Nena

Honestly, Nena is one of those artists who pulled off something almost impossible — she sang in German and made the entire world not just tolerate it but genuinely love it. "99 Luftballons" from 1983 is one of the great pop songs, full stop, and the fact that it's an anti-war anthem disguised as a catchy new wave banger makes it even better. Born in Hagen, Germany in 1960, she wasn't some manufactured pop product — she was the real lead voice of a band that caught a cultural moment and rode it beautifully. The English version "99 Red Balloons" got the radio play, but I'll always prefer the German original; there's something about not fully understanding the words that makes the melancholy hit harder. She kept going long after the one-hit-wonder label would've stuck to lesser artists, racking up German music awards into the 2000s, and honestly she earned every one.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Nena

Name (Japanese)

ネーナ

Reading

ねーな

Born

March 24, 1960 (age 66)

Origin

Hagen, Province of Westphalia, Germany

Occupation

singer / musician / actor / singer-songwriter / dub actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aries / Rat

Awards & achievements

• 2015 Berliner Bär
• 1982 Bravo Otto
• 2002 1 Live Krone
• 2003 Echo Pop Award for the Best National Rock/Pop Female Artist
• 2003 VIVA Comet Awards
• 2003 Golden Hen
• 2004 Amadeus Austrian Music Awards

• Official sitehttps://www.nena.de/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/nena_official_insta/
• Xhttps://x.com/nenaofficial
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nena
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%8D%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8A
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q153996

Tags

• Province of Westphalia
• singer
• musician
• actor

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.