Customer Reviews

Die Grossen Erfolge

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This CD is absolutely awesome. Dietrich is for sure an acquired taste, but for those of you that are worldly and have exquisite taste this is for you! This CD is very mysterious and sensual. I recommend it over a candelight dinner with a lover or maybe for later on that evening with your lover-if you get my drift. The only complaint I have about this CD is that there are a few tracks that are a little out of place and ruin the continuity of the whole CD. There are 2 tracks that sound very 1960's, and then at the end of the CD there are 3 tracks from the 1920's which are fun to listen to but are totally opposite from the rest of the CD. Still I recommend this CD highly. Just forward past the tracks that are a little out of place, and you have some beautiful, distinctly European music that is extremely intimate and mysterious! The entire CD is in German, which only makes it all the more wonderful! ENJOY!

I have many of her CDs but this is the first where all the songs are sung in German. She's the best!

Don't think of « Lili Marlene » only as a popular song among german soldiers during World War II. It's mainly the story of a girl standing under a street lamp in front of barracks, while the fog is darkening the streets of a little town ; and who will stand with her when the night falls and the shadows are swirling around? Although there are a few « modern » songs on the CD, most of the songs recorded here are nostalgic of bygone days, of men who wan't come back, of flowers on the graves. The voice of Marlene Dietrich is a bit hard and hoarse, a voice in black and white. It reminds you of all these fascinating movies in black and white of the thirties (think of Lang, Murnau,...). Technically speaking, the rythm, here and there, is too fast, and the recording is not very good, but it's not so important. Just listen and and take a dive in the crooked and foggy (and disturbing) streets of pre-war Europe and the smoky cabarets of Berlin.

This is an all-German CD of Marlene's. The German version of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" (Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sin) is on this CD; the French version (my favorite) and the English are on "The Essential Marlene Dietrich" CD available from Amazon.com UK.

There some rare circumstances where some people who have less than perfect singing voices can deliver a song on feeling, some may call it "heart'. Jimmy Durante, Loius Armstrong and George Burns were among those I am talking about. Though I don't think that I have seen any of Ms. Dietrich's movies, this CD is quite impressive. Even though it is all in German (which I do not speak) and even though she talks her way through some parts of some songs, Dietrich sings with feeling and warmth; especially a kind of "pathos".

I thought I heard something about Dietrich leaving Germany under the shadow of the Nazis, militarism and war; that might explain her identification with American folk songs such as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Blowin' in the Wind"-

For more songs in German, also see Ivan Rebroff.

P.S. "Blowin' in the Wind" is one of my favorite songs and I have many interesting versions to compare: Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul & Mary; The Kingston Trio; Eddie Albert; Percy Faith

Extremely happy to have received this disc which I had not heard for some 43 years since I was at college in England

Marlene Dietrich ist stirbtlos. Ihre Stimme magisch. Ich liebe es! Einmalig und ausgeziechnet. Diese ist die Marchenlied von das bekanntes SAS, oder auf Englisch Special Air Service Regiment. Tschuess!

The last 3 or 4 songs are old, good recordings. The other songs were more recently recorded and it sounds like an old lady with a 2 pack-a-day habit of no-filter camels was singing. Yuck.

So I ripped the last few songs and burnt them onto another CD.