So we’re on the hop on hop off bus (we won’t proselytize again, you’ve heard our thoughts) and cruising away from some palace or other. The audio guide clearly needed to fill a little time so it launches into a little aside about how important the arts are to Vienna. This is all going to be a rough paraphrase, so roll with us, ok? The narrator explains that the two most famous musical prodigies of Vienna are Mozart and Falco. They spent 30 seconds or so on a cute and probably apocryphal anecdote about the Empress falling in love with 6 year old Mozart when he concluded a recital by hopping into her lap and planting a smooch on her. Aw, cute, right? We then got 5+ minutes on Falco. We had never heard any of the classical background music attributed to one composer or another, but at one point they said “let’s listen to his signature #1 hit, Rock Me Amadeus.” By Falco. Falco?
This is going to strike some of you as a strange aside, but we were genuinely absorbed by just how big a deal Falco is in Vienna. For those of you who don’t know, Falco (that’s a stage name naturally; his given name was Johann Hölzel) was a pop/new wave musician. He made some reputation with songs like “Der Kommissar“, but flashed brightest and longest with “Rock Me Amadeus“, a pretty goofy song that nonetheless parked itself at the top of charts for three weeks in the U.S. He had a typical “good but not as good” reception to the single after his big hit, “Vienna Calling” and then, more or less, that was it for Falco in the United States. To roughly quote the audio guide, “he lived the typical life of a rock star and died at age 41.” Which, first of all, LOL at that phrasing, but also a sad answer to the question “whatever happened to Falco?”
But here’s the thing. Being a big deal from Vienna means a lot more to the Viennese. It’s not like we’re expert sociologists or anything, but it seems clear from our little visit that the city runs a little smaller than it actually is, maybe because of it’s awkward history. Fun facts for people like us who are nursing a “typical” US education – Vienna was split up a lot like Berlin was, only into numerous different districts with different nations supervising, and was only let out of detention in 1955. They’ve also got a baby version of the German attitude of confronting Nazi history in an upfront fashion, but complicated by the fact that they weren’t exactly volunteers in that situation. They had to expressly promise that they’d be a neutral party in any future conflicts before their re-independence was finalized (oh, and they had to pay off the Russians…). Point being, for being a European capital and home for millions of people, there seems to be a little bit of that Portuguese surprise that anybody else is taking an interest. “Aw, you came here? Why thank you!”
So, when an artist makes it big everywhere like Falco did, and for that matter highlights his hometown (again, like Falco did), they have a huge amount of appreciation for it. Plus, he actually is a much bigger act than the US impression of him would make him out to be. Unofficial estimates put his album sales at around 20 million, and while only a couple of songs made an impact over in North America he can credibly field a “Best of” album without eliciting sniggers. And thus it is that you get 10 minutes on Falco during a bus tour of Vienna, and you pass by things like a restaurant dedicated to him and a jukebox musical about his life that premiered in 2023.
There’s not really a classic close to this story; he’s been dead for roughly 25 years and in all likelihood, he doesn’t get much thought outside of Austria – maybe only in Vienna. For the people in Vienna, however, he is thought about a lot, or at least they enjoy giving the impression that they do. So here’s to the man, the myth, the pop oddity – Falco.
