Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction
June 08, 2021

Out of time - the story of musical hoaxes

Jan Jelinek

New Directions in Music shared an interesting story about hoaxes in music. The first Klatuu album was widely rumored to be the work of The Beatles upon its release in 1977, which was how it got attention. After it was announced that the band were, in fact, a group of Canadian studio musicians, their subsequent albums missed both the sales and the charts. There's also the story of Ursula Bogner, a completely unknown woman who purportedly created electronic music from 1969-1988, all the while holding down a day job with a large German pharmaceutical company. Her music was compiled by German musician Jan Jelinek. It is now widely believed that Jelinek was actually the one who made the music and even got photographed as Mrs Bogner (he got dressed in women's clothing).