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EIGHTIES NATION — An Internet-based musician covered 1980s hit "99 Luftballoons" (or "99 Red Balloons") using nothing more than actual red balloons, and it’s making all your 80s dreams come true.
Andrew Huang is an Internet-made musician who not only takes his music seriously, but he also takes the time to make seriously silly videos. In fact, you may know him from his uber-silly 2010 viral video called Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows, but he also makes more serious forays into rap and dubstep.
Additionally, Huang takes music challenge suggestions from his fans to further showcase his lighter side and creativity. And with this video challenge, he shows massive creativity and some serious hours of dedication to play Nena’s 80s hit "99 Luftballoons," if you like the song in German, or "99 Red Balloons," if you prefer English.
He teases the tune and percussion out of the balloons with pulls, rubs, slaps, thumps and squeezes, into an incredibly textured cover of the song. Imagine the hours it must have taken to build the muscle memory to eek out the tune only using air escaping a balloon.
Huang states in the video description that he considered using 99 balloons, but “it worked with four so mehhh.”
So pull on your leg warmers, channel your inner Molly Ringwald and relive all your 80s dreams. Well, all your 80s dreams that involved red balloons.