Artist · chart history · #256 in alternative artist polls
Nina Hagen
Solo artist Berlin Germany
Nina Hagen is an artist from Berlin. Nina Hagen has 4 chart appearances on 4 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 1985–1990. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “N.Y. N.Y.”, which appears on 1 list with a best position of #318. The station that charted Nina Hagen most often is Live 105 (San Francisco, CA), with 3 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1985.
Nina Hagen, born in East Berlin in 1955, sings like a one-woman theater troupe, swooping from a guttural growl to a shriek within a single line. She started out acting in German films alongside her mother, Eva-Maria Hagen, and around the same time she fronted Automobil and cut the schlager single "Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen". When East Germany stripped her stepfather Wolf Biermann of his citizenship in 1976, she followed him west to Hamburg, landed a deal with CBS and formed the Nina Hagen Band.
That group's self-titled debut in late 1978 was a critical and commercial smash, moving more than 250,000 copies, but after one more album, Unbehagen, the band broke up in 1979. She went solo on CBS with NunSexMonkRock in 1982, her first record to chart in America, then Fearless in 1983, with her gleefully unhinged "New York New York", and a 1985 album carrying "Universal Radio". She is known as the Godmother of German Punk, and she earned it.
Mercury picked her up in 1989 for three albums, and she came roaring back with Return of the Mother in 2000. She has also written three autobiographies, worked as a voice-over actress and campaigned for human and animal rights.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Nina Hagen on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | N.Y. N.Y. | 1 | #318 | – | – | |
| 2 | New York New York | 1 | #214 | – | – | |
| 3 | Universal Radio | 1 | #80 | – | 1985 |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 214 | New York New York | Live 105 Top 300 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1990) |
| 1989 | 81 | Artist ranking | Live 105 Top 105 Artists of All-Time (1989) |
| 1988 | 318 | N.Y. N.Y. | Live 105 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1988) |
| 1985 | 80 | Universal Radio | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1985 |
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