Arabesque (group)
| Arabesque | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Frankfurt, Germany |
| Genres | Euro disco |
| Years active | 1977–1984 |
| Labels | RCA/Victor |
| Associated acts | Rouge, Sandra, Enigma, Michael Cretu |
| Website | www.sandranet.com |
| Past members |
Sandra Lauer Michaela Rose Jasmin Vetter |
Arabesque was an all-girl trio formed at the height of the European disco era in 1977 in Frankfurt, Germany. The group's changing lineup worked with the German composer Jean Frankfurter (Erich Ließmann) and became especially popular in Japan.
After the first album, the band lineup was changed by keeping only the original member Michaela Rose and replacing the two other girls, Karen Ann Tepperis and Mary Ann Nagel with new members Jasmin Vetter and Heike Rimbeau, respectively. Due to Rimbeau's pregnancy in 1978, she was briefly substituted by Elke Brück Heimer. However, shortly afterwards she too was replaced by Sandra Lauer. The trio remained in this lineup from 1979 until their split in 1984. After they split up in 1984, Jasmin and Michaela continued on as the duo "Rouge", while Sandra Lauer started her own career as a solo artist, collaborating with Michael Cretu as Sandra and later as part of Enigma.
Arabesque became extremely popular in Japan, and also had a great deal of success in the USSR. 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. Their 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 '80s European dance artists.)
These last Arabesque singles also introduced the "Italo disco" sound to Japan, under the term "eurobeat", previously used in the UK for the productions. That soon lead to Japan's Super Eurobeat music style.
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