Alphaville is a German synthpop group which gained popularity in the 1980s. The founding members were Marian Gold (real name Hartwig Schierbaum, born 26 May 1954 in Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia), Bernhard Lloyd (real name Bernhard Gößling, born 6 June 1960 in Enger, North Rhine-Westphalia), and Frank Mertens (real name Frank Sorgatz, born 26 October 1961 in Enger, North Rhine-Westphalia). The band was at first named Forever Young before changing to Alphaville. They are best known for their three biggest hits, "Big in Japan", "Sounds Like a Melody" and "Forever Young".
Alphaville was formed in early 1982, when Marian Gold and Bernhard Lloyd met at the music project Nelson Community. Many months later, Frank Mertens joined the project. Together the three wrote Forever Young and recorded their first demo of the same name. In 1984, the newly-renamed Alphaville released their debut single, "Big in Japan", which Gold wrote in 1979 after hearing the music of Holly Johnson's band Big in Japan. In autumn 1984, they released their debut album, Forever Young, produced by Colin Pearson, Wolfgang Loos and Andreas Budde. Despite its success, Frank Mertens left the band that year and was replaced in January 1985 by Ricky Echolette (born Wolfgang Neuhaus, in Cologne on 7 August 1960), who was credited on the Afternoons in Utopia album.
"Big In Japan" was Alphaville's biggest hit, topping the charts in Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Sweden, Venezuela and the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart (the group's only Top 10 on any Billboard chart). The single also reached the Top Five in Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Ireland and South Africa. It became the group's only Top 20 single in the UK, peaking at No. 8.
The band's next two singles, "Sounds Like a Melody" and "Forever Young," were also both European Top 5 successes, although the former track failed to make an impression on the American charts.
Amid reports that pop star Laura Branigan was featuring the song on her next album, Hold Me, Alphaville's "Forever Young" was re-released as a single in the US, but it did not prove to be massively popular. Branigan's version, though promoted on stickers adorning the album, subsequently remained an album cut in the US. She would go on to perform the song as an encore at nearly every concert she performed, until her death in 2004. The Alphaville version was released a third time in the US in 1988, to promote Alphaville: The Singles Collection, and peaked at No. 65, their highest charting (and also last) single on the Billboard Hot 100. International re-releases of Alphaville's "Forever Young" followed in 1989, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2009. Several covers have been recorded featuring male or female vocalists often erroneously attributed to be Alphaville's Marian Gold or Laura Branigan.