The German 80's synth-pop trio ALPHAVILLE - their album Forever young is superb, especially the hit single 'Big In Japan' and 'Summer in Berlin'.
'Big In Japan' were actually a group themselves in Liverpool around 1978/79, who all went on to have fairly successful careers with other bands, most notably Holly Johnson of FGTH.
Alphaville liked this fairly unknown Liverpool band, and decided to write a song named after them, and it became a massive hit in 1984 in a dozen or more countries (No 1 in some countries including Germany, Sweden and Switzerland, and No 8 in UK) at exactly the