Happy birthday Nina!

 

Nina Hagen is an internationally recognized UFO, there’s no way other way to describe that once-in-a-generation phenomenon that is, to this day, the iconic German punk-rock singer. And there are many reasons for that singular trajectory that was hers… Starting with where and when she was born: East Berlin in the 1950’s. This meant that the young lady grew up at the heart of the Cold War — with a front seat to the whole show. Her mother, a successful East German actress once dubbed the Brigitte Bardot of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), had the young Nina also star in several movies with her. Around that time, however, she embarked on another artistic endeavour of her own as she joined the band Automobil, releasing the classic East-German (semi-)protest song “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen”…

That first Eart-German era proved to be short-lived, though: her actress mother eventually found herself out of a job because her then-partner, musician Wolf Biermann, was violently opposing the politics of the country. This led Nina Hagen to relocate to West Germany, as her stepfather was forced out of the GDR and resettled in Hamburg — another culturally thriving Germany city. There, she formed her own band, the aptly named Nina Hagen Band, releasing a massively successful self-titled debut album back in 1978. The Nina Hagen legend started coalescing…

In the decades that followed, the singer, as a bandleader first then mostly as a solo artist, created for herself a musical universe that is quite unique: a blend of punk ethos, rock music mixed up with lyrical influences leading to a sound that can instantly be recognized by the listener — be they not German-speaking. Beyond the music, though, her persona added a lot to the overall experience: a loud, outspoken, feminist, avant-garde, pioneer of a woman, she routinely pushed the envelope and challenged the status quo of her times. She once famously explained the intricacies of female masturbation on live Austrian TV…

So here is to a true iconoclast and world-class artist… Happy birthday Nina Hagen!