Falco and Beyond is devoted to the most popular Austrian song-writer,
singer and rapper of the twentieth century and one of the most
successful European singers of all time. Falco was born in 1957, reached
the peak of his popularity in the 1980s with songs such as Der
Kommissar, Rock Me Amadeus and Jeanny, with mixed luck attempted to
revive his career in the 1990s and died in a car crash in 1998. He sold
over 30 million records worldwide and remains a successful posthumous
artist.
The book attempts to identify the most salient and contradictory
features of Falco's art, such as linguistic inventiveness and dexterity,
rapping and adopting a posture of a romantic artist. It argues that
Falco's songs betray an apocalyptic imagination, picturing the image of
an exhausted and unhappy world. It looks at Falco's career and his
phenomenon in the context of international and Austrian music business
and politics, and investigates how his popularity has been maintained
after his death, by means such as records released posthumously, cover
versions of his songs, mashup songs and videos, biographies and Falco
fandom.