Jasmin Wagner


Jasmin Wagner, better known as Blümchen, is a German pop and dance music singer, actress, model, spokeswoman and philanthropist. Although she releases her English albums under the name Blossom, her German stage name "Blümchen" actually translates to "floret" or "small flower".

Life and career

1980–1994: Early life

Born in Hamburg to a German father and a Croatian mother, she began performing as a cheerleader for the Hamburg Blue Angels, a squad associated with the Hamburg Blue Devils American football team.

1995–1996: Career beginnings and ''Herzfrequenz''

In 1995, when she was just 15, she started her musical career under the name Blümchen. She became the most successful German female singer of the 1990s. She also released singles and albums in other German-speaking countries, Scandinavia and Asia.
The first release was the debut studio album Herzfrequenz in 1996, preceded by the chart hit "Herz an Herz", a Paso Doble cover version. This was followed by the singles "Kleiner Satellit ", "Boomerang", "Du und Ich", all becoming chart successes. In 1996, Wagner released her first English language single, the only single released as Blümchen and Blossom, the Queen cover version "Bicycle Race". The release of the latter paved the way for Wagner's career for the international releases under the moniker Blossom, with the release of the studio album Heartbeat, Herzfrequenz's counterpart, along with the English versions of "Herz an Herz" and "Du und Ich", the singles "Heart to Heart" and "You and me". "Bicycle Race" has also been included on a Queen tribute cover compilation album titled Queen Dance Traxx I, which also featured an ensemble cast song, labeled as Acts United, "We are the Champions".

1997–1998: ''Verliebt...'' and ''Jasmin''

In 1997, Wagner released her second studio album Verliebt... alongside its english language counterpart In Love... as Blossom. Singles from Verliebt... have been the Nena cover "Nur geträumt", "Verrückte Jungs" and "Gib mir noch Zeit". Later the album Verliebt..., sublabeled as "Die Fanedition", has been re-released with a reworked cover art, a bonus medley and a new song, the single "Sesam-Jam ", which samples the German versions' Sesame Street theme.
In 1998, she released her eponymous third studio album Jasmin, which features the three singles "Blaue Augen", an Ideal cover, "Ich bin wieder hier", a Rozalla cover, and "Es ist vorbei". The album marks a soft departure from a happy hardcore and techno sound to a more pop and dance sound. In 1998, she also contributed to the charity single "Let the Music Heal Your Soul" as part of the supergroup Bravo All Stars.

1999–2000: ''Live in Berlin'' and ''Die Welt gehört Dir''

In 1999, the album Jasmin has been re-released with a reworked cover art, along with two new songs, the singles "Heut' ist mein Tag" and "Tu es mon île", a French language version of "Du bist die Insel", which previously appeared on the Verliebt... album. The same year, Wagner released her first and only Live album "Live in Berlin", which featured a previously unreleased song, the Christmas single "Unter'm Weihnachtsbaum".
In 2000, Wagner released her fourth studio album Die Welt gehört Dir, which features the three singles "Ist deine Liebe echt?", "Die Welt gehört mir" and "Ich vermisse Dich", which latter mentioned served as her farewell single as Blümchen to end up a chapter.

2001–2002: ''Für Immer und Ewig'' and films

Before stopping releasing music as Blümchen, the greatest hits compilation album Für Immer und Ewig alongside a previously unreleased song, the promotional single "Es ist nie vorbei" featuring Swedish artist E-Type, has been released. Wagner also appeared on the 2001 charity single "Die Stadt mit der Nase im Wind" as part of the supergroup Hamburg Allstars. In 2001, she appeared on a Norwegian rock bands' Turbonegro tribute cover album Alpha Motherfuckers with the song "Are you Ready for some Darkness" featuring Die Ärzte member Bela B.. Due to the drastic departure from her previous techno sound to an independent rock sound, Wagner used the stage name Denim Girl for the first and only time.
The same year, Wagner released her first and only promotional single mononymously as Jasmin, the Christmas song "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", an Eddie Cantor cover, which was only available exclusively at Tchibo stores. Wagner has also ventured into acting making cameo appearances in several movies, most notably as a race car fan in the 2001 film Driven, starring Sylvester Stallone.

2003–2007: Singles and ''Die Versuchung''

After a brief hiatus from the music industry, Wagner returned with a new record deal on Polydor in 2003 under her real name Jasmin Wagner with the single "Leb deinen Traum" for her upcoming fifth studio album. The song proved to be a moderate success, peaking #24 at the German Single Chart, and served as the theme song for the talent show "Popstars – Das Duell". For her new direction to a more mature pop rock sound, Wagner worked with a string of German well known artists and songwriters such as Inga Humpe, Peter Plate and Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen. In 2004, the second single "Helden wie wir" written by Plate followed. In 2004, Wagner performed these two singles, alongside other new tracks such as "Erster Tag", "Sonne in mir", "Schmetterling", "Lieblingslied" or "Hellwach" at Happy Family in Mannheim. Other songs she presented were "Wann wenn nicht jetzt", "Frei" and "Das Meer ruft meinen Namen" in Oldenburg. After album announcement delays and dissatisfied with the direction, Wagner decided to cancel the release of her untitled studio album. Still the studio recording of "Schmetterling" managed to get leaked. In 2004, Wagner continued appearing on several compilation albums, such as Best of Mania, with the Olivia Newton-John cover "Hopelessly Devoted to You" and on Your Stars for Christmas with "Der kleine Stern", a German language Ciro Dammicco cover of "Soleado". Wagner also sang the title song "The Love of my Life" for the motion picture's soundtrack 7 Zwerge - Männer allein im Wald.
In 2005, still at Polydor, Wagner released her first and so far only studio album Die Versuchung as Jasmin Wagner. The album's musical style features a more chanson, swing and retro 60s pop sound. It features the single "Männer brauchen Liebe" and the double A-Side single, "Komm schon werd' wütend" and "Morgen, wenn Ich weg bin". The album proved to be commercially unsuccessful, staying in the German Album Charts for just five weeks, which caused being dropped by Polydor afterwards. Wagner also appeared in the role of Maxi in the 2007 gangster-comedy film Breathful.

2008–2018: Theatre work and collaborations

In the later years Wagner appears in several theatre productions, also providing vocals on several of its soundtracks. One of them being the song "Bis ans Ende der Welt", she recorded in 2008 with Dietmar Loeffler, on the album Männerbeschaffungsmaßnahmen. In 2010, Wagner reunited with the supergroup Hamburg Allstars, for another charity single, "You'll Never Walk Alone" and recorded the "Check Eins" theme song for channel ARD.
Her song "Boomerang" was part of an Internet campaign in early 2010 against Deutschland sucht den Superstar, the German spin-off of Pop Idol. In an attempt to prevent the winner Mehrzad Marashi's debut single, "Don't Believe", from reaching number one in the charts, "Boomerang" was purchased online en-masse, reaching #7 in the charts, higher than its 1996 peak of #11, but still not high enough to unseat "Don't Believe". This made "Boomerang" Jasmin Wagner's fifth top-ten single, over a decade after its release. The campaign was presumably inspired by a similar campaign in Britain against The X Factor, where "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine was the Christmas number one in 2009.
In 2011, Wagner recorded the song "Oh, dieser Sound", a Superpunk cover, for its Superpunk tribute compilation album. The participation in the 2011 play "Alexandra - Glück und Verhängnis eines Stars" about the famous German singer Alexandra, where Wagner was playing the lead role, produced a soundtrack tribute album in 2012 to the late singer, exclusively distributed through Reader's Digest. She also appeared as a featured artist on the Wise Guys's song "Küss mich" on their 2014 studio album Achterbahn. This feature marks the last time, Wagner has been credited as Jasmin Wagner, before returning as Blümchen in 2019.

2019–present: Return as Blümchen

In 2019, after a hiatus, Wagner returned as Blümchen and released her first single "Computerliebe", again a Paso Doble cover version. In 2019, Wagner re-recorded a new version of her debut single "Herz an Herz" with Ray Kuba, which was remixed by the band Marquess. For this release, she recorded the verses of the Paso Doble original version, which were absent in the 1995 version. She also collaborated with David Hasselhoff on the 2019 single " Summer Go Away".

Artistry

Music

Wagner's Blümchen and Blossom songs varied from around 50 BPM to about 200 BPM and they range from many genres of music, such as Techno, Dance, Rave, Happy Hardcore, Pop and Eurodance, mixed with simple melodies and lyrics. Although she also released pop ballads such as "Gib mir noch Zeit", "Es ist vorbei" or "Ich vermisse Dich". During Wagner's career, she experimented with different other genres and styles, such as 2-step, house, disco, reggae fusion or indie rock. While Wagner's albums Herzfrequenz and Verliebt... features the same amount of happy hardcore songs with only refrains, she changed the direction for the third and fourth albums Jasmin and Die Welt gehört Dir, to a softer dance pop sound with refrain and verses. Wagner is known for numerous songs and singles being covers of other artists such as Paso Doble, Queen, Nena, Sesame Street, Ideal, Rozalla, Eddie Cantor, Ciro Dammicco, Turbonegro, Olivia Newton-John or Superpunk. She is also noted for singing multilingual, mostly German or English, but also in French, such as the French version of "Du bist die Insel", titled "Tu es mon île", a duet with the French singer Yta Farrow.

Public image

Because of her drastic music direction change aside her Blümchen sound, Wagner adopted other stage names, such as Blossom for the international Blümchen releases, Denim Girl for the indie rock song "Are you Ready for some Darkness" or her real names Jasmin Wagner or simply Jasmin for her recent works, like the 60s sound of Die Versuchung.

Other ventures

Model

Wagner began her modelling career at age four in the Petrol catalog. In 1998, she was made the official representative of the Tommy Hilfiger product "Tommy Girl", and has also been involved in modelling several Hilfiger clothing products in Germany. She also promotes her own cosmetics line Jamila, which was launched in 2002.

Spokeswoman

As a spokesmodel she has also been a vocal supporter of animal rights groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, and has been involved in many fundraising projects for them. As such in December 2004 she was involved in the charity fundraiser "Stars for Whales". However, her fundraising efforts are not just for animals; she has been a strong supporter of Hand in Hand for Children, a cancer awareness group. After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake she was involved in a charity fundraiser for tsunami relief raising over € 50,000.

Controversy

It has been speculated that German studio singer Alexandra Prince, also from Hamburg, was the real singing voice on the first four Blümchen albums. The rumor has never been confirmed. Suspicions had been raised when it was discovered that some of the artists with whom Prince had worked appeared with different singing voices on their later projects. In Wagner's case, it has been claimed that Prince took over the high-pitched parts in the refrains whereas Wagner performed the raps, ad-libs and yelling parts in the verses—a practice known from other productions, such as "Play", a single sold as a Jennifer Lopez-only song while Christina Milian sang the refrain. Another hint can be found in the liner notes of "Herz and Herz" liner notes, where Wagner is thanking "Alex-p", a common practice in the music industry to give a singer indirect credit.
In 2012, German singer Jan Delay told Stefan Raab on TV Total that Wagner didn't sing on many of her albums. Although he did not mention her by name, he clearly implied Prince with whom he was good friends. According to the Tagesspiegel, Wagner and her manager refused to comment on the incident. Prince herself denied the rumors and said she only was a background singer. As a result, it is hard to verify Jan Delay's claim. One of Wagner's former producers, Stani Djukanovic, has called Delay's claim "utter nonsense". Other singers may have participated "in the choir", but Wagner's voice had been additionally pitched by a computer.
Over the years, fans have used audio software to pitch Wagner's and Prince's voices for comparison. For example, it has been claimed that the refrain on the second album's German song "Verliebt..." was recorded by Prince whereas its English counterpart "In Love..." featured Wagner's or at least not Prince's vocals. However, since Blümchen's comeback in 2019, Wagner has been using her own re-recorded, newly updated vocals at her live shows.

Personal life

For four years, Wagner has been in a relationship with Lucas Cordalis. In 2015, she married Swiss entrepreneur Frank Sippel.

Discography

Films

1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2003