on drums. In 1997, after the band went to record their next album, Echolette left the band because he decided to spend time with his family.
Salvation (1997) Salvation followed in 1997. A limited edition box-set,
Dreamscapes, was issued in 1999. In 2000
Stark Naked and Absolutely Live was released. In 2001, the remix album
Forever Pop and a DVD entitled
Little America of two concerts performed in
Salt Lake City, Utah. Bernhard Lloyd did not contribute to the second limited edition box-set, the 2003
CrazyShow, and shortly after its release on 18 March 2003, he officially left the group; however, he stays in contact with Gold. The core stage members of Alphaville then were Gold and new recruits, Martin Lister (keyboards), David Goodes (guitars) and Jakob Kiersch (drums).
Catching Rays on Giant (2010) On 19 November 2010 the album
Catching Rays on Giant, the first commercial studio album in 13 years was released and entered the German album charts at number 9 in its first week. The touring musicians became members of the band at this point. The second single from the album was the track, "Song for No One", released on 4 March 2011. The band held an album release party, where they played a short unplugged set, at the Quasimodo Club in Berlin on the evening of 18 November 2010 to which their closest fans and friends were invited. The album featured band member Martin Lister on lead vocals for the track, "Call Me Down". In 2011 Maja Kim joined the band on bass. The first single and album releases were available at first only in Germany and through online shops and download platforms in German-speaking countries. The first single from album was titled "I Die for You Today", available as a digital download on 8 October 2010, released in CD format on 22 October 2010. It entered the German charts at number 15 in its first week of release and stayed in the top 100 for 8 weeks. In March 2011 Alphaville toured the album across Germany and had signed a new deal with the
Universal Music Group. On 21 May 2014, Martin Lister died unexpectedly, announced by the band via their Facebook page and Yahoo mailing list, a few days later. He was replaced by Carsten Brocker. In 2016, bassist Maja Kim left to follow new challenges, with the position filled by Alexandra Merl.
Strange Attractor (2017) Strange Attractor was released on 7 April 2017 after an extremely long production time, with a video for the single "Heartbreak City". In August 2017, they performed a Concert Tour in
Houston, New York City, Chicago, and
San Jose and
Burbank, California.
2018–present: Collaboration and Eternally Yours For the 35th anniversary of the group in 2018, Alphaville held a concert on 25 and 26 May at the Whisky A Go-Go club in Los Angeles, California. In 2019, the LA Concert Group issued a limited box set recording of this show containing five CDs, two DVDs and two
Blu-ray discs. In 2021, Alphaville teamed up with
Schiller and released a new version of "Summer in Berlin" as Schiller x Alphaville. On 7 February 2022, Gold announced a symphonic album of Alphaville songs to be released by the end of 2022, supported by the release of three singles over the course of the year. "Big in Japan" was released on 29 April as the first song from the album. On 11 June, "Sounds Like a Melody" was released as the second song from the album, now titled
Eternally Yours. "Dance With Me" was revealed to be the third song on 27 July, as part of a
podcast presented by Gold and his daughter Lily Becker.
Eternally Yours released on 23 September 2022, containing new symphonic versions of sixteen Alphaville songs, plus a new song also titled "Eternally Yours". On 27 September 2024, a compilation album titled
Forever! Best of 40 Years was released to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the group's breakthrough. The compilation consisted of three CDs, and contained songs from all of the group's studio albums including
Eternally Yours. ==Projects==