Tank Battles: The Songs of Hanns Eisler / Panzerschlacht: Die Lieder von Hanns Eisler

Take Cabaret but make it oppressing as fuck. 1*

Sometimes you wish you could time travel to see what life was like (in this case to 1920s Germany), but this wasn't it. Did I need to listen to it before dying? No, but it is definitely unique.

Weird and boring, which is an unusual combination. Exists on a YouTube playlist, so the adverts were an occasional relief. Not the wurst album by a German artist (still Nico), but not one I will come back to any time soon.

Sounds like showtunes. Not my thing. Vocals and instrumentation is performed quite well though.

Nein es ist kein Main Stream. Musik muss auch kritisch sein und anecken. Die Interpretin geht ihren eigenen Weg und bleibt diesem stilistisch und inhaltlich treu. Dies z er ihr das Album, dass schwierige Musik und anstrengende Texte durch die Kraft und die Markantheit ihrer Stimme zu einen angenehmen Hörerlebnis macht. Ich will es nochmal durchhören.

Just admit you're a lazyass if you're giving it a low rating over it not being on spotify.

Very stylish and classy.

I have come a conclusion that Tank Battles doesn’t really fit this list. I just don’t get, why everyone would need to sit through this cabaret-style record in their lifetime.

When that it said, I was strangely compelled by Krause’s emotional vocals and, at least to some extent, the storytelling as well. You can hear in the delivering alone, that this is an important album - maybe only to Krause, maybe because of its themes, maybe to a lot of people understanding this slightly better than I do.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
So I’ll finish this review now, before I change my mind and hand it 2 stars.

More interesting than Adele's 21 and actually old-timey, so 2+.. Germany has had one hell of a history of war....

Wasn't on Spotify and took me a while to find a decent playlist version on YouTube (thanks to those who linked to it in the reviews!)

Quite a strangely powerful album, took me unexpectedly.

Ihan hyvä versionti saksalaisesta laulumusiikista, joka ei ole itselleni järin tuttu genre.

It is strange to me that this is an album "you must hear before you die," yet no album by Dagmar Krause's band, Slapp Happy, made the cut. If you know anything about that band, you would know it is quite a bit better than this, or at the very least deserves it a little more. This album can be daunting, as despite its average runtime, the amount of tracks in juxtaposition to the lack of variation can lead to a lot of songs whizzing by with very little to recollect later, and it leads to the majority of the album being forgettable, even to the point of annoyance by the end, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the sappier, more musically well-constructed material had me more intrigued. Krause's voice is not stereotypical, but it is technically impressive at times, and I'd say the strange delivery combined with the off-tempo instrumentation lead to a lot of moments where I think I could enjoy this in small bursts. It is hard to tell, as the songs not being on streaming means I can't quite remember a favorite or two to listen to later, but I know they were in there, and while that was bound to happen with a whopping twenty-two tracks, I still have to give it some (Stockholm Syndrome-esque) credit. It isn't a good album, and I can't recognize why many would come away from this confused and angry at what they just listened to, but I think it barely scrapes by as just weird enough for it to be barely up my alley. You won't see me recommending it to anyone else, though, and it certainly isn't an album to listen to before you pass away.

Have to watch this one on youtube. This is like a one woman musical. Yea without any kind of context i have no idea what to do with this. Listening to this on youtube is rough because the time syncing sucks.

I don’t know why I gave this a 1 the first time around, I certainly don’t hate it. A powerful singer and interesting arrangements, it’s a different shade for sure but a welcome alternative to the usual.

Another one where I'm confused as to why this is included on this list. Maybe I don't know enough about her or Hanns Eisler to get why this is really relevant? She's got a great voice, that's for sure, so I really enjoyed that aspect of this record. I was kind of excited when I saw this was listed as a jazz album but it is decidedly not jazz. Showtunes for sure. I tried to find the German version but couldn't with a quick search though I'm sure it's out there somewhere. I mean if showtunes is your thing you'd probably love this, for me it's not something I ever need to hear again. 2/5.

Doesn't fit my taste, sorry :-(

Truly a painful and confusing listen. I don't understand what I just listened to and I'm not referring to the German lyrics. Even reading about the album and it's origins did not help to make this an easier or at least more understanding experience. Some songs were somewhat enjoyable bit honestly a 1.5 star album

Couldn't stream this one.

Listened to on YouTube so not really getting the proper experience, the music itself sounds like it came out decades before 1988, which makes sense when you read about the album, hard to rate when I don’t understand German, but I did think the album went on a bit long.

I liked to know that this kind of more "classical" music is also present in the 1001 list, sharing space with pop music in general. Reading about the album and Dagmar Krause, I also enjoyed learning about German compositors. On the weak side, the album is quite long and too uniform to be really good. "The Rat Men—Nightmare" is a song that I'll probably include in my favorites.

This was terrible. I couldn't figure out the point the entire time I was listening. I didn't like the music, I didn't particularly care for her voice, and I thought the translations seemed to be clunky. I even tried a few of the songs in German to see if they were better, and I didn't think they were. Just not for me at any level.

That was..... something. 1.26