Arabesque (group)

Arabesque was an all-girl trio formed at the height of the European disco era in 1977 in Frankfurt, West Germany. The group's changing lineup worked with the German composer Jean Frankfurter (Erich Ließmann) and became especially popular in Japan and the Soviet Union.
History.
1975–1978: Formation and early years.
In 1975, children's music singer Mary Ann Nagel proposed a girl group to producer Wolfgang Mewes, who accepted. Two additional members were recruited through a singing competition. An Englishwoman (Karen Ann Tepperis), a German-Mexican (Michaela Rose), and a German (Mary Ann Nagel) comprised the initial group.
After the first album, the band lineup changed by keeping only the original member Michaela Rose, while replacing the two other girls, Karen Ann Tepperis and Mary Ann Nagel, with new members Jasmin Vetter and Heike Rimbeau, respectively. Nagel was replaced due to her becoming tired of the long daily commute from Karlsruhe to Frankfurt am Main, where the group was based. Tepperis was replaced due to the fact that she was pregnant and could not go on tour. The surprising overnight success of Hello Mr. Monkey in Japan prompted the producers to schedule an immediate tour to Japan. The duration of Heike Rimbeau in the group was also short-lived; due to her pregnancy in 1978, she was briefly substituted with Elke Brückheimer. This German country singer appeared only in a few live performances during the year 1979. However, shortly afterward, she too was replaced by Sandra Lauer. Lauer had previously attended the Young Star Music contest in 1975, where she achieved a record deal and released the song "Andy mein Freund" ("My Friend Andy").
In 1979, at age 17, Lauer was invited to become the lead singer of Arabesque. The trio (Lauer, Vetter, Rose) would remain in this lineup from 1979 until their split in 1984.
1979–1984: Breakthrough.
Arabesque became extremely popular in Japan, and also had a great deal of success in the USSR. The group first appeared in Japan in 1979 for a television special, performing Hello Mr. Monkey on the 11PM TV show. Lauer even spent her 18th birthday in Japan while they were on tour there in May 1980. They later took part in the Seoul Song Festival in 1981. Further, the group performed a number of concerts in Japan between 1980–1982. During these, they released a live album, dubbed "Fancy Concert". All in all, Arabesque came to Japan on tours a total of 6 times during their career.
Back at home in Germany in 1980, the single "Take Me Don't Break Me" became a hit, which only scraped the German Top 40. Their next single, "Marigot Bay", would become their only Top Ten hit a few weeks later. They made multiple TV appearances in Europe with this song about a lost love. Arabesque never had the same level of success in Germany than in the Far East. Albeit they were almost identical in appearance to other European disco trios (i.e. A La Carte or Luv'), their songs were mostly written to cater a Japanese audience instead of the European discotheque scene. A mere 5 albums were released in their entirety in Germany. The group did release in some 20 other countries, such as Italy, Mexico, Scandinavia, and even became Number 1 in Argentina for some time.
The group's two last singles, "Ecstasy" and "Time To Say Goodbye", became hits only after their split, in various European countries, as they sounded very close to the Italo disco sound, a very popular music genre on the European dance scene at that time. Those songs spread and gained success through LP compilations of dance/pop music, and bootleg tapes, so the band could never take advantage of this success, as neither of those songs could properly appear on any music charts as "singles" anyway. That was a common problem for many 1980s European dance artists.
1984–1989: Duo Rouge.
After they split up in 1984, Jasmin and Michaela continued on as the duo "Rouge". The duo aimed to continue the tradition and style of Arabesque, and surprisingly featured Jasmin Vetter as the lead singer.
After split.
Meanwhile, Sandra Lauer started her own career as a solo artist, collaborating with Michael Cretu as Sandra and later as part of Enigma.
These last Arabesque singles also introduced the "Italo disco" sound to Japan, under the term "eurobeat", previously used in the UK for the Stock Aitken Waterman productions. That soon led to Japan's Super Eurobeat music style.