“Hagen recorded Nunsexmonkrock in New York with a band that included Paul Shaffer and Chris Spedding. To describe it as wild hardly suffices – the drugs-sex-religion-politics-mystical imagery that spills out is nearly incomprehensible in its bag-lady solipsism, but the music and singing combine into an aural bed of nails that carries stunning impact. It almost doesn’t matter that Hagen sticks to English; what counts is the phenomenal vocal drama. Her range seems limitless, and the countless characters she plays makes this fascinating.”
/ The Trouser Press Record Guide (1991) review
of Nina Hagen’s 1982 album Nunsexmonkrock /
“Nina Hagen’s 1982 album NunSexMonkRock is one of the single most ground-breaking and far-out things ever recorded and it deserves to be considered a great - perhaps the very greatest - unsung masterpiece of the post-punk era. I’ll take it even further: To my mind, it’s on the same level as PiL’s Metal Box, Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica or Brian Eno and David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Or The Dreaming by Kate Bush. There I’ve said it … Nunsexmonkrock could have been recorded 40 years ago, yesterday, or a thousand years from now and it just wouldn’t matter.”
/ From Dangerous Minds website /
Unleashed on this day forty years ago (12 June 1982): berserk German punk diva Nina Hagen’s debut solo album and definitive artistic achievement, futuristic 1982 post-punk masterpiece Nunsexmonkrock – hailed by a Rolling Stone reviewer as the "most unlistenable" record ever made. Au contraire! Hagen’s confrontational Exorcist-style vocals and crackpot flights of fancy are (mostly) grounded in experimental but tough and danceable New Wave rock. Opener “AntiWorld” invents an operatic / Biblical / gypsy punk hybrid. “Smack Jack” - her spooky anti-heroin diatribe - nails a sense of junkie panic. "Iki Maska" is anchored to the same Henry Mancini / Peter Gunn guitar riff as “Planet Claire” by the B-52’s. The irresistible “Born in Xixax” bristles with paranoid conspiracy theories predicting World War III but vows, “One day we will be free!” Best of all, the extraterrestrial “Cosma Shiva” marries blaxploitation funk bass with samples of the gurgles and squeals of Hagen’s baby daughter, and concludes with Hagen declaring, “And my little baby, I tell you - God is your father.”
Hagen would go on to make two more fun, interesting records (Fearless (1983) - her foray into disco - and the heavy metal-leaning In Ekstasy (1985)), then seemingly run out of inspiration (which unfortunately didn’t stop her from continuing to record). Four decades later, Nunsexmonkrock still sounds like bleeding-edge science fiction. If any of this tempts you, the album is on Spotify.
It's not exactly "Sing-a-long-a-Nina". I love Fraulein Hagen - a lot! - but at the time this album was overshadowed by such classics as Siouxsie And The Banshees – A Kiss In The Dreamhouse, The Associates - Sulk, Grace Jones – Living My Life, ABC - The Lexicon Of Love and Yazoo - Upstairs At Eric’s, and with the likes of Soft Cell, Human League, Toyah, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Laurie Anderson, Culture Club and Peter Gabriel all also vying for attention, there was little room for a bonkers German eccentric in the mix. Apart from Klaus Nomi and Kraftwerk, of course. Jx
ReplyDeleteMy dear friend, my gay mother, actually, had this album and played it for me. It was a revelation. I was fascinated by the artist and the sound and could not get enough. I also discovered Queen Of Siam around the same time... Lydia Lunch. Became a huge fan. It just kept growing from there. Once you dip your toe in the right pond? You'll want to swim deeper and deeper... thanks for this and for the memories.
ReplyDeleteWe are psychic twins! YES - both Nunsexmonkrock and Queen of Siam are timeless sacred texts!
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