Jasmin Wagner

Jasmin Wagner (, born 20 April 1980), better known as Blümchen , is a German pop and dance music singer and actress. Although she releases her English albums under the name Blossom, her German stage name "Blümchen" actually translates to "floret" or "small flower".
Early life.
Born in Hamburg, West Germany, 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.
Career.
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 (Piep, Piep)", "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" ("Just a dream" and "Give me more Time" as Blossom). 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 (der, die, das)", 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", the Ideal cover "Ich bin wieder hier", a Rozalla cover, and "Es ist vorbei". The album marks a soft departure from a happy hardcore 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" was re-released with 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", the last mentioned of which 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 electronic 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 Comin' 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 1960s 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 it to be 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.
Wagner appeared in several theatre productions, also providing vocals on several of their soundtracks. One of them was the song "Bis ans Ende der Welt", which 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 broadcaster ARD.
Her song "Boomerang" (1996) 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 number 7 in the charts, higher than its 1996 peak of number 11, but still not high enough to unseat "Don't Believe". This made "Boomerang" 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 her 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, exclusively distributed through "Reader's Digest". She also appeared as a featured artist on the Wise Guys song "Küss mich" on their 2014 studio album "Achterbahn". This feature marks the last time Wagner was credited as Jasmin Wagner before returning as Blümchen in 2019.
2019–present: Blümchen comeback and new record deal.
In 2019, after a hiatus, Wagner returned as Blümchen and released her first new single "Computerliebe", again a Paso Doble cover version. In the same year, Wagner had earlier 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 "(You Made the) Summer Go Away".
After many years of requests, Wagner made her first comeback performance as Blümchen in March 2019 in front of an audience of 60,000 at the Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Jasmin was overwhelmed by the strong reception she received. In a statement to the BILD newspaper, she revealed her joy after performing. "I had imagined it was going to be good. But it was absolutely amazing. To sing along with 60,000 people - it was unbelievable." The return as Blümchen proved high in demand, as tour dates kept quickly accumulating and Jasmin ending up performing in 22 additional concerts in Germany in 2019. 
In 2020, Wagner signed a new record deal with German label Schubert Music. She has been recording her new album, which is expected to be released in 2021. According to her record label, the new album will come under the stage name Jasmin Wagner and "will introduce her new electro-schlager sound, which will combine the best of her artistic influences from Blümchen with a new, modern, danceable schlager sound." The album is expected to deliver "at least two singles", the label spokesman revealed. 
Additional Blümchen tour dates have also been announced for 2021, including two concerts in Sweden and one concert in Norway, where Jasmin had a number-one hit on the singles chart with her song "Heut' Ist Mein Tag" in 1999. 
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 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 ("Automatisch", "U-Bahn"), house ("Immer noch verliebt"), disco ("Ist deine Liebe echt"), reggae fusion ("(You made the) Summer go Away") or indie rock ("Are you Ready for some Darkness"). While Wagner's albums "Herzfrequenz" and "Verliebt..." features the same number 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".
Controversy.
It has been speculated that the German studio singer Alexandra Prince, also from Hamburg, was the real singing voice on the first four Blümchen albums. However, this rumor has never been confirmed. Suspicions were 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", where Wagner thanks "Alex-p", a common practice in the music industry to give a singer indirect credit. Additionally, an early version of the 'Herz an Herz' CD Single exists for which the cover contains a picture of a girl, who is clearly not Wagner, suggesting that, at least for the first single, the product was in place prior to Wagner being engaged for the project.
Prince has denied these rumours. Asked by Stadt Magazin about how involved she was as a singer in the Blümchen songs, she said, "I have only sung backup vocals. No more, no less." In the same interview, she expressed frustration with these rumours: "These rumours are actually boring and not just to me." The studio singer also expressed her support for Wagner, stating "I really like Jasmin."
Wagner herself also commented on this subject in the 1990s. In an interview with "Spiegel" in 1996, she said: "My voice is altered electronically. Nevertheless it is still my voice [on the records]." Although Jasmin's TV performances of her songs were always lip-synched (as was common for other German pop and dance artists) she could be heard singing live over a backing track on her own concert tours, or also at televised music festivals such as Halberg Open Air, Ringfest or Sound of Frankfurt. During the same period, Wagner also sang a capella snippets of her songs in TV interviews and at music festivals, also revealing a similar high-pitched, soft feminine voice as on the Blümchen records. In a 1997 interview with "Jetzt" magazine, she spoke once again on the gossip comments about her voice: "When I won the Echo award, I was so happy. But the night after the award ceremony, people began to run their mouths about me. 'She's still too young and can't sing at all'. I'm still learning, of course, but it's normal for me to have four background singers on the tour. Even an amazing voice like Toni Braxton has four singers who help her. " When asked about the accusations that she couldn't sing, Wagner replied: "You don't know where such rumors arise and the music scene is full of gossip. That's why I distance myself from that. In the beginning, I always justified myself. Let people believe what they want. I have a solid vocal training, which I continue to pursue. I know what I can do and I know what will be made of it. I don't have to please anyone – except me." 
In 2012, German singer Jan Delay told Stefan Raab on "TV total" that Wagner did not sing on many of her albums, or at least the song "Herz an Herz". Although he did not mention her by name, he clearly implied Alexandra Prince could have been the alleged singer, 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 that she was only 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". He stated that other singers may have participated "in the chorus", but Wagner had been the lead singer, with her voice having been additionally pitched by computer effects. 
Hip-hop producer Melanie Wilhelm (better known as Melbeatz), who worked with Prince on the Durstlöscher project, appeared to confirm Prince's role in the Blümchen project in an interview, while also speaking about Prince's involvement in other projects from the 1990s. 
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 refrains on the second Blümchen album "Verliebt..." were recorded by Prince, whereas its English counterpart "In Love..." featured Wagner's voice, or at least Prince's vocals do not feature on the recording. 
However, since Blümchen's comeback in 2019, Wagner has been using her own re-recorded, newly updated vocals at her live performances on TV shows and singing fully live in most performances of her "Boomerang" tour.
Personal life.
For four years, Wagner was in a relationship with Lucas Cordalis. In 2015, she married Swiss entrepreneur Frank Sippel. Five years later, she divorced Sippel, in 2020. 
Awards.
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000 
2003