Original subtitles

These songs were iconic.

Do you remember them?

More than 70 million records were sold.

Topping the charts in over 20 countries.

The Enigma project brought the New Age genre back to life,

combining Gregorian chants with electronic beats and sultry whispers.

But despite creating a global phenomenon, the mind behind Enigma made a radical decision:

to completely reject celebrity status.

This is Michael Cretu.

A reclusive, incredibly shy perfectionist who built an empire in the shadows.

In this video, you will find out how the search for the perfect sound ended up in court.

Can you believe Michael faced major lawsuits for using the voices of a renowned German

choir and an Indigenous couple without permission in his most successful songs?

We will also dive into his life beyond the studio:

his marriage to the German Madonna — yes, I am talking about Sandra, the singer behind

the hit “(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena” —, the building of his family with his twin sons,

and the discreet reasons that led to a divorce that ended a historic partnership.

I’m going to walk you through everything in detail!

So turn up the volume.

Today, we are going to decipher Enigma.

Michael Cretu is Romanian and was born in Bucharest in 1957.

Since he was a child, he already showed signs of being a musical prodigy.

He was drawn to stories of medieval knights and fascinated by outer space.

As he sat at the piano, he imagined the keys were the controls of a spaceship.

His talent was so evident that teachers predicted he would become a great concert pianist.

In the early 1970s, Michael moved to Germany, where he became a citizen

and graduated from the University of Frankfurt in composition and conducting.

What seemed like the beginning of a classical career changed

radically when he discovered electronic music.

Fascinated by synthesizers, he traded orchestral

scores for studio work and became obsessed with creating new sounds.

His talent caught the attention of major names such as Frank Farian,

who hired him as a studio keyboardist for the pop phenomenon Boney M.

But Michael did not stay behind the scenes.

He released albums as a solo artist and saw his

hit "Samurai" climb to the top of the charts across Europe.

But the big leap in his career happened in 1982,

when he met singer Sandra Lauer, one of the standout beauties of the group Arabesque.

It is worth mentioning that there is already a video about Sandra’s

story here on the channel, so check it out later!

Completely in love and convinced of her talent,

despite some early setbacks, Michael took control of her career: he produced "Maria

Magdalena," took the song to number one in 21 countries, and married her in 1988.

In the studio, they were an unbeatable duo.

But Michael’s brilliance was not limited to his work with his wife.

During the 1980s, his reputation as a "studio wizard" grew to the point that he was sought

However, by the end of the 1980s, success had taken its toll, and Michael felt exhausted.

He was tired of the commercial and predictable formula of pop music.

He needed a new challenge.

In 1988, the couple moved to Ibiza, Spain.

In the island’s peaceful atmosphere, far from the pressure of the music industry,

he found the mental space to reconnect with two

great passions from his childhood: the Middle Ages and outer space.

Michael decided to blend ancient Gregorian chants with hypnotic electronic beats,

adding a mysterious female voice.

The idea was not to promote the image of an artist, but rather to launch a

faceless musical project, focused purely on its sonic atmosphere.

In a 2016 interview with Schwulissimo magazine, Michael said:

“At first, I wanted to find out whether music could succeed on its own,

without people knowing who created it. And it worked. My focus was not on the visuals.

I always said that I am not important, only the work should be in the spotlight. I don’t

like the cult of personality. That kind of thing just doesn’t come naturally to me.”

Michael’s project hit the stores in 1990 with an enigmatic title:

"MCMXC a.D." — which, in Roman numerals, simply means its year of release.

The album booklet featured no photos.

Sandra, the project's female voice, was not even credited,

and Michael used the pseudonym "Curly M.C.".

What seemed like a risky combination — Gregorian chants,

pop beats, and sultry whispers — became a worldwide sensation.

Driven by the explosive success of the song "Sadeness (Part I)," the

album sold more than 14 million copies and reached number one in 24 countries.

The Enigma project further popularized the New Age genre in the mainstream.

But the mystery surrounding who was behind the project did not last long.

The end of the anonymity came through the courts.

Michael made a classic mistake: he assumed that

centuries-old sheet music meant the audio recordings were free to use.

Without permission, he sampled 1976 recordings by

the prestigious German choir Capella Antiqua München.

The lawsuit was not just about money, but also about the moral offense it caused.

The religious group was outraged to hear their sacred voices mixed with

club beats and sultry whispers in “Sadeness” and “Mea Culpa.”

The choir won, received financial compensation, and demanded a formal written apology.

But even the scandal did not stop its success.

Then came the second album in 1993: "The Cross Of Changes."

Michael expanded his horizons and replaced the

monks with chants from an Indigenous group in Taiwan.

The result was another global mega-hit, the unforgettable and nostalgic "Return To Innocence".

The music video for that song,

famous for showing a man’s life in reverse, helped make the song iconic.

But because of it, another lawsuit came knocking!

The lead voices in the song belonged to Difang and Igay,

a couple of singers from Taiwan’s Indigenous Amis community.

In the 1970s, they had recorded the traditional "Elders Drinking Song" for a cultural archive.

Michael took that recording from a French CD and

used it in the song without the couple’s permission or knowledge.

Difang and Igay only discovered that their voices were a global success years later,

when "Return to Innocence" played in the campaigns for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

They sued the producer and the record label for copyright infringement.

The case was settled in 1999: the couple secured official credit,

received the royalties they were owed, and were given platinum records.

The third chapter in Enigma’s journey came in 1996 with "Le Roi est mort, Vive le Roi!"

On this record, Michael sought to balance the elements of the first two albums,

bringing back Gregorian and ethnic chants while giving the project a distinct identity.

Speaking about his almost magical creative process at the time, Michael said:

“Making Enigma records is like practicing alchemy,

only in musical terms… The listeners do not rack their brain thinking ‘how,’ ‘what,’ or ‘where

does it come from.’ If they simply say ‘what a beautiful song,’ then my work was done well.”

From the 2000s onward, Enigma’s sound began to change.

On the 2000 album "The Screen Behind the Mirror," Michael used grand samples from

composer Carl Orff, best known for Carmina Burana.

On 2003’s "Voyageur" and 2006’s "A Posteriori," he almost completely abandoned ethnic influences,

delivering albums much more focused on pure electronic and ambient music.

Even with a more modern sound, Enigma remained relevant.

The seventh studio album, "Seven Lives Many Faces" from 2008,

even reached the top of the New Age charts in the United States.

After a long 8-year hiatus, during which many fans thought the project had come to an end,

Michael returned in 2016 with "The Fall Of A Rebel Angel".

On this album, nostalgia hit hard: Michael brought back the mystical

atmosphere and released "Sadeness (Part II)," coming full circle more

than 25 years after the hit that changed electronic music history.

But how does someone come full circle after so

much success and still remain unknown to the general public?

To understand the man who sold 70 million records while fleeing fame,

we need to go back to his roots once again.

The truth is that Michael Cretu never wanted to be a celebrity.

He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

He came from a communist country and had to leave his homeland to pursue his dream.

He describes his background with humility:

"I am a stateless immigrant who arrived in Germany with only one suitcase — half filled with

sheet music. [...] I feel like a deeply Southern European at heart, but with Prussian discipline."

That "Prussian discipline" translated into an almost

unhealthy level of perfectionism in the studio.

Michael would take on as many as seven different roles in the making of an Enigma album:

producer, arranger, sound engineer, singer, composer, lyricist, and keyboardist.

He preferred isolation to ensure that his vision would not be diluted.

But not everyone was happy with his success.

When Enigma broke through by mixing Gregorian chants with provocative beats,

the Catholic Church in Germany protested fiercely.

Michael, on the other hand, never took that criticism well and expressed his frustration

with both the institution and the German mentality of the time in a 2001 interview with Der Spiegel:

"I did the Church a great favor. In the United States,

priests thanked me for tripling the number of young people attending. But I cannot

expect that kind of open-mindedness from calcified eighty-five-year-olds... A friend

says that the Catholic Church is the oldest company in the world, and he is not wrong."

He felt that, in Germany, success was often resented.

Tired of what he called a "culture of envy," Michael decided that he

would not raise his children in that environment.

That is why he retreated to his mansion studio in Ibiza.

Michael and Sandra built not only a remarkable run of hits, but also a family.

They had twin sons together.

However, the couple who dominated European pop music for decades officially divorced in 2008.

Unlike many traumatic divorces in the music world,

the end of their relationship was mature and discreet.

They continued living on the same island for the sake of their children.

When asked what his relationship with his ex-wife is like today, he was direct:

“We get along well. We speak on the phone from time to time and talk about the

children. We have a good relationship and there’s no hostility between us.”

Today, Michael lives a reclusive life.

He rejects the label of stardom, avoids unnecessary luxuries, and hates ostentation.

For him, money was only a tool to buy a peaceful life.

In the eyes of the public, he may be a great mystery,

but for him, the mission was always very clear.

As he put it perfectly in 2007 for the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"I could have stopped working at 28. Why didn’t I? Because I love music,

not money... Music is my religion."

And the impact of Michael’s "religion" taught the industry how to create a new formula for success.

Mixing the mysticism of the past with the beats of the future made

room for other producers to create their own mysteries in the 1990s.

And the biggest of those projects replaced Gregorian monks with an epic medieval atmosphere,

heavy rock guitars, and a choir singing in an imaginary language,

taking over the world with the unforgettable hit "Ameno."

Yes, I am talking about the project Era.

There is already a full video about it here on the channel,

and I’ll leave the link in the pinned comment!

Now tell me: did you already know the story behind the Enigma project?

Let me know in the comments!

And don’t forget to like, subscribe, and stick around,

because I’ll be back very soon with another great story from the world of music!