Cascada

Career

2004-2007: Everytime We Touch

Singer Natalie Horler and producer Manuel Reuter (aka Manian) founded the group in 2002 in Bonn under the name Cascade, but then renamed themselves Cascada (Spanish for 'waterfall') for legal reasons.

The first single Miracle was released in 2004 as vinyl and on CD compilations. Songs like Bad Boy, Everytime We Touch, How Do You Do, A Neverending Dream or Ready for Love followed. An album (Everytime We Touch) and a remix album (Everytime We Touch - The Remix) were also released on CD. Cascada achieved their breakthrough two years later.

With Everytime We Touch, a cover version of Maggie Reilly, Cascada entered the top ten of the US charts on February 21, 2006. After 31 weeks in the Hot 100, Everytime We Touch went double platinum, selling nearly two million copies. Cascada then reached number two on the UK charts and number one in Ireland in August 2006. In Sweden, Cascada's song went double platinum and is one of the most successful songs in Swedish chart history. On 5 January 2007, the single was released in Germany via the record company Universal and reached the Top Ten here as well. The album Everytime We Touch was released again in February 2007 and reached number 50 in Germany.

In spring 2007 the single Truly Madly Deeply followed, a cover version of the band Savage Garden. In the summer of 2007, the song Miracle was released, which was at the top of the charts in France for several weeks. Due to its success in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a fourth single was released there. The song A Neverending Dream again entered the charts of both nations. Meanwhile, the song Wouldn't It Be Good entered the Swedish charts at number 54 only through downloads.

In the UK, Cascada went platinum for 350,000 copies sold of her album Everytime We Touch. Worldwide, over seven million copies of the debut album and debut single crossed the counters, earning Cascada the World Music Award in the category Best Selling German Artist in Monaco in 2007, where singer Natalie Horler had previously sung the song live on stage.

2007-2008: Perfect Day

On 14 December 2007, Cascada released their second album, Perfect Day. The first single from the album was What Hurts the Most (a cover by the band Rascal Flatts) and was released in Germany on January 4, 2008. Previously, the song was released in North America, the United Kingdom and Sweden. In the United States, What Hurts the Most rose to number 52, in the United Kingdom to number ten, and in France Cascada reached position two on the charts. In Germany, What Hurts the Most debuted at number nine.

The second single from the album was What Do You Want from Me? The cover Because the Night followed in summer 2008. Faded and Perfect Day were released as the fourth and fifth singles in the US only. Apart from What Hurts the Most, no single from the album was successful. After over 23 months of initial release, What Hurts the Most was certified gold in the US on 28 October 2009. The album Perfect Day went platinum in the UK for sales of over 300,000 copies.

2009-2010: Evacuate the Dancefloor

The dance trio's third album, Evacuate the Dancefloor, was released on 6 July 2009, initially only in the UK, where it went straight to number eight. It spans pop, house, R'n'B to dance, but contains no cover versions as on previous albums. On 17 July 2009, the album was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and reached number 21 in the German album charts, making it the band's most successful album in their home country. In Austria, the album entered the charts at number 17 and in Switzerland at number 43.

The eponymous first single was released on 29 June 2009 and went straight to number one in the UK. It thus displaced Michael Jackson, who had died shortly before, from the top spot. In Germany, Evacuate the Dancefloor made it to number five in the singles chart, in Austria to number six and in Switzerland to number seven.

On 26 July 2009 Cascada performed as support act at Britney Spear's only concert in Germany in front of 17,000 fans at the o2 World Berlin and also presented new songs.

The song Evacuate the Dancefloor became an international hit after its release, reaching number two in Ireland and New Zealand, number four in Canada, number five in France and number three in Australia and Norway, as well as number one in the Dutch Top 40. In the United States, Evacuate the Dancefloor made it to number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. By November 2009, the single had been bought over 1,000,000 times and was thus awarded gold. This makes Cascada one of the most successful German artists along with Rammstein and Scooter. In total, the single sold four million copies worldwide.

The next single for the German market was Fever and was released on 9 October 2009. The song debuted at number 31 in Germany. In the UK and Ireland, however, Dangerous was released three days later as a follow-up single. Fever was also released as the third single in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2009.

Cascada was nominated for the "1 Live Krone" in 2009, but could not prevail against her competitors.

At the end of 2009, Cascada's single Evacuate the Dancefloor was in all relevant annual charts.

Cascada's single Fever entered the charts in Australia and New Zealand in January 2010. The band entered the Top Ten in France for the fifth time with this song.

The song Pyromania premiered on YouTube on 17 February 2010 and was clicked almost 50,000 times in the first two days. In addition to chart entries in Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Bulgaria and the Netherlands, the formation again managed to achieve success outside of Europe. On August 7, 2010, Pyromania reached number 93 in the Canadian charts and climbed into the top five of the Brazilian dance charts.

Natalie Horler announced that they are working on a fourth album in 2011. In September 2010, a Technicore remix of the song Night Nurse had appeared on the Internet, which is on the new longplayer, but for which there was no release date for the time being. Robbins Entertainment, Cascada's US record label, had announced Night Nurse as a possible follow-up single to Pyromania. On November 8, 2010, Night Nurse was released by Cascada on their YouTube channel.

Due to an illness of Natalie Horler all gigs were cancelled in November 2010 until the beginning of 2011.

2010-2013: Original Me and other projects

In 2011, Cascada returned with a new single and their fourth album. In March 2011, the video for the new single San Francisco was shot in Toronto, Canada. It was directed by Lisa Mann, who has worked with Britney Spears and others, and choreographed by dancer Luther Brown. On May 6, the music video debuted on YouTube and MyVideo. San Francisco was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on June 3, 2011. Previously, the song was released in Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, France and New Zealand via iTunes.

San Francisco entered the top three of the German iTunes charts on 8 June 2011, less than a week after its first German release. On 20 June 2011, the song went straight to number 13 in the German Media Control singles charts. Singer Natalie Horler was a guest on Stefan Raab's TV total and the ARD morning show, among others, to present her new single and the new album Original Me. She also appeared with San Francisco on the TV show The Dome 58.

In addition to San Franscisco, the songs Pyromania and Night Nurse, which were previously released as singles, also appeared on Original Me. In addition, the album is available with a bonus CD, on which Cascada's Greatest Hits can be found. The next single Au Revoir was available since September 23, 2011.

After Horler's participation in the jury of Deutschland sucht den Superstar, the video for the song Summer of Love appeared for the first time on German television on 16 March 2012. The single was released on 30 March 2012 and reached number 13 in the German and Swiss charts and placed 7th in Austria, making it Cascada's third top 10 single in Austria. The best-of album Back on the Dancefloor followed on 13 April and managed to reach the Top 40 in Germany and Austria. It also reached number 25 in Switzerland and became Cascada's most successful album in Switzerland. On April 10, Natalie Horler appeared on ARD's Morgenmagazin for the third time overall, after 2009 and 2011, to perform an unplugged version of Summer of Love.

On June 22, the single The Rhythm of the Night was released, which is a cover of the 1993 Corona song of the same name and Cascada's first cover song since 2008. The single reached the Top 30 in Germany and Switzerland and managed to reach the Top 10 in Austria, making it Cascada's second Top 10 single in a row.

According to Horler, she is working on new songs. In the course of time, individual videos from a studio session from the end of August were uploaded, for example an unplugged version of the single Ready for Love from her debut album.

On November 30, 2012, another record entitled It's Christmas Time was released. It is a Christmas-only album and contains eleven cover versions and one original track, including Last Christmas, released in 2007. She announced via Facebook that her father played trombone on two tracks on the album. At the same time, blue art event GmbH announced a new single, independent of the Christmas album, on 26 November 2012.

2013: Eurovision Song Contest

On 17 December 2012, ARD announced that Cascada would take part in the German preliminary round of the Eurovision Song Contest, Unser Song für Malmö, on 14 February 2013 with the single Glorious. Glorious celebrated its radio premiere on 9 January 2013. The accompanying music video, which was produced at the Historische Stadthalle in Wuppertal, was officially released on 1 February. On February 11, Natalie Horler was a guest on the ARD morning show for the fourth time in total and sang Glorious in an unplugged version.

On 14 February, Cascada finally appeared on Unser Song für Malmö and won the preliminary round with 30 points, including 12 points from televoting. After the show, the song entered the Top 15 of the German iTunes charts the same evening and reached number 1 two days later. The morning after the German preliminary round, the group presented their winning song in the dance version from the night before on the ARD morning show and then flew to Denmark, where they continued their current tour.

Before the contest, negative headlines dominated the international press. Many media and consumers speculated about an alleged strong resemblance to last year's winner Euphoria by Loreen. Celebrities also openly spoke of plagiarism. The Institute for Linguistics of the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel made an acoustic fingerprint. Phonetician Dr. Tina John stated, "Glorious seems like a copy of Euphoria with small, sophisticated stylistic changes. At the beginning, the vocals are absolutely identical, the chorus uses the same accentuation, and the ending culminates in an identical combination. The singers even use the same breathing stylings." Pauses, dynamics and beats are mostly identical, he said.

After the negative reporting had accumulated and demands for resignation had also become loud, the ARD commissioned a detailed expert opinion, which was prepared by the expert for plagiarism issues, Matthias Pogoda, who works among other things as a court expert and consultant. Pogoda's summary was as follows: "It can be summarized that Glorious and Euphoria do not show any copyright-significant similarities. They are merely stylistically similar and show only a superficial touch in the arrangement with no copyright concern." This confirmed the assumption that attorney Christian Solmecke had also previously expressed upon request. Therefore, Thomas Schreiber, entertainment coordinator of the ARD, announced that Cascada would start for Germany in Malmö.

Finally, the band competed for Germany in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 on 18 May 2013 in Malmö. Although the bookmakers saw Cascada in the Top 10, the formation only achieved 21st place (18 points) with their interpretation. Afterwards, it was speculated whether the mediocre performance was due to the current European economic crisis and the displeasure against the Federal Republic.

On 29 March 2013, another compilation album, The Best of Cascada, was released, containing Glorious, the follow-up single The World Is in My Hands, and unplugged versions of Glorious and Enemy, a song from the album Original Me (2011). In the summer of 2013, Cascada released the next single The World Is In My Hands. The music video premiered on July 19, 2013. In parallel, the trio announced they were back in the studio to complete their first acoustic album. Acoustic Sessions was ultimately released on November 1, 2013; Horler had primarily re-recorded acoustic and unplugged versions of hits from previous studio albums, as well as a few cover versions of other songs, for it. One standout in particular is a re-recording of You together with Robin Stjernberg, who represented Sweden at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest with this song.

Since 2014: New singles

The new single Blink was released on 28 March 2014. The "Crew Cardinal Remix" of Blink can be found on the house compilation Top of the Clubs Vol. 62. The title failed to enter the German Top 100 charts and could no longer build on old successes. In the US, it entered at number two on the DJ chart and number 16 on the Billboard Dance chart after its release on 4 June 2014. On 26 September 2014, Cascada released her follow-up single Madness with Chicago rapper Tris. This was also released three days later on Kontor Top of The Clubs Vol. 64. On 6 October 2014, the single was a new entry at number 38 in the German dance charts.

On 20 February 2015, the band released their new single Reason, which had already been recorded as a demo in 2004 but never used. The song climbed to number 15 in the German DJ dance charts. For the first time, several singles by Cascada were released in collaboration with the Hamburg label Kontor Records. In June 2016, Praise You, a cover of the song Shackles (Praise You) by Mary Mary, was released together with Cassiano. On 27 January 2017, the song Run was released. The track Playground became the official song of the 2017 Men's Ice Hockey World Championship in spring 2017.

Cascada during her performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö with the song Glorious

Record label and side projects

The record label of the band was Andorfine Records in the beginning. Later the producer team founded their own label (Zooland Records), on which they release their productions. Since 2014, all releases are also handled by the Hamburg record label Kontor Records. However, Cascada's singles and albums are released via the major label Universal Music.

In 2004 and 2005 the side project Siria, which however only consists of Manian and Natalie Horler, released the singles Endless Summer and I Will Believe It, which Cascada re-released on the album Perfect Day.