(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover / Berlin)
Sat 4 April 2026 7:00, UK
Given that the 1980s were the ultimate decade for cheesy power ballads, virtually every music fan will have a favourite that they consider to be a guilty pleasure of theirs. For many, that honour goes to Berlin’s ‘Take My Breath Away’. If only Berlin itself felt the same way…
Prior to 1986, the band had only had limited success, releasing a couple of albums but not really enjoying much attention in the charts, and even managing to get an early single of theirs banned from airplay in multiple countries due to its sexually-charged lyrics. ‘Sex (I’m A…)’ could have been Berlin’s avenue into the spotlight through courting controversy, but it was evident that around this time, nobody was particularly fussed about their brand of synthpop and new wave.
However, their third album, 1984’s Love Life, saw the band introduce something of a secret weapon in Giorgio Moroder, who produced the song ‘No More Words’. The track, while still not making earth-shattering waves, became their highest-charting song to date, helping them reach the top 40 in the US for the first time, but ultimately, this partnership with one of the most celebrated producers of the era aided them in their gradual rise.
Vocalist Terri Nunn was overjoyed by the fact that they’d managed to make such a coup by getting Moroder on board, but it came at a cost, both in terms of the finances they had to dig up to pay the Italian hit-maker for his contribution, as well as where it would eventually take them. “We were so excited, but he was so costly we could only afford him for one song,” Nunn later told News Corp Australia in 2016. This would, ultimately, be insignificant compared to the subsequent struggles the band faced as a result of Moroder’s link to the band.
Working with the producer led to another opportunity, although it only came in a roundabout way due to his not being able to achieve the right results with his first choice collaborators. Having been asked to compose the music for action blockbuster Top Gun, Moroder came up with ‘Take My Breath Away’ as a potential theme tune, but hadn’t been able to successfully complete the track with multiple other vocalists such as The Motels’ Martha Davis.
He eventually turned to Nunn, although she acknowledges that she was far from being the ideal candidate. “I was like the fourth or fifth choice, nowhere close to being the first choice,” she explained. “Berlin weren’t big yet. Giorgio hadn’t told me Martha or these other amazing people had already sung it, of course. They really liked my version, I got lucky.”
Of course, given the box office success of the Tom Cruise flick, the theme song ended up being a smash hit for Berlin, but the band’s bassist and co-founder, John Crawford, instantly resented the fact that they’d landed a number one single around the world and won a Grammy Award for a song that they didn’t write. Tensions were already high for a multitude of reasons, but this only elevated the animosity between members.
“‘Take My Breath Away’ came along and that was another reason to fight,” Nunn added. “John was like ‘That’s not our song, we have our own songs’. I said ‘Who cares? It’s Giorgio Moroder, if he farts, I’ll sing it. I love that guy’. We fought about that, then we fought about the fact we had to play it in concerts, John didn’t like that either. We were just fighting to fight.”
The band were unable to follow up the unprecedented success of ‘Take My Breath Away’, perhaps as a result of the fact that they weren’t leaning on the talents of Moroder to write another hit for them, and their next single, ‘Like Flames’, barely scraped its way into the Billboard Hot 100. A poorly received album later in 1986 all but spelt the end for the band, who would eventually part ways the following year.
With Nunn and Crawford forever at loggerheads with one another throughout the episode that brought the band their greatest success, it was a case of knowing where fame and fortune could potentially come from, fighting against the desire to maintain a sense of artistic integrity. In the end, neither party truly won, and although ‘Take My Breath Away’ is a guilty pleasure for many listeners, the price Berlin had to pay for their biggest hit was never having another one.
