Bubblyrat - " Borrowing from Classical Composers " Good idea!I have had a look and it's fantastic what Mudcatters and others do remember resp. find out by googleing.

Alec - I didn't know that Nicole and Nena made in the 80'. Both have had their biggest hits in Germany with these songs: Nicole with "Ein bisschen Frieden" (reached No. 1 in European Song Contest) and Nena with "99 Luftballons". It seems so that english translations come very close to german lyrics. And concerning the Scorpions from Hannover: they are well-known and accepted all over the world for a long time. By the way, they are friends to former chancellor Schröder.

Scrump - do you remember their name (because originally I'm coming from Hamburg)? Do you think of The Rattles, our german "Beatles" in the 60'? Please try to remmber.
"pop songs based on non-classical instrumentals": Maybe thats a good idea to open a new thread. But one should have a look on what we found out so far to make a short synopsis/ summary. This could be a good basis to start this thread/topic. Would you please like to make this short summary of results/outcomes, Scrump? (because your english is much more better than my german english)

Manfred