As someone who lived through the Cold War era of the 80s, albeit as a kid, it’s hard (or at least it used to be hard) to describe the underlying sense of dread that permeated society, and that feeling informed a lot of the art of the time. That certainly includes pop music.
A few of the entries on this list take inspiration from the heightened anxieties of the “Me Decade” but very few could say they wrote something from one of the true epicenters of Cold War symbolism and took it global the way the band Nena did in 1984.
Nena formed in what at the time was the divided city of West Berlin, West Germany in 1981. So they were uniquely qualified to create a pop song that called for the end of political tensions and a more peaceful society.
And of course, it helped that you could dance to it.
Originally released in German, an English version was eventually recorded as well, but both versions tell essentially the same story. Military forces mistake a cache of balloons released into the sky for an enemy air assault, and the initially innocent act sets off a nuclear war.
The song spoke to how high tensions were running between western countries and the Soviet Union, how it felt like we were always one misstep away from annihilation. It would go on to top the charts in 10 different countries, while in America, it peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the original German version actually proving just as, if not more, popular than the English translation.
Whether you prefer “99 Luftballons” or “99 Red Balloons” it all adds up to Nena’s biggest hit floating in at #48.