Nina Hagen Band

At age 21 Nina Hagen had settled in Hamburg, where she was signed to a CBS-affiliated record label. Her label advised her to acclimatise herself with Western culture through travel, and she quickly arrived in London during the height of the punk rock movement. Hagen was quickly taken up by a circle that included The Slits and Sex Pistols. Hagen discovered new styles of music during her stay in London and became inspired mainly by punk and reggae. She met with Ari Up, the lead singer of the band The Slits and together they wrote the song "Pank", which would later appear on the début Nina Hagen Band album.

Inspired by the London music scene, Hagen returned to West Berlin’s Kreuzberg district mid ’77 and met with members of the band Lokomotive Kreuzberg. Manfred Praeker, Herwig Mitteregger and Bernhard Potschka were joined by Reinhold Heil and along with Hagen they created the Nina Hagen Band. In November 1977, the band signed a two album recording contract with CBS Records. By 1978 they had released their self-titled debut album, Nina Hagen Band, which included the singles "TV-Glotzer" (a cover of "White Punks on Dope" by The Tubes, though with entirely different German lyrics), and "Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo", about West Berlin's then-notorious Berlin Zoologischer Garten station. The album also included a version of "Rangehn" ("Go for It"), a song Nina had previously recorded in East Germany, but with different music.

Using elements of American new wave similar to Patti Smith or Blondie, Hagen was in high demand and the renowned German news magazine, Spiegel, celebrated the band as “one of the hottest European bands since the Sex Pistols.” On the way to becoming an international star, however, Hagen dissolved the band because she felt that guitar solos had become more important than her voice to her accompanists. Hagen finished a second album with the band recording in West Berlin while the vocals were recorded in Los Angeles to fulfill the bands obligation to the record company. Unbehagen, released in 1979, was a success throughout Europe. In the meantime, Hagen’s extensive European media coverage focused more and more on her scandalous lifestyle rather than on her anti-establishment lyrics and music.

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Nina Hagen Band; Nina Hagen Band
1.      TV-Glotzer (White Punks On Dope)
2.      Rangehn
3.      Unbeschreiblich Weiblich
4.      Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo
5.      Naturträne
6.      Superboy
7.      Heiss
8.      Fisch Im Wasser
9.      Auf'm Friedhof
10.    Der Spinner
11.    Pank