Schnatterinchen, two octaves lower
Avant-garde of all conspiracy conjurers: Nina Hagen
Quelle: picture alliance/dpa/REWIKA PROMOTION/GABO
She has the shrillest and most beautiful voice in German pop. But Nina Hagen is not getting any younger either. Can the eternal punk siren still sing at all? A vocal analysis by our opera critic on the occasion of their new album “Unity”.
VExactly one year ago, she and her unforgettable color film had even become state-supporting, chancellor compatible and staff band arrangement-capable at the ice-cold Merkel farewell tattoo in Berlin’s Bendlerblock. Together with Hildchen Knef and a church chorale. And now Nina Hagen is here with a new album. The first in eleven years and only the ninth of her, well, tortuous career.
True to the spirit of Christmas, it’s called “Unity” and the record was released on Herbert Grönemeyer’s Grönland Records label. But “unity” can be said of the usual chaotic, irradiated 67-year-old as the creative middle link in the women’s trio of her recently deceased mother Eva-Maria and her daughter Cosma-Shiva – of unity can’t really be said of the Teutonic Queen of Shrillness and Godmother of Punk be the talk. Even in the twelve songs, some of which were released earlier, which end very forgivingly comfortably with “It Doesn’t Matter Now” in a duet with Bob Geldof, only one thing is clear again: This weird classy woman certainly can’t be pinned down to one style .
There is code against the “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, there is the eternal brat Nina country bliss with cover versions of Merle Travis (“16 Tons”) and Sheryl Crow (“Redemption Day”). Or moved with peace with “The wind alone knows the answer” as a versatile icon between Bob Dylan-Genuschel and Marlene Dietrich diva bass. The title song “Unity” was released in 2020 as Nina Hagen’s answer to the death of African American George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement; with radio great George Clinton providing assistance.
And even if the voice of the ufo-seeking esoteric, Buddhist, Protestant, scandal noodle has dropped a few octaves due to age and lifestyle, sounds rough and limited in volume, it still sounds unmistakably like Nina Hagen.
Kitchen beater with loose contact
She had never cared about anything, least of all her reputation. Sometimes pop snout, then pop screeching ball again, art music artist, very funny but also competent Mireille Mathieu impersonator, in a duet with Nana Mouskouri, as street mutt Brecht diseuse, on the “Personal Jesus” trip, in “folk beat” mode or with giant vibrato as the Ufa siren on the Zarah Leander runway – for a long time Nina Hagen’s vocal cords seemed to know no bounds. The coloratura squeaked, the scat singing wobbled, it purred like Shir Khan and at some point the weird saber-toothed tiger was let out of the clay tank. And so the new opus is more of a colorful magic bag than a bouquet of concept songs.
Then the “Venus flytrap” clattered, then she denounced “thought crimes”, then the three youths entered Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace with biblical fury, and Nina nagged for “money, money, money”. Unfortunately, the days of death-defying prima donna flights and never-ending cadenza capers are over, but the beautiful leftover material is still carefully tinkered with sound and sharpened in a feminist way. That sounds either like Looney Tunes on speed, like a kitchen beater with a loose connection or a crackling witch’s broom. And there is also a children’s choir between reggae waves.
Hagen, in the funky sound maze between conspiracy-theoretical avant-garde and backward-looking, dub prophetess and Weimar Republic Sibyl, Schnatterinchen and devil’s grandmother, she just doesn’t want to grow up, prefers to play the unworthy punk granny balladesque and still slurps dreamily into her CD -Aim: as Marianne of Singer-Solidarity and eternal, glittery bridled circus horse in the pop arena. Unlike the others, that’s how she always was, that’s how she will stay. And somehow she apparently even loves Angela Merkel for it.
Nina Hagen: „Unity“ (Gönland Records)