Remembering as if everything was yesterday. It was 1996, exactly 20 years ago. I had a musical program called “Rock en Estereo” in the radio frequency 104.1 FM in the broadcasting station from the University of Cauca, located in my home town Popayan, Colombia. It always prided me to receive mail from the surrounding cities such as Bogota and Cali, the last and most exclusive CDs and discs were from Eurodance.
When it began
The University of Cuaca radio station has multiple cultural agreements. Within these arrangements every month there was a cassette from the Europarade that came from the Radio Nederland from the Netherlands, the counting of the most important songs, the songs that were most listened and bought in Europe.
At the end there was always a disclaimer that in this count specifically was pondered at the tops of individual from each country. There was no internet, nor how to truly research something like this or someone and the one who had the CDs had the power.
Thanks to the Europarade, that for sure it was presented by a man name Alfonso Montealegre, a lot we were able to listen to a lot of spectacular songs and difficult to get, I heard Lucilectric, Oli P, a tic tac toe, Marco Borsato, Laura with unforgettable song “immer wieder”, Das Modul, Mark’oh, Marusha, Dune and I remember within all of these that Alfonso announced as a great entrance the top song of Boomerang in his textual words from the German girl “Blümchen” you can’t imagine how much I liked B this song.
Entering the world
Listening to Blümchen, Dune and Das Modul represented entering the world of the German happy hardcore. I did research and found out that Blümchen was the artistic name of Jasmin Wagner and it means “little flower”.
Obviously at the broadcasting station we waited every month for the Europarade to arrive with its releases and exclusives, always earring which song would be No. 1. Of course, then everything would arrive to all the musical stores but we would hear the first of it thanks to Radio Nederland.
Little by little I started creating a bond with Blümchen, I don’t know something very special, and she became a mixture of my music idol and platonic love. Yes very platonic, understood as the fact of not knowing her just seeing her pictures that I would love her physically and also that I would like her music, and thinking that the German happy hardcore is one the best inventions as in the music scene.
We are talking about a gender of music that in that time it was the most commercial in Germany. Maybe too commercial and sticky for those who lived there and saw there shows over there. As a matter of fact I remember I met a European girl during that time. She arrived to Popayan as an exchange student, she was very nice and liked music. In fact we would exchange a lot of CDS from trance and house.
As soon as I met her, I could infer by the bright light in my eyes and asked her if she knew Blümchen. She looked at me with certain air of surprise and in her poor Spanish (naturally she was learning it) “Blümchen? Why do you know her? It is very weird that someone in Colombia knows her, her music is very childish, and personally I don’t like her that much”. Among tastes no trouble, I said to myself, when one likes something there anything or anyone you change your mind.
Searching for her
I still looked for her, for Blümchen. I found out that she also did songs in English under the name Blossom for the Japanese market. I liked that curiosity a lot: during that time different albums would arrive to Japan and different versions of the songs that were heard in Europe and America. Whomever would get albums that were sold in Japan, was a real jewel. I also found out that Jasmin Wagner was a model and presenter of some shows in Germany.
Once, when I lived in Cali, I put on the Deutchewelle (DW) Channel and saw a musical magazine where they transmitted a 10 second extract from “ich bin wieder hier” from Blümchen, a cover from a famous dance song called “Everybody’s free”, this version was acapella, and we also heard the soundtrack of Romeo and Juliette (Leonardo Di Caprdio’s version). Needless to say that the emotion was total.
I got several CDs songs where I got songs from her: A Summer Hit mix out there, the ZYX label, another compiled by and a series of CDs very good call Bravo hits. That began collecting songs from it and, as a more crowded and less slow internet, I saw some fuzzy photos and videos. Then the mp3 came and got her several Remixes, more CDs and so on.
I loved more and yes, the platonic part continued. In Amazon bought some of their albums and even now on iTunes for the ease of acquiring their music is all. I became an expert in Blümchen. In it, the girl from Hamburg, a year younger than me.
The truth
Here I will say something subjective: I have never liked a singer more than her, regarding her as a woman and her as an artist. Those who know me know. I even remember with much grace once had in my hands a physical CD of it and my mom said, “Oh, Blümchen! Does she really exist? “. I do not know if she really exists, but for me she does.
After 20 years, my love for her music continues. In my iPod I have songs of her latest album which was around 2001 and there is no week I do not listen to them. I haven’t found out much about her in the present, I do not know if today she is a lawyer, has 2 kids or maybe she has and advertising agency. I do not know, there is not a lot of information on her, it doesn’t matter. I see current pictures and she is still beautiful as I remember her. She is still my platonic love. When I will travel to Berlin it is possible that I can find her. If I meet her I have no idea what would I say to her or even how to approach her, what I would ask her. Maybe I would tell her that a man named Alfonso Montealgre referred to her as the “little German flower”.Maybe she will smile at me.
