Unity

Album review

Nina Hagen’s 14th solo album (after a twelve-year hiatus) is her own unique take on a biblical celebration of love, solidarity and Christian charity. At 67, the German punk legend has no intention of slowing down and continues to use her creative madness and her famous five-octave vocal range as a prayer to help unite humanity. Produced by her faithful arranger and guitarist Warner Poland, Unity reviews all the ills of our time, starting with police violence against people from the black community in the title track. Echoing a voice from beyond the grave, Nina Hagen even quotes Coretta Scott King’s famous ‘Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it – in every generation!’. She also advocates for disarmament in ‘Atomwaffensperrvertrag’, criticises the excesses of capitalism in ‘Geld, Geld, Geld’, and delivers a feminist anthem in ‘United Women of the World’. In short, the Nina Hagen of 2022 is more dedicated than ever.

The album also includes a few covers in the same political vein, such as ‘Redemption Day’, originally sung by Sheryl Crow and later Johnny Cash, which denounces the American ‘wait-and-see’ attitude at the start of the Bosnian conflict in 1996. Then there’s ‘16 Tons’, an American country-folk classic from 1947 that focuses on the violence of daily life for miners in Kentucky. By modernising these revolutionary songs, Nina Hagen wants to prove that they’re very much still relevant today. By combining militant struggles and musical audacity with such power, she proves that she’s still worthy of her reputation as being the diva of the punk scene. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz