Michael Learns to Rock (MLTR) is a Danish soft rock band formed in 1988. The band currently consists of Jascha Richter, Mikkel Lentz and Kåre Wanscher. Søren Madsen was an original member of the group since its formation but left in 2000. The band has sold over 11 million records over the course of their career, with the majority sold in Scandinavia and Asia. Despite being Danish, the band performs songs in English. The band has attributed its success in Asia to their drug-free, clean-living image, and to singing in English as a second language.
MLTR has earned gold and platinum status for records in many countries and won many awards, including the Gold Preis Award from RSH, Germany and "The Best Performing Act of the Year" at the SEA Grammy Awards in Singapore. In addition, their song "Take Me to Your Heart" was awarded "most downloaded single of the year 2006" with 6 million or more paid downloads. The band has recorded nine studio albums as well as a number of live and greatest hits albums. Their latest studio album, Still, was released on 21 March 2018.
During the peak of their popularity in the mid and late 1990s, MLTR was described by critics as being "as good (if not better) a band as any current big name group out of America or the UK or the Australia." Jowu Entertainment & Media Ltd Retrieved 14 March 2010 According to the band's record label releases, their sound is "the perfect balance of a Scandinavian glow and the international pop song that has been instrumental in forming the compelling sound of the band", although the lead singer and songwriter, Jascha Richter, disagrees with this, maintaining that the music defies geographical categorization.
History Formation (1988–1992) In 1988, singer Jascha Richter with the intent of forming a band to perform his songs, asked his high school friend and drummer Kåre Wanscher in Aarhus, Denmark to perform with him. Realizing the limitations of playing as a duo, they recruited the guitarist Mikkel Lentz, who was then playing rock music with his group the Rocking Studs. On 15 March 1988, their first night of practice made them realize they needed a fourth musician, so they asked Søren Madsen, another guitarist who was into Led Zeppelin, to join in on bass guitar. Although Madsen was not an obvious choice for a pop band, he was invited on the basis that he had been part of the band Hip Hop that had reached the finals of a Danish competition to nominate a song to the Eurovision Song Contest.
Since Richter already had a number of original songs, eliminating the need to jam, they were able to quickly record a demo tape intending it to be sent to the 'Rock Grand Prix' competition in their hometown Aarhus, they had to hurriedly come up with a name before posting it; Richter wrote as the name of the sender 'Michael Learns to Rock', partly inspired by a line from his school English textbook and partly because they were a pop band taking part in a rock concert. Lentz and Richter have admitted that the band was named after Michael Jackson: "I think Richter was thinking of Michael Jackson, because he was called 'the king of pop' and it was kind of funny, because it was like, what would he sound like if he learned to rock? It was wordplay," Lentz has stated. Richter claimed in an interview: "Yeah, it was like Johnny Hates Jazz and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Sure, I've regretted calling ourselves this many times since, but we were successful so quickly, we had to stick with it and over time I got used to it."
On 22 May 1988, the quartet played their first public show in Aarhus in 'Rock Grand Prix' at Aarhus's biggest venue, Ridehuset. As one of the two winning teams, MLTR performed that summer at the Aarhus Outdoor Festival on 20 June, however, only 20 people turned up. The disappointment was offset by a daily newspaper, Information, describing the unknown group as "an immensely positive surprise". On 30 July 1988, the group entered and won the city's famed annual talent shows 'We Have The Stage – Do You Have The Music?' at Aarhus Musikhus.
Jens Peter (J.P.) Andersen, a member of the contest jury as well as a promoter of Danmarks Smukkeste Festival (literally, "Denmark’s Most Beautiful Festival") at Skanderborg, was impressed with the band's talent but was somewhat annoyed at their lack of professionalism, so he decided to become the band's manager, at the band's request. Michael Learns to Rock continued playing live throughout Jutland and recording material in order to attract the attention of Danish record labels. One of these efforts included the band contributing four tracks for the double album Secrets, a record organised by the Danish Rock Council to create interest in four talented but 'secret' new bands. They finally signed a record deal with the Danish label Medley in January 1989. Thai Ticket major Retrieved 30 September 2010 However, the band did not release their first album, Michael Learns to Rock, until September 1991, backed by the American record label Impact Records and with much of the album including the first American single, "My Blue Angel", mixed and produced by the American producers Tony Peluso and Steve Barri. discogs.com Retrieved 30 September 2010
Although not making any headway as intended in America despite airplay for "My Blue Angel", which did peak at #70 on the Cash Box Top 100, a later single (the second in Denmark after "I Still Carry On") from the album, "The Actor", topped the Danish chart and also did well in Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. In January 1992, the album topped the Danish charts, followed soon after by success in Asia, selling 25,000 copies and earning gold status in Indonesia alone.
International breakthrough (1993–1996) Encouraged by the performance of their first album, Michael Learns to Rock released a second album, Colours, in October 1993 which sold over 1.1 million records. The album included the singles "Sleeping Child", "25 Minutes" and "Out of the Blue". The band toured Asia for the first time. At the Phoebus Concert Hall in Bangkok they played to their largest audience until then of 12,000 people. The performance of this album coupled with the band's live performances resulted in the band receiving 'The Best Performing Act of the Year' award in 1994 at SEA Grammy Awards in Singapore for their performance of "25 Minutes", followed by the 'Gold Preis' from the German radio station RSH (Radio Schleswig-Holstein) in 1995 for radio hits such as "Wild Women'" and "25 Minutes". Bali News Retrieved 30 September 2010
In August 1995, Michael Learns to Rock's third album Played on Pepper was released, selling more than 1.2 million units. Tracks in this album included "That's Why (You Go Away)" and "Someday". For the first time, the band recorded and produced the whole album themselves. Mirror magazine. To promote the album, the group performed 25 shows in ten countries. The release of this album also increased the band's presence in hitherto untapped markets like Brazil, South Africa, the UAE and eleven countries in the Far East, including Japan.
To capitalize on the success of Played on Pepper and to curb piracy, Michael Learns to Rock released the greatest hits album Paint My Love in October 1996, primarily in Asia; the album sold 3.4 million copies. The song, "Paint My Love", is an English version of "Kun med dig" by Danish singers Dorthe Andersen and Martin Loft, which was composed by Jascha Richter. The band was also chosen as the headliner for the 'Celebrate Hong Kong' concert on 6 July 1997, marking the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. The album also topped the charts in South Africa with sales of more than 350,000 copies in South Africa alone.
Mainstream success in Asia (1997–1999) They released their fourth studio album, Nothing to Lose, was released in September 1997, and also sold more than 1.1 million copies. In an incident that showcased Michael Learns to Rock's popularity in Asia, 20,000 fake tickets were sold (more than twice the number of real ones) for a concert in Hanoi, Vietnam, in December 1997 and while the concert was on, those outside with fake tickets tried to break into the concert hall through the windows causing riot police to be deployed. The band travelled to South Africa in January 1998, playing sell-out concerts in Johannesburg and Pretoria, consequently taking Nothing to Lose to the top of the charts in South Africa.
Soon after, the band's members took a break to spend time with their families and to develop projects on their own or in collaboration with other performers. They also decided to re-brand the band under the simpler name of MLTR.Allan Lykke Poulsen, "Nu hedder vi MLTR", Ekstra Bladet, 20 May 1999 During the break, Richter wrote some new songs for the band, one of which is "Strange Foreign Beauty" that was later added to the 1999 greatest hits album Greatest Hits – Strange Foreign Beauty. In a process undertaken by MLTR for the first time, the song was made by compiling the best details from recordings of ideas made individually by the four members. This album included their previous hits, either remixed or refined in some way by notable international producers such as Chris Lord-Alge (for "Someday", "Something You Should Know" etc.), Cutfather & Joe (for "Sleeping Child") and the Swedish producer Per Magnusson (for the MLTR top hit "The Actor'")."Michael Learns To Rock udsender den 19. maj et »Greatest Hits«-album", Berlingske Tidende, 7 May 1999 This greatest hits album went to the top of the Danish sales charts (the second MLTR album after their first album to do so), as well in Sweden and Portugal, and logged sales of nearly a million copies.
Continuing as a trio (2000–2006) In 2000, Søren Madsen decided to leave the group to embark on a solo career. The remaining three members set themselves the challenge of pursuing a sound different from that of their previous albums and thus produced the album Blue Night, which almost went platinum in Denmark and sold well in Asia, with sales over one million. The following year a biography of MLTR, Something You Should Know written by Poul Martin-Bonde, was published along with a few previously unreleased recordings. The English translation of the book was called It Never Rains on Bali, a reference to an incident that took place during the band's 1995 Bali concert, where a no-rain forecast proved wrong and the unexpected rain stopped the concert.
After the release of Blue Night, the band took a prolonged break, with Richter working on his solo album Planet Blue. The band later admitted that they even considered disbanding during this time. They ultimately decided against it, following the success of their greatest hits album releases, including 19 Love Songs / Love Ballads in 2002, which went to number 2 in Denmark.
In 2004, the band regrouped again, departing from the name MLTR, and using the original name for their sixth album called Michael Learns to Rock, released in Asia as Take Me to Your Heart. The album focused on the Asian market. The single "Take Me to Your Heart" was a remake of Jacky Cheung's "Goodbye Kiss" ("吻别"), and was popular in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan. By the end of 2006 alone, the single created a record when it sold over 6 million paid downloads and was awarded the "Most Downloaded Single of the Year 2006". MLTR sang an English and Chinese duet of "Take Me to Your Heart" with the Chinese singer Hu Yanbin at a 2005 New Year's Party in Guangzhou, China. The band also sang the song with the South Korean star Shin Hye-sung, lead vocalist of the famous boy band Shinhwa. This album has been one of the major successes of MLTR in Asia, especially China. Billboard- Google Books Retrieved 14 March 2010
Independent label; MLTR Music (2007–2013)