Nina in plain english

For fans of Nina Hagen Ekstasy is on the poppier side of her music, which essentially means this album will cause the average Mtv watching teenager's head to explode in about 2 minutes, instead of 20 seconds. Let's make one thing clear, if you're not into giving music (even weird crappy sounding music) a second or third listen, stop reading at this point and buy some elevator music from Madonna or Eminem.

Hagen's style requires a few listens before it changes from random noise to more or less coherent onslaughts of pure creativity coupled with outrageous vocals and lyrics. The music is largery powered by funk, but it's only the foundations for anarchistic selection of musical styles and sounds from synthpop to punk to bubblegum pop.

Universal Radio is one of my favorites, a nicely psychotic pop tune where Nina sounds cuter than ever. She has a marvelously beautiful nasal voice that the likes of Kylie Minogue and Madonna would quite simply die for. Another strong point is Russian Reggae, with an athmospheric chorus, a couple great twists and great guitars. The Lord's Prayer is more chaotic and playful in typical Nina fashion, but pretty much right on target delivering a catchy anarchopop song.

All in all while Ekstasy manages to be just a little more easily approached, it does not lose much of the raw creativity of what makes Nina, in the process. Nina has never made an album that would be a musical masterpiece by strict standards, but among billboard top 40 she is a genius.