Enigma Band History

The more said and written about Enigma, the less it is. You either have heard Enigma, love it, live it, die for it, or you have no idea what Enigma even is.

Conceiving Enigma

Enigma was founded in 1990 by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson. Cretu, born in Romania, is both composer and producer of all Enigma projects. He brought about the Enigma process when in Germany, though all of the bands albums have been recorded in his studio in Ibiza, Spain. Enigma have released 7 albums up to date, their first one "MCMXC a.D." being the most successful one selling more than 22 million copies worldwide.

Michael Cretu was into music much before conceiving Enigma. He had released a few solo albums in the late 1970s and 1980s. But none of them did particularly well. Then came about Enigma in 1990. Cretu adopted the name Enigma as he projected this band as being all about mysteries, unsolved crime and the unknown things of life after death. The literal meaning of Enigma is - "something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained". Most of Enigma's music is driven by Gregorian, Sanskrit and Vedic chants.

The 7 Great Enigma Albums

Year	Album
1990	MCMXC a.D.
1993	The Cross of Changes
1996	Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!
2000	The Screen Behind the Mirror
2003	Voyageur
2006	A Posteriori
2008	Seven Lives, Many Faces

These are the 7 albums released by Enigma till date. Ok! Let's talk about each of them in more detail.

MCMXC a.D.
This groundbreaking album was released in December 1990. It took a total of 8 months to get done and completed. MCMXC a.D. Has managed to see a whopping 22 million copies all over the world. It is most likely that those who bought and heard this first album of theirs became their avid fans. It is like you have to have heard MCMXC a.D. to know what Enigma is all about. That is their base, that is their feel and fragrance. This album bagged 60 platinum-level sales awards from all over the globe. Cretu was skeptical about his earlier solo album failures and so for this first Enigma album he decided to keep his name and also the name of all the crew a mystery. Hence, this album came out as being credited to just Curly M.C.

The Cross of Changes
The Cross of Changes was Enigma's second album. Commercially, it was as huge a success as the first album. Sales soared over 5 million copies even before a year was completed after its release.

Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!
This album, released in 1996 was an offset of the previous two albums. Its English translation meant "The King is dead, long live the King". Unfortunately, this album did not enjoy as much as commercial success as the first 2 albums. But make no mistake, quality wise this was nothing lesser than the older ones, and Michael Cretu has put his heart and soul into getting this album ready too. But due to the drop in sales, a song called "The Roundabout" was not released under this album as originally planned.

The Screen Behind the Mirror
2000 saw the release of the fourth album title - The Screen Behind the Mirror. This album continued the signature Enigma flute music, but the Gregorian chants were done away with a great extent, though not completely. This project has medium commercial success as compared to the earlier ones.

Voyageur
The 2003 release - Voyageur, was something very un-Enigma-like. All the popular signature elements of Enigma was practically scrapped in this album – things like the Gregorian, Sanskrit and Vedic chants, flute, etc. As a result, die-hard Enigma fans were stumped. Frankly speaking they didn't know what hit them. Not many could relate to this new-age Enigma music. The signature stuff of Enigma was sorely missed, and as a result sales dropped drastically worldwide.

A Posteriori
"A Posteriori" was Enigma's sixth album, which came out in 2006. This album was a lot more techno and pop based. It has much more electronic stuff than that of any previous Enigma projects. A DVD version of this album was released at the end of 2006, and had kaleidoscope images synchronized with the music. Again in the mid part of the first half of 2007, a special private lounge remix album version of this album was released on iTunes Music Store. It included around 12 new remixed tracks.

Seven Lives, Many Faces
This was Enigma's seventh album, and was released in September 2008. It is more of a mix of modern and classical elements.

Awards to Enigma

Over the years, Enigma has been presented with countless awards. These are some of the main ones that they received.

• 1 World Music Award
• 3 ECHO Music Awards
• 6 RIAA Gold Awards
• 7 RIAA Platinum Awards
• 8 BPI Platinum Awards
• 100+ Worldwide Platinum Awards

Enigma Band Members

• Michael Cretu
• Andry Donalds
• Margarita Roig
• Sandra Lauer (duration - 1990 to 2003)
• Jens Gad (duration - 1993 to 2003)
• Peter Cornelius (duration - 1990 to 1996)
• David Fairstein (duration - 1990 to 1999)

Enigma managed to bring into the clubs enchanting music along with great beats, a style apart from all other dance and club music. Their music videos too are something apart from the rest. The Enigma band members have never become well known celebrities in their own right, reason being the band never really promoting any person outright. But instead as a collective band they have enjoyed success that very few other bands have even come close to.

Enigma has worked under the labels of Virgin, EMI and Charisma. Their music genres include electronic, new age, worlbeat, and downtempo. The instruments mainly used by them are the sampler, drum machine, synthesizer, keyboard and Korg M1. We can go on and on about the Enigma band history, but still never get enough of their magic. And for all those who are wondering what is next! Michael Cretu is working on some singles and the next complete album. So let's wait and watch. Till then we can always enjoy their evergreen work from the past.