Dieter Bohlen – The Music’s Biggest Untold Disgrace

Dieter Bohlen is among the most successful producers in Germany, known for his compositions at Modern Talking, which earned him 6 number ones in Germany and all across Europe. This fame at Modern Talking also offered him opportunities to write for other artists such as Chris Norman, Bonnie Tyler, CC Catch, and for other German Schlager artists. He was known as the boss of the group, the jack of all trades. He sang, he wrote songs, he composed songs, produced songs, and wrote the lyrics at Modern Talking. He did all the work, contrary to Thomas Anders, his singing partner, who only came to the studio to sing and went home and did nothing more.

For 40 years, Bohlen has been on top of German music, he enjoys absolute fame and to this day, he is still relevant in the entertainment branch. We won’t say that his work earned him a place in the greats of German music. Because to earn and deserve something, you have to work extremely hard for it.

And Bohlen worked a lot, improved himself a lot, and outdid himself on many occasions, but only on things that had nothing to do with music, rather with manipulation and exploitation.

When you go in bed with RTL, BMG, BILD and with people like Andre Sellenheit or Thomas Stein, it’s much easier to make a gullible society believe that you’re some sort of a genius. You can twist the truth however you like.

Because in every single year that went by, even at the beginnings of ‘MT’, Bohlen would always be involved in some sort of controversy. He has been exposed several times for being an absolute fraud, a grifter who took advantage of his colleagues and never was punished for it. No matter how much Bohlen is exposed for his fraudulent activities, he will remain untouchable and no image could ever be ruined.

Dieter Bohlen, the singer, the producer, the composer, the songwriter, the arranger, and the guitarist, the jack of all trades, has exploited people, colleagues, and friends for decades to achieve what he wanted. He did not do any of these activities in the studio, regardless of how much he lies that he wrote 40 songs a month and that he did everything.

This man with powerful connections has built himself an untouchable image, where those around him have to create a “distraction” in order to avert people’s attention from such something that “ruins” Bohlen’s image.

For example, if Bohlen is exposed that he did not sing at Modern Talking, he has to release books to direct people’s attention to him, his sarcastic speeches, and the humiliation he put Thomas Anders, by calling him a lying, sewage rat.

So much Bohlen annoyed and pissed off everyone, even those who counted on him and were close with him, that even Frank Farian, who used to be a close friend of Bohlen, decided to publish an “anti-Bohlen” book (Stupid dieser Bohlen) in 2004.

For more than 10 years, they were close buddies. And it did not take a personal altercation for Farian to get furious with him. It only took him the humiliating and disgusting words Bohlen accused Thomas of for him to write a book that completely degrades Dieter. Since then, if not even earlier, Thomas and Farian had developed a very close relationship.

Despite Farian’s attempts to expose Bohlen, his book, as far as sales were concerned, was completely a failure. The amount of sales probably did not even reach the number of seats of a stadium in the fourth league of German football. He tried hard to promote it, but to no avail. A huge plus could’ve been his fame, but even that did not help in making the book sell.

It was like he was blocked on all fronts.

Going back in time, Bohlen faced controversy for the first time in 1986, when songwriter and lyricist Geff Harrison sued Bohlen for underpaying him and taking credit for some of the lyrics. Geff Harrison was an English lyricist who wrote lyrics for Modern Talking, as well as CC Catch.

“Not only did I write the lyrics for ‘You Can Win If You Want’, ‘Cheri, Cheri Lady’, and most Modern Talking songs, but I also wrote the lyrics for C.C. Catch songs such as ‘I Can Lose My Heart Tonight’. I worked with Dieter Bohlen for more than 5 years, corrected and finalized his texts. It is clear that I not only changed the grammar, but also added my own ideas in the lines. Dieter Bohlen appropriated all the copyrights to himself, and only paid me a tip

To which Dieter’s response was:

I was taught English at school. As for grammar and spoken language, my English is not perfect. Therefore, I passed some texts to Geff, with whom we corrected them. […] I’ve known Geff Harrison for several years. [..] I have neither the time nor the desire to pay attention to such tricks. Of course, I wrote the lyrics myself. And I can prove it! Geff only corrected the nuances

This dispute was settled in court with Bohlen paying Harrison. However, this controversy was not as big as the other ones that followed suit. At the time, Dieter was more popular, and the only news that would get people talking was the news about Thomas and his wife at the time, Nora.

A year before, in 1985, Modern Talking was invited to perform on the French TV channel “Antenne”. Unfortunately, Bohlen did not know that in the show you had to sing live, and his horrible vocal abilities were shown on TV when he attempted to sing the falsetto, which he covered up with cringe-worthy movements on stage.

It seemed like those movements had to cover stage fright.

Thomas sang flawlessly and managed to hold his laughter. But this could’ve already caused a big scandal if it weren’t for BRAVO, RTL, Bertelsmann, Goetz Kiso, Andre Sellenheit, and BMG that choke on Bohlen’s fecals. Because this live performance was censored in Germany, what was shown instead, was the live performance replayed in playback where nobody in Germany had to know that Bohlen is a bloody fraud with no talent.

By the way, according to Bohlen, the voice of Thomas had to be worked on in computers. What he tries to say is that Thomas’ voice was processed in studio. For some reason, we still prefer Thomas’ live voice.

Several years later, an event of an even bigger scale happened. In July 2000, a man named Michael Scholz, on behalf of his friends and colleagues, Rolf Koehler and Detlef Wiedeke, filed a lawsuit against BMG and Dieter Bohlen, over the accusation of copyright infringement. The three men claimed that Bohlen used their voices in the songs of Back For Good, the comeback album of Modern Talking in 1998 and did not pay them any money.

While the court case was still ongoing, this was kept a secret until March 2001, when for the first time the media revealed the shocking revelation that Bohlen was NEVER the singer of Modern Talking, but only mimed to the falsettos that were instead sung by these three men, and another one called Birger Corleis, the backing vocalist of Thomas.

The nature of the lawsuit was Bohlen collecting the winnings and the earnings of Back for Good success for himself, over the work of what would be later called “Systems in Blue”. Their intention was never to defame Bohlen that he couldn’t sing, but to demand him the earnings they were owed.

Systems in Blue, the group which they created in 2003, did not just sing their parts at Modern Talking, but also at Blue System and for the CC Catch project. The men won the lawsuit, but they could’ve been millionaires if they earned as much as Bohlen earned with all the occupations he ended up taking over. Unfortunately, Birger Corleis, another vocalist, who also filed a lawsuit against Bohlen, lost the court case.

The three vocalists had already lost rights to their voices when they signed a contract with Bohlen. The men did not intend to reveal that Bohlen did not sing, they intended to be paid what they were owed. It was the media, however, who discovered that these three men were behind Bohlen’s “voice”, and not Bohlen himself and his 1000 recordings of his voice.

Another ridiculous claim made by the BMG Berlin, was that the three men “only supported Bohlen in vocals”, in other words, they were only backing vocalists. When in fact, someone who uses softwares or even those with a musical ear, can hear that the choir leader is Rolf Koehler. It takes an extreme amount of decompression to hear Bohlen’s “squeakings”.

Systems in Blue were founded for the first time in 2003, by fans’ demand who found out about the legendary choir singers. The band also asked Thomas Anders to join them several times, but his management refused any cooperation. Lately, in 2016, the management of Anders called the remaining SIB members (after Koehler passed away in 2007) “too old”. This was during a fan contest that Anders and management created after releasing the song “Lunatic”, the best remix would feature in his album. SIB was not in the final top 10. In Anders’ recent work, choir singers from 2000-2003 Christoph Bendorff and William Billy King are heard in the recordings.

In 2004, Farian argued that Bohlen was a case for the public prosecutor, the case being the fact that Bohlen was earning big percentages of money in two cash registers called GEMA and GVL, registered under specific occupations which he never did: Singer and instrumentalist (guitarist).

The guitarist in question is Peter Weihe, a prominent guitarist in the industry who has worked with several famous artists, and music professor. Although Weihe is only credited in Modern Talking’s last album (Universe), in reality, his work with Bohlen goes as far back as 1984, which was, of course, “You’re my heart, you’re my soul…”.

Weihe is the alpha that people think Bohlen is, he doesn’t care about such money, he made enough money with people that were worth it for him. Because dealing with Didda Bohlen is not worth the time, nor is it worth stressing over such a man. In addition, he also lived a quiet life without having to brag about everything. A total gigachad.

So even being a thief in plain sight, did not stop Bohlen from reaching the peak of popularity with Deutschland sucht den Superstar, a worse version of “American Idol” where Dieter tries hard to be a Simon Cowell wannabe. Bohlen always claimed to be someone who did something, he shoves his success on your face every day, as if he wanted to prove something. It’s fascinating, you don’t have to prove anything if you know you’re somebody, but Didda does not understand the assignment. He needs to remind people even when he breaks his penis.

Another thing that most of general public that worship Bohlen does not know, is that the arrangements were also not done by Bohlen, but by other studio musicians. The piano parts, mainly in the first album from 1985, came from black musician Leroy Lee Davis. Later on, Ralf Stemmann took over the keyboard, by introducing a PPG wave system, a German invention which was also used by the most prominent 80s bands in the Synthwave/Punk genre.

These musicians, Bohlen never mentions, but he rather told the public that he “was forced” to create the same song over again due to Thomas’ limited vocal abilities. According to him, Thomas’ voice was limited to four notes.

Of course, that was definitely the reason why the songs sounded the same, and not the fact that Bohlen is a talentless scoundrel who has no idea about music. It’s not like all his songs he made for Blue System, Bonnie Tyler or CC Catch also did not sound the same. Or these singers, especially Bonnie Tyler of all people, was also limited vocally?

To label Bohlen a music genius is absolutely an insult even to those garage musicians who can actually play instruments and make music for a living. Dieter has no idea about music, every word he spits from his mouth is an absolute contradicting and handicapped nonsense that only a herd of sheep follow with enthusiasm.

When Bohlen speaks about his own music, he does not speak about the musical side of it, but about how much money and places in charts it got. In his book “Nicht als die Wahrheit”, he does not even explain or have any enthusiasm about Modern Talking songs and how they were created. The only “explanation” we received was a half-assed lie about how “YMHYMS” was created.

In all his life, 80% of the time he does not mention Modern Talking as a group that he loves with every fiber of his being. He does not speak like a musician, like somebody who created and made these songs, but like a capitalist scumbag who complains about his disobedient employees, told fabricated sob-stories about sad childhood and who mainly wants to brag about his cash flow.

And in the book, which is supposed to be an autobiography, he only pays respects to his so called creation, in only three short chapters, and even in these chapters, he rather talks about the nuissance called Nora Balling, the ex-wife of Thomas, which Dieter, happily obeyed, but pretends to everyone he dominated her. The rest are basically comedy stories and idiotic fabrications of his own fantasy and the writer, Katja Kessler.

Modern Talking was what made him, and people are curious to know how it’s done on the other side, and how much effort one puts to come up with a song or a sound. But, Dieter Bohlen hints many times with his behavior that he is only a businessman who counts the amount of money won.

Chances are, Bohlen is not even the creator of the famous Modern Talking sound, neither the composer nor the producer of the songs. The average IQ-minded person is cast on an unbreakable spell by Bohlen, who takes away any ability of rational thinking. They will believe and repeat things that he spits out of his mouth.

Bohlen, a total failure of a producer and composer, just like Luis Rodriguez, suddenly comes up with a Giorgio Moroder style of genre overnight. It is an event that only happens in one’s extremist fantasies. So-called Steve Benson could never write a style so polished when you look at the previous Schlager garbage he wrote while being Bernhard Brink’s chauffeur.

It’s not by accident we wrote that Bohlen didn’t create or compose anything. If you ask hobby producers who make Modern Talking music on YouTube, they are all surprised that Bohlen does not own the rights to the songs, but Thomas does, instead. Thomas owns the “multitracks”, some sort of rare material in possession of record companies. He owned them since the 1980s, and he went to concerts singing along to the multitracks live.

On the other hand, Bohlen never sang any Modern Talking song live with the multitracks, but he always sang “Midnight Lady” or “Samurai”, and his Blue System songs. It was in 2019, that he could finally sing the songs alone in concerts. In 2017, Bohlen proved once again that he has no idea how to create a typical Modern Talking sound with the Back for Gold album. The tracks were lazily produced and with minor tweaks, as if some beginner YouTube producer did it. Of course, his fans will call it some undeniable masterpiece.

Thomas, the weak idiot who had a flop solo career, apparently, did a complete overhaul of the songs in the 2016 album “History”. It shows that he owns all the acapella tracks, all the original demos, the multitracks… everything that genius Bohlen, the producer is supposed to own. Thomas might as well be the composer and the producer of all Modern Talking songs. It’s what Farian also said in his book.

Bohlen only is relevant worldwide when he is with Thomas. Nobody cares about him worldwide when he is alone. His Blue System project was only a commercial fabrication in Germany whose succsss was founded out of revenge to Thomas.

Dieter can screech and shout all he wants about his “fame” in Germany. While Thomas tours all over the globe, with the Modern Talking songs, he most likely wrote and composed. In this case, he is fair.

This fact, most likely also explains the reason why Bohlen fails to have a connection with the songs. He feels rather cold to them, in the sense that he has to tell something completely stupid for people to trust on his musical abilities. The reason why he has no connection with the songs, is exactly because Thomas and the others COMPOSED the songs, not Bohlen.

To Bohlen’s credit, he wrote the lyrics, but he is also afraid to speak about them…. probably because… nobody has to learn that those lyrics are HOMOSEXUAL.

And when it comes to the music of Blue System, they also do say the same thing: Bohlen made it. But there existed insiders who confirmed that choir singers Detlef Wiedeke and Rolf Koehler wrote and arranged many of Blue System’s songs. Koehler, in fact, was already involved in several Italo-Disco projects in the past with “Straight Flush” and “Boo Who”, as writer and producer. So this fact should not be surprising.

Wiedeke also said in 2021, that Bohlen would often tell the said musicians to “organize the same sound” after looking at international hits in the charts. This certainly also adds up to the fact that the majority of the songs of Blue System as well as some from the Modern Talking’s second reunion are almost a plagiarism of other international hits. For example, “Nobody Makes Me Crazy Like You Do” is a copy of “Together Forever”, by Rick Astley. “Little Jeanie” – Straight Up by Paula Abdul, or “That’s Love” by Pet Shop Boys. And the infamous “We take the Chance” (1998) from “The Final Countdown”

The list goes on and on. Of course, there can be inspirations. There only exist 7 notes in music. But there is definitely a big difference between being inspired and being a copycat.

Mozart’s skeletons roll in the grave when in Germany, they call a talentless scoundrel, who built his persona through lying, deception, and manipulation, like Bohlen, a modern Mozart. The propaganda-pumping machine is strong. But society is in love with sadist bullies, deceivers, and anti-values.

Milli Vanilli was a fraud, Jennifer Lopez is a fraud, it’s not an uncommon occurrence where real singers sing behind somebody else in the background. What is, completely unacceptable, is the fact that someone has the power, the ability, the absolute audacity to earn money over other’s heads doing absolute fuck-all.

And Dida is such a skilled pathological liar. He even believes his own lies, screams like a helpless child, and has to tell everybody, every time what he did. But, he has not done absolutely anything, except writing homosexual lyrics and telling his musicians to copy the arrangements from the 1000 songs.

At the same time, you can also predict what Bohlen could usually say to his colleagues in the studio, without you actually being in the studio: “I’ll pay you 10,000 marks if you play the guitar parts of XY song. Don’t worry about plagiarism, my agents take care of it”.

Without Thomas and the other musicians, Bohlen wouldn’t step anywhere near the studio’s door.

Without Andre Sellenheit and his other powerful boyfriends of RTL and BMG, he would be broke from lawsuits, humiliated by the truth, and alone working with his father in the Bausteller.

He will always remain nothing but Thomas Anders’ guitarist.