1 on the Billboard charts in 1986, making Falco the only artist in history to score a number-one hit with a German language song in the United States.

[10] In late 1970s Vienna, he became part of the Viennese nightlife, which included not just music but also striptease, performance art and a general atmosphere of satirizing politics and celebrating chaos.

From 1977 to early 1979, Hans Hölzel was the bassist of Austrian rock group the Hallucination Company [de], during which he would adopt his stage name Falco, from Falko Weißpflog.[1].

In contrast to shabbier fashions, he had short hair (due to his military service) and wore Ray-Ban sunglasses and suits.

Shortly after leaving the Hallucination Company, Falco became a member of Spinning Wheel, a side project of Drahdiwaberl, where he first began to sing, transitioning from bass player to vocalist and developing his own style.

"When Falco – who'd spent some time in Berlin himself – entered a recording studio for the first time in 1979 to record two songs for the sampler Wiener Blutrausch as the bass player in the band Drahdiwaberl, he found himself in the Schmetter Sound Studio in Bisamberg, run by the rather hippiesque political folk band Schmetterlinge.

[12] His distinct style, coupled with his singing performance of the song "Ganz Wien" (literally "All Vienna", tag-lined "That Scene") led to manager Markus Spiegel [de] offering to sign Falco in 1981.

In 1981, Falco brought his intended first single "Helden von heute" to manager Horst Bork, but received a lukewarm reception.

Falco was hesitant, since the track is a German-language song about drug consumption that combines rap verses with a sung chorus.

Bork insisted and the song became a number-one success in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, while charting high in several other nations.

[7] Though "Der Kommissar" failed to break through in the UK and US, the British rock band After the Fire covered the song with new English lyrics.

It was a difficult project, as the two artists felt immense pressure to match their previous success and the recording process was plagued by delays.

Even though the music video for the single "Hoch wie nie" ("Higher Than Ever") was aired on prime time TV in Austria, it failed to ignite interest internationally.

Outside of Austria and Spain, the title track and main single "Junge Roemer" failed to repeat the success of "Der Kommissar".

Highly controversial when it was released in Germany and the Netherlands, the story of "Jeanny" was told from the point of view of a possible rapist and murderer.

Several DJs and radio stations refused to play the ballad, which was ignored in the US, though it became a huge hit in many European countries, and inspired a sequel on his next album.

Thomas Rabitsch, a keyboardist who met Falco when the aspiring pop star was only 17 years old, said he was a quiet young man and precise bass player, but also arrogant and with a "very high opinion of himself".

Markus Spiegel, the manager who discovered Falco, admitted that the pop star was "an extremely difficult artist" and known womanizer.

Ferdi Bolland recalls that Falco was often so severely intoxicated that the writing process revolved around his "inability to be coherent, to even stand for a long time".

[20] Hölzel died of severe injuries received on 6 February 1998, at age 40, when his Mitsubishi Pajero collided with a bus on the road linking the towns of Villa Montellano and Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

This title also lends its name to a posthumously released album by Falco, Verdammt wir leben noch, which translates to "Damn, we're still alive!"

[23] Although "Der Kommissar" saw nearly contemporaneous and fairly straightforward mainstream covers—including the loose translation by After the Fire and the reinterpretation by Suzy Andrews, both in 1982 and 1983, respectively—Falco's song "Rock Me Amadeus" has seen more frequent use.

The track has been sampled by groups including the Bloodhound Gang, who also refer to Hölzel in their 1999 song "Mope", and by German rapper Fler in "NDW 2005" from Neue Deutsche Welle.