This is the re-released version of the Nena compilation album SIMPLY THE BEST. The first three songs are taken from the NENA album, the next three from the ?( FRAGEZEICHEN ) album, the eighth and ninth from the FEUER UND FLAMME album, the tenth and eleventh from the EISBRECHER album, the twelfth from the WUNDER GESCHEH'N album, and finally the seventh and thirteenth from the BONGO GIRL album. What you should take note of is that the same error found in the SIMPLY THE BEST album is retained in this newer version: the eighth song entitled "Ein Brief" is actually "Es wird schon weitergehn", which also happens to belong to the same FEUER UND FLAMME album. For those of you who have purchased the FEUER UND FLAMME cd album, you will already have noticed that the songs "Ein Brief" and "Es wird schon weitergehn" have been interchanged in their listing, so this should come as no surprise to you. Apparently, the original goal of Sony Music was to come up with another Nena compilation album which would concentrate only on Nena Kerner's compositions among those produced during the original Nena band days aside from including those from her solo career after that. Unfortunately, although "Ein Brief" is one of her compositions, "Es wird schon weitergehn" is not hers, but the original bass player Juergen Dehmel's. Hence, the original goal of Sony Music was not achieved. However, all the songs here are wonderful and several are not featured in either the DIE BAND album or the DEFINITIVE COLLECTION two-cd album. The ones not found in the DIE BAND album are the album versions of "Leuchtturm" and "Tanz auf dem Vulkan", "Ich haeng' an dir", "Der Anfang vom Ende", "Es wird schon weitergehn", the album version of "Du kennst die Liebe nicht", "Sonnenaufgang", and, naturally, her solo songs "Wunder gescheh'n", "Manchmal ist ein Tag", and "Bongo Girl". Those not found in the two-cd DEFINITIVE COLLECTION album are "Tanz auf dem Vulkan", "Ich haeng' an dir", "Der Anfang vom Ende", "Es wird schon weitergehn", "Jetzt bist du weg", and "Sonnenaufgang". Therefore, if you should be inclined to purchase only the compilation albums of Nena, the combined quartet of 99 LUFTBALLONS/INTERNATIONAL, DIE BAND, two-cd DEFINITIVE COLLECTION, and TANZ AUF DEM VULKAN compilation albums should provide you with the following songs per album:
A. THE STRIPES
This disc comes in for some criticism on Nena's website. It seems there have been a series of Nena collections, this being an exact, or near exact duplicate of a previous release. "Completely superfluous" is how I would translate it from the German. Sony was mocked for its "quality product" sticker on the front of the jewel case. But I felt that was too harsh. I was glad to get this disc and have been enjoying it. It has some fine work by Nena on it. I'm afraid to go farther than that and only give four stars out of deference to those Nena fans who are more knowledgeable. I liked the disc. I think others would too. I would list the song titles, but if you are a Nena fan you've probably already got all the songs on this disc. So I would say get it if you don't have a lot of Nena's previous releases.
