In addition to my yesterday's post I ought to post a story about another formidable German voice. It's about Nina Hagen the daughter of German actress Eva-Maria Hagen and screenwriter Hans Olivia. She had an education in singing in the former GDR and a big hit with Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You've forgotten the colour). Because her mother was engaged with east German dissident Wolf Biermann she was classified as unreliable in the meaning of Stasi. So she settled to west Berlin in 1977 and formed a band. Their first self titled record Nina Hagen Band was one of those records in these days that a lot of people could agree with. She combined the punk attitude of The Tubes (she covered their White Punks On Dope) with classical rock and reggae. and gave her the name of Godmother of Punk. What also was impressing was her voice over four octaves that made her sound so unique. Her second record wasn't bad at all but could not beat her first. After her affair with Hermann Brood and his death on drugs she drifted more and more into a weird world telling us about real existent aliens and stuff like that to turn into a serious reciter of the works of Berthold Brecht.
