Synth-pop is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late 1970s.
A Flock of Seagulls are an English new wave band formed in Liverpool in 1979. The group, whose best-known line-up comprised Mike Score, Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds, hit the peak of their chart success in the early 1980s.
Catharina "Nina" Hagen is a German singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her theatrical vocals and rise to prominence during the punk and Neue Deutsche Welle movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She is known as "The Godmother of German Punk".
Cosma Shiva Hagen is a German actress. Although she speaks English, her acting roles have been largely confined to German-language films and television productions. She also starred in an Irish film called Short Order (2005).
Vanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos, known professionally as Lio, is a Portuguese-Belgian singer and actress who was a pop icon in France and Belgium during the 1980s.
The Tubes is the debut studio album by The Tubes. Songs which received significant airplay from this album include "What Do You Want from Life?" and "White Punks on Dope", the latter of which peaked at number 28 on the UK singles chart. The album was dedicated to Bob McIntosh and Tom Donahue.
Paul Roessler is an American musician and record producer. Roessler was a prominent member of the L.A. punk scene during the late 1970s and 1980s. He played keyboards in bands such as The Screamers, Twisted Roots, 45 Grave, Nervous Gender, SAUPG, Geza X and the Mommymen, Mike Watt and the Secondmen, Nina Hagen and The Deadbeats. Roessler has also released solo recordings such as "Abominable," "Curator," "The Arc," "6/12," "Match Girl," The Turning of the Bright World,""Burnt Church The Opera" with Jeff Parker, and a four double album set "The Drug Years." He currently works as a record producer at Kitten Robot Studios in Los Angeles, California. He is the older brother of Kira Roessler, formerly of Black Flag, and the son of underwater photographer Carl Roessler.
Nina Hagen in Ekstasy is the third solo studio album by German singer Nina Hagen. It was released on January 10, 1985, by CBS Records. The German version of the album Nina Hagen in Ekstase was released simultaneously. It was Hagen's last album released on the CBS label, before her recording contract expired in 1986. The album is mainly produced by Adam Kidron and was recorded in Ibiza and Paris. Hagen worked with Karl Rucker and Billy Liesegang and wrote most of the songs on the album. Unlike her previous disco-influenced album Fearless (1983), Nina Hagen in Ekstasy is musically more punk rock with elements of dance music. It contains cover versions of Frank Sinatra's "My Way" and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky".
Fearless is the second solo studio album by German singer Nina Hagen. It was released in November 1983 by CBS Records. The German version of the album entitled Angstlos was also released. Produced by Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey, the album was a major musical departure from her previous mostly new wave material. Unlike her experimental album NunSexMonkRock (1982), Fearless is a dance-pop album with influence of disco. It also incorporates other genres such as hip hop.
Unbehagen is the second studio album by Nina Hagen Band, released in 1979 by CBS Records. It is the last album released by the band, before Nina Hagen decided to pursue a solo career. The band kept on performing under the name Spliff.
Nina Hagen Band is the debut studio album by Nina Hagen Band. It was released in late 1978 by CBS Records. It first entered the Official Albums Chart in Germany on 20 November 1978. It was the first release by German singer Nina Hagen after her 1976 expatriation from East Germany. When she arrived in Hamburg, her stepfather and singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann got her in touch with CBS. Hagen traveled to London where she was introduced to music genres such as punk and reggae, and befriended other artists including Ari Up of the band The Slits. After she returned to Germany, she met with musicians Herwig Mitteregger, Bernhard Potschka and Manfred Praeker. Joined by Reinhold Heil, they formed the Nina Hagen Band and in November 1977 signed a record deal with CBS. Nina Hagen Band was produced by the band with additional production by Tom Müller and Ralf Nowy. Most of the songs had been already written by Hagen in East Germany.
14 Friendly Abductions is a "best of" compilation album by Nina Hagen, released in 1996. AllMusic rated it 4 1/2 out of 5.
Live in Krefeld by Nina Hagen was recorded at Kulturfabrik in Krefeld and released in 2001.
"Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen" is a pop and schlager single written by Michael Heubach (music) and Kurt Demmler (lyrics). It was first performed by East German (GDR) singer Nina Hagen and her band Automobil, released in 1974 prior to Hagen's punk career. The song depicts a young girl scolding her boyfriend for forgetting to bring the colour film for their camera while on vacation.
"TV-Glotzer" is a song by Nina Hagen Band, first released in 1978 by CBS Records and later, on 29 August 1979, released in United Kingdom. The song is a cover of "White Punks on Dope" by The Tubes, with different German lyrics from the perspective of an East German unable to leave her country, who escapes by watching West German television, where "everything is so colorful". Hagen wrote the song before being expatriated from East Germany in 1976, following her stepfather Wolf Biermann. Later, when she formed the Nina Hagen Band in the West Berlin, they recorded the song and it became the lead single from their debut album Nina Hagen Band (1978).
"Smack Jack" is a song by German singer Nina Hagen released in 1982 by CBS Records as a lead single from her debut solo album NunSexMonkRock. It deals with a drug addiction and is actually written by Hagen's Dutch ex-boyfriend and father of her daughter Cosma Shiva, Ferdinand "Ferdi" Karmelk, who was a heroin addict and later died of AIDS in 1988. It is Hagen's second song addressing this theme after her 1979 song "Herrmann Hiess Er", which is believed to be about her ex-boyfriend Herman Brood. The music video for the song shows Hagen dressed as a man with two of her other transformations dancing in the background and singing the chorus.
Spliff was a Neue Deutsche Welle rock band, active in the 1980s. Three of the members were already playing together in the political rock cabaret Lokomotive Kreuzberg before they were 'adopted' by Nina Hagen when she came to West Germany in 1977. They recorded two albums with her as the Nina Hagen Band before continuing under the name Spliff when Hagen went solo. Their characteristic sound was a mix of electronic music, reggae and punk rock. They recorded "The Spliff Radio Show" in 1980, their only album in English. After parting ways with vocalist Alf Klimek, the remaining members carried on in German sharing vocals between all four of them. Their album 85555 however was released in a limited English edition too. They had major hits on the German singles chart with "Carbonara", "Das Blech" and "Déjà vu". Despite their influential status, the band was short-lived.
Black Eye is the only full-length studio album by the English punk rock band Fluffy, released in 1996 by The Enclave. It was recorded at Metropolis Studios in London and produced by punk rock veteran Bill Price, who had recorded albums by Sex Pistols and The Clash. The album was recorded live in the studio and the music was not arranged by the producer in order to achieve a rough, live sound. The record contains loud punk songs that explore social issues such as sex and abuse.
Videosex was a Yugoslav synth-pop band formed in Ljubljana in 1982.
"White Punks on Dope", abbreviated as "WPOD", is a 1975 song by San Francisco-based rock group The Tubes from their debut album, produced by Al Kooper. The song was written by the band's dual lead guitarists, Bill Spooner and Roger Steen with Michael Evans. It has been called an "absurd anthem of wretched excess", ridiculing the rich and famous offspring of Hollywood elite. The song became the group's rock anthem and spectacular closing number to their elaborate stage shows. The band developed a cult-like fan base that has followed them for decades.
