
Photo: By JeanNeef (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
As with so many of the popular New Wave songs of the early 1980’s, the song is very much keyboard dominated. In the song’s verse, Peter Schilling sings up close to the microphone in a semi soft voice. On the songs chorus, Shilling explodes into full voice echoing the style of David Bowie. It is a very powerful transition that worked brilliantly. The harmonies at the end of the song were wonderfully recorded and sung by Peter Schilling.
Peter Schilling was born in Stuttgart Germany n 1956. The songwriter has released multiple albums in Germany where he has had a very successful carer in the music industry. The songwriter has never been able to repeat the success he had in the United States with “Major Tom,” in America. The song had been reissued in a re-recorded techno version ten years after its initial success. In 1994 the song became popular in U.S dance clubs.
Many of the artists that had hits during the New Wave era of the early 1980’s were labeled as one hit wonders. For many of them, that label was an accurate description. Although Peter Schilling only had one hit in the United States, his long successful career in his native home of Germany defined him as far from being a one hit wonder as one can be defined.