Nina Hagen - Punk Priestess Style Icon

I remember watching Nina Hagen perform live at Rock In Rio in the mid-80's and she was the belle of the ball, total media darling and fan favorite. She wore a waist-length red ponytail, a fitted black corset bodysuit, fishnet stockings and a thong which front part was the head of a stuffed toy puppy. She had the crowd going with her trade-mark sound, a mix of falsettos, primal growls and Betty Boop-esque singing (inner) voices. She was fresh, fearless and a great inspiration to dare to be who you want to be, not giving a damn to any status quo.

Born in East Germany, Nina Hagen had already gained a reputation as a flamboyant rock singer by the time she emigrated to the West in 1976, where she formed a band, signed to CBS Germany, and released their debut album, Nina Hagen Band, in 1978. It was followed in 1980 by Unbehagen. Hagen's first U.S. release, Nina Hagen Band EP (1980), was a four-song EP consisting of songs drawn from her two German releases. She moved to New York and made her first English-language LP, Nunsexmonkrock, in 1982. That and its follow-up, the Giorgio Moroder-produced Fearless (1983), charted briefly, and "New York New York" was a Top Ten dance club hit.

The B-52's New Album: Funplex

I just found out that one of my favorite 1980's party bands The B-52's has a new album coming out on March 25TH, their first in 16 years! The new album is titled "Funplex" and I just can't wait to hear it!! I saw them perform live only once in the mid 80's at Rock in Rio music festival and they were just awesome. I was watching The Family Guy a couple of weeks ago and I can't remember why but Peter Griffin was humming Rock Lobster. Love it!

80's Flashback: The B-52's Look

Say what you may, but the 1980's produced some of the most original artists and music of the last century. I look at all these new wannabe bands, trying so hard to be hip & cool, and they don't even come close to the true visionaries that were making history 25 years ago. Avril Lavigne is a "punk"? Give me a break! One of the most original groups to come out of the post-punk scene were The B-52's. I can't recall exactly when I first connected the music to the name but I do remember the summer of 83, then just a "young" teenager, getting down to "Rock Lobster" at a high school dance. They had the best look in my opinion and their album covers were just awesome. I still listen to The B-52's to this day as their sound never got old or dated in my opinion. I loved everything New Wave and was quite a dresser myself . The B-52's were a big inspiration for my "fashions" and I traced their looks countless times on my sketch books. Maybe in the future I will get to scan some pictures and post some of my personal outfits from that time, but you have to promise not to laugh!

A little bio about this great band:

The B-52's are a New Wave rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1976. Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson formed the band with drummer Keith Strickland, guitarist Ricky Wilson (Cindy's older brother) and vocalist Fred Schneider after a drunken night at a Chinese restaurant and played their first gig in 1977 at a St. Valentine's Day party for friends. The B-52's sound is marked by the vocals and lush harmonies of Wilson and Pierson, and the generally spoken-word vocals of Schneider. The band's quirky take on the New Wave sound of their era was a combination of dance and surf music set apart by the unusual guitar tunings used by Ricky Wilson. Their costumes - thrift-store chic - set them apart as well, not to mention their notorious bouffant wigs. The band's name comes from a particular beehive hairdo that is wrapped around, instead of teased, with an open "hole" in the top resembling the nose cone of the WWII bomber airplane of the same name. During their early years, wigs of that style were often worn by the band's female singers Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson.

The beehive-shaped hairdo was emblematic of working-class chic in the early 1960s. The style originated in the USA in 1958 as one of a variety of elaborately teased and lacquered versions of big hair that mutated from earlier pageboy and bouffant styles. It was adopted in Britain shortly after, typically worn with pastel colours, taffeta and stilettos. By the mid 1960s the beehive was out of fashion, but probably subconsciously influenced the later more modest conical cuts and bouffants worn by mod girls. The beehive has continued to fascinate connoisseurs and revivalists of 1960s kitsch, like The B-52's.

Greatest Hits @ V Magazine

Great editorial from V Magazine by photographer Sebastian Kim & styled by Michelle Cameron. It reminds of the great British magazines from the mid 80's like Blitz and The Face, that I used to collect in my teens and still have them in piles at my parent's home in Rio. The images capture to a tee the New Romantic/New Wave look that was so hot at the time. Memories of androgynous Steve Strange and early Boy George come to mind looking in some of these over made-up face. Love it!

Via V Magazine

Favorite Album Covers - Volume 2

The joy and excitement of buying a new record is sadly in the past. Unless you are a professional DJ, or a music purist, the large format vinyl albums are no longer part of our current music purchases. Probably pretty soon CDs will be also be seen as relics, as digital music downloads substitute the old-fashioned walk-in record stores.

I recall getting home from Modern Sound, in Copacabana, with a spanking new Blondie album in the mid 80's. The image of Debbie Harry in leopard skin and lioness hair on the cover of "The Hunter" will stay tattooed in my memory forever. The smell of a freshly open "import", like a new toy, is something you do not forget. Holding a record cover, the glossy large image, printed in sturdy carton paper is incomparable to a tiny CD's cover art. I always waited in anticipation wondering how the pull-out insert would be. Would there be lyrics (a must)? More photographs? And what about a DOUBLE album? I envied my older sister for owning the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack as it looked so immense, foreign, fascinating, to my pre-teen eyes.

Here are a few more iconic images from album covers that made history. Most are personal choices, along with a couple of reader's suggestions. If you have a favorite one let me know. Write in a suggestion in the comment box and it might show up here on the next "volume".

Favorite Classic Album Covers - Volume 1

What can I say? I'm a product of the 80's and that was the decade that produced some of the best music and original fashion in history, in my humble & biased opinion. These chicks here rocked! They were tough, talented and born with enough attitude to turn the "Britneys" of today into dust with a single glance of the eye. Annie, Pat, Joan and Nina are women you don't mess with and these album covers prove they were not here to play. These are just a few of my favorites and not the final list, as I have plenty more in storage. Suggestions will be gladly welcomed!