Customer Reviews

Halber Mensch

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you plan to buy this album, please don't buy the version distributed by Thirsty Ear/Some Bizarre Records. The company has never paid the band for its recordings, and NONE of your purchase price will go to the creators of this exceptional music.

Another version is available through Indigo Records, and the group does get paid for those copies.

Some Bizarre does NOT pay royalties to Einstuerzende Neubauten. If you buy this album absolutely none of your money goes to the band. You may as well just download it - it's stealing from the artists either way.

Any EN album or DVD with "Some Bizarre" or "Cherry Red" or "Thirsty Ear" on it is a release that is not authorized by the band.

Some Bizarre are reissuing EN's albums because band authorized reissues, remastered and in digipaks, have been available for several years. Some Bizarre's old editions looked shabby next to the official ones, and they are now trying to catch up and fool you into buying their editions instead. They have even tried to sue EN out of the rights to publish their own music, but were not successful. Rightfully so!

If you get any enjoyment at all out of EN's music, please make the effort to buy albums that will benefit the band. Who should get your money - the people that actually made the music, or a record company who cheated them?

If you can see "Freibank", "Potomak", "Indigo", or "Mute" on an EN release, then this is authorized by the band.

Five stars for the album, 0 stars for this edition.

I originally bought this album for the title track; now it's one of my favorite albums. Harsh and jarring yet poetic and meaningful...even more so if you understand the lyrics. This is not beautiful music for beautiful people; rather it's thinking music for thinking people. Industrial and grating...imagine if The Dead Kennedys and Philip Glass had joint custody of a hyperactive group of children.

This is usually considered EN's masterpiece; I'd consider it as the first of Einsturzende's masterpieces; For the first time melodies emerge from that chaos of noise and screams though with shyness; This album is very direct and efficient in its intentions; It does contains very good songs, such as Yu Gung, Seele Brennt (it is a perfect example of what climax means), and maybe the best ZNS; Sand is somewhat melodic, and Biest Im Himmel is a really moody and sweet song; However, some melody would not have been bad, and that's why, for me, Silence is sexy is EN's real masterpiece; some will disagree by saying that S.is.S. lacks angst and noise; I would say that in S.is.S. noise is counterbalanced by melody, and that is not bad at all; Halber Mensch is a very good album, and it marks the beginning -the consolidation- of a band which would have deserved more attention from the mass-media and people in general; it is not a good industrial band; it is a good MUSIC band; and Halber Mensch is "just" one of their masterpieces.

At times haunting, and at times haunted. That is the only way one can describe E.N.'s work from this period. Previously, their music verged on avant-punk; later, it took on a more (gasp) pop-like quality (though it still has that edge to keep it just out of reach of American radio). Here, they are at their bleakest, and Berlin never sounded so damn good.

This is my 1st "old-school" industrial cd, and my 1st E.N. cd. I wasn't sure what to expect, but i was ready to expand my musical tendecies. After a thourough listen, i have to come do a descision..it being..that this cd is a work of Art. The minimalistic synth and bass lines..the counfounding and nizsche-like lyrics, the "machine" noise, "found sound" samples, all seem to meld into an intriquing medly of Germanesc Industrial Goodness....Feed my Ego indeed!

Perhaps the greatest and most influential "industrial" record ever made, "Halber Mensch" reflects Blixa and company at their aggressive prime, and is probably the closest thing to their live shows of any studio recording. Brimming with rhythms and layers of guitar, bass and just plain noise, this album showcases Bargeld's transition from avante-garde vocalist to singer, and the band's shift toward more structured songs. Contains what should have been a massive hit, "Yu-Gung," and a whole bunch of other great stuff, including a Nancy Sinatra song and the English remix of "Yu-Gung".

Apparently, someone in the small batch of reviews for this special little treasure box of a Teutonic industrial explosions, believed that this was entirely meant to be taken seriously.
These symphonies of cacophanous organized chaos (the best description I can find lies in this paradoxical statement) have been close to my heart ever since I first listened to the samples provided here. As a child I had thought that it would be just dandy if someone had the patience to arrange as many loud, destructive noises as possible into such an impressive song cycle.
Blixa Bargeld possesses the most surprising vocal assortment of almost any male performer I have ever heard....Unbridled precision and ungodly high-pitched caterwauls unfolding like a nightmare that you end up remembering with fondness because it was so enjoyable trippy.
Best of all, none of this comes off as particularly self-conscious or posing. Its waves of bludgeoning interlace like the disarmingly engaging factory/messhall/bulldozer choral riot instead of a forced concept. The rather awkwardly translated lyrics are also particularly accute, laced with the naturally twisted wit missing in so much music lazily piled under the "Gothic/Industrial" section of your local CD store.
In short, this is meant to be a sensory impact to all our reactive impulses; some will dig it, some will not--But they have been bludgeoned all the same!

I originally bought this album for the title track; now it's one of my favorite albums. Harsh and jarring yet poetic and meaningful...even more so if you understand the lyrics. This is not beautiful music for beautiful people; rather it's thinking music for thinking people. Industrial and grating...imagine if The Dead Kennedys and Philip Glass had joint custody of a hyperactive group of children.

This is a varied and representative Neubauten album, to me, from what are now the "early years." I was lucky enough to see EN at both the old 9:30 club in DC (1990? 1991?) and with Frontline Assembly and Cabaret Voltaire in New York (summer 1991). It was great but I was disappointed that they didn't drill thru the stage with a jackhammer like they did at the old Limelight (yes?) earlier in the decade.

I just picked up the 1995 Thirsty Ear CD release, and to me it sounds a bit "improved" from my previous version (vinyl). I can't find any info to back this up, though, and I guess the "official" remastered version was released in 2002. Maybe my vinyl (and the tape copy I made) was a little thrashed. As my other reviews (Megadeth "Peace Sells...") show, I am very wary of remasters/remixes.

I understand that this 1995 release is not the version of the album I should buy to give the band some cash; my apologies.