Michael Cretu (Romanian: Mihai Crețu, pronounced[miˈhajˈkretsu]; born 18 May 1957) is a Romanian-born German musician, composer and record producer.[1] He gained worldwide fame as the founder and musician behind the musical project Enigma, which he formed in 1990.
Cretu began a music career in 1976 as a solo artist and released numerous studio albums as well as writing and producing albums for his then-wife, German pop singer Sandra. He also worked with artists through the 1980s, including Peter Cornelius, Hubert Kah, and Mike Oldfield.[2] Cretu was sometimes identified as "Curly" or "Curly M.C.", in reference to his curly hair and creț meaning "curly" in Romanian.[3]
Cretu scored an unexpected worldwide commercial hit with the debut Enigma album MCMXC a.D. (1990), helped by its lead single, "Sadeness (Part I)". Cretu continues to produce Enigma albums and singles; the most recent is The Fall of a Rebel Angel (2016), its eighth overall. Enigma has sold an estimated 70 million albums worldwide,[4] Cretu's management company Crocodile-Music stated that Cretu's produced recordings have sold 100 million copies worldwide.[5]
Early life
Cretu was born on 18 May 1957 in Bucharest, Romanian People's Republic, to a Romanian father and Austrian mother. In 1965, he studied the piano and classical music at Colegiul Tehnic Nr. 2 in Bucharest, followed by further study in Paris for five months in 1968.[6][7] Around this time, Cretu wished to pursue a career in pop music after listening to "Golden Slumbers" on Abbey Road (1969) by The Beatles, calling the song "beautiful". After he informed his mother, Cretu recalled: "She goes, 'Aaargh! Disaster! Do you want to end up starving?'"[8] In 1975, Cretu relocated to Bad Homburg, West Germany and studied at the Academy of Music in Frankfurt, where he graduated with a degree in musical composition in 1978.[6] Cretu went on to speak four languages.[8]
Career
1976–1988: Solo career, producer, and early bands
After graduating from the Academy of Music, Cretu remained in West Germany and took up work as a session musician.[8] Among Cretu's first jobs was being taken on as keyboardist and producer for West-German recording artist Frank Farian,[7] and playing keyboards on "Rivers of Babylon" by Boney M.[8] In 1981, Cretu co-formed the West-German new wave band Moti Special with other session players. Their debut album Motivation (1985) contained the single "Cold Days, Hot Nights" which became a hit around Europe.[9] Cretu left the group before they released their second album in 1990.
Cretu's first solo album was released in 1979, titled Moon, Light & Flowers. It contains the singles "Shadows Over My Head" and "Wild River" released in 1978, and "Moonlight Flower" and "Love Me" (the latter two singles became popular hits in the Philippines) from 1979. His second album, Legionäre, was released in 1983 and features German lyrics sung by him.[citation needed] Cretu's third solo album was titled Die Chinesische Mauer and was released in 1985. The literal English translation is The Chinese Wall. As with the second album, it features German lyrics sung by Cretu and is co-produced by Armand Volker. This album was also released as a separate album with English-language lyrics and a different track listing under the name The Invisible Man. Several of the tracks on The Invisible Man were edited slightly and, therefore, had different lengths than the German-language versions on Die Chinesische Mauer. This featured the song "Samurai", which became a hit.[citation needed]
In 1985, Cretu produced, arranged and played the keyboards, drums, and programming on The Long Play (1985), the first studio album from West-German pop singer Sandra. The two began a relationship, and were married in 1988.
He owned the A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza before moving to a new mansion in the Ibiza hills. His former house, near Sant Antoni de Portmany on the western coast of Ibiza, was a Moroccan-style mansion that was designed and built by Bernd Steber and Gunter Wagner in more than nine years. It also featured a new recording studio. The Spanish High Court deemed the house to have been built illegally and in infringement of Spanish environmental regulations which led to the €18 million villa being razed in May 2009.[13][10]
1988–present: Enigma
Cretu was encouraged to pursue a solo project by Oldfield, who was impressed by his studio production skills and musical ideas. This led to the creation of his musical project Enigma, which Cretu said was born from the idea of making music that he himself liked, while bringing in a sense of mysticism.[6] The formation of Enigma involved Fabrice Cuitad, under the alias of David Fairstein, and Frank Peterson. The trio worked together to create their groundbreaking debut single "Sadeness (Part I)", which became a surprise international hit. MCMXC a.D., the album, which was released in 1990, was hugely successful.[14]
Cretu was not surprised by the album's unexpected success, as he recalled telling his wife before its release, "This will be a huge hit or nothing at all".[8] Cretu's style of mixing a variety of musical genres, samples and sounds was very unusual to the ears of the listening public at the time, and led to him being described as an "alchemist in sound".[8]
The second album, The Cross of Changes, was released in 1993. Peterson had disagreements with Cretu by the time of recording and left the project in 1991.[15] Cretu changed Enigma's direction from Gregorian chants to tribal chants for its second album, culminating in its second international hit single "Return to Innocence".[16]
Cretu purposefully reduced the use of Gregorian chants as numerous artists had started to use them in their music, causing "an avalanche of bad copies", but later regarded it as a compliment.[8]
In 1996 Enigma's third album Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! was released. Stylistically, it sounded like a combination of the first and second albums. It did not achieve the same level of success as them, but sold over 1 million copies in the United States and received a Gold certificate in the United Kingdom nonetheless.[18][19]
In 1999 Cretu steered the project in another direction by using samples of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana for the fourth album The Screen Behind the Mirror, released in 2000.[20]Andru Donalds and Ruth-Ann Boyle first appeared as features on this Enigma project. Although Jens Gad had been working with Cretu on the earlier albums, this was the first time that he had been given actual credits.[2]
Cretu continued to record Enigma albums, releasing Voyageur in 2003. Familiar sounds of the Shakuhachi flute, tribal or Gregorian chants were replaced with more commercially-friendly tunes and beat.[21] In March 2006, a new single called "Hello and Welcome" was released in anticipation of another album, A Posteriori.[citation needed]
A Posteriori is the sixth Enigma studio album. It was released on 22 September 2006.[22][23]
Cretu married Sandra on 7 January 1988; together they have twin sons who were born in July 1995.[8] They lived in Ibiza, Spain in a home that also housed A.R.T. Studios, where the Enigma albums were recorded. In November 2007, the couple divorced. The Ibiza home was bulldozed after Cretu lost a legal battle in which he did not obtain planning permission to renovate and build on the site.[10] After the divorce, Cretu remarried.[8] He now lives in Munich.[25]
Cretu became known as an artist who kept a low profile, giving few interviews and avoiding concert tours.[8]
Discography
Solo albums
1979 – Moon, Light & Flowers (re-released in Germany in 1994 as: Ausgewählte Goldstücke)
^ abcAlexander, Mike (5 January 1997). "The Man and the Enigma". Daily Star. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 29 December 2021 – via Enigma Archives.
