Biography
Catharina “Nina” Hagen was born March 11, 1955, in (communist) East Berlin. An opera prodigy by age 9, a pop star in East Germany by age 17, she emigrated to West Berlin by age 21. Rumors have it that she was kicked out for being too “punk rock”. The Urban myth is false, but the reality, in spirit? Close enough.
Nina Hagen has since become a household name in most of Europe, as a singer-songwriter-actress with a reputation ranging as wide as her 5-octave vocal prowess, from the “scandalously lunatic, unlistenable freak” to the “inspiring diva-divine goddess of music” (die-hard devotees choose a version of the latter “descriptive”, in various languages…).
By 1983, “the Mother of Punk” had Giorgio Moroder producing her fourth LP, Fearless, a fearlessly un-punk album, and too strange to dub as a purely pop/new-wave record. It yielded a Top 10 12” night club dance track in the U.S., Nina’s original “New York, New York”, opera chops intact.
Ten years earlier, Nina’s commercial career began with Automobil, with a big hit in East Germany (yes,in the formerly Soviet-controlled Eastern “GDR” Bloc of Germany), “Du hast den Farbfilm Vergessen”. Translation: “You Forgot the Colour Film”. This 1974 song wasn’t “punk”, but its lyrics? An ambiguously clear metaphor, a clever jab at the constraining drab “gray” of wall-bound East Germany. Luckily the Soviet authorities did not execute Nina nor Automobil’s musicians for such subversion. The music was and remains just too … musical. It even has a video, sort of…
“The Mother of Punk"? Nina’s prominence in the punk and new wave “scenes” of the late 1970s and early 1980s began in earnest with 1978’s “The Nina Hagen Band”.
Since then, Nina’s colorful, prolific career, including film and stage acting, on-camera political/religious zeal (particularly as a “Talk Show” personality), and sought-after “guest vocalist” (many, many songs by varied and numerous acts feature Nina’s vocals) has, in the U.S., been relegated to that of a 3-album cult artist, if measured by American label-support. Youtube, drenched with official and unofficial-Nina Hagen cornucopias, does her “influence” far more justice …
Albums available in the U.S. (as non-import, e.g. on iTunes and U.S. flavoured streaming sites) include her insane-alternative-WTF 1982 NunSexMonkRock (originally on CBS Records), her 2001 “comeback” album, Return of the Mother, and her Christian-blues-alterna-country-gospel-covers album, 2010’s Personal Jesus.
Nina’s repertoire of 15 studio albums includes her 1999 double album of Vedic chanting Om Namah Shivay, released for charity.
Generally, her “spiritual” nature is often conveyed in her music. Was “Personal Jesus” a “devotional” religious switch from Shiva, et al? Was she really abducted by benevolent extraterrestrial aliens? Is she a “prophet” or a “wack-job”? Is she a “real” nut-case, versus a phony-media-grabber, preaching didactic “conspiracy”-type theories and political views to fuel the P.R. of her “character”? Answer: probably not, given her intensely comical and serious persona is anti-establishment, and anti-record labels. Does that makes her a “true” artist?
She’s the mother of punk, so what the funk?.
