Till	Richard	Paul	Ollie	Doom	Flake
Till Lindemann Lead Vocals	Richard Z Kruspe Lead Guitar and Backing Vocals	Paul H Landers Rhythm Guitar and Backing Vocals	Oliver Riedel Bass Guitar and Occasional Vocals	Christoph Schneider Percussion	Christian Lorenz Keyboards and Samples

The band in general has garnered a huge amount of fans, but likewise has gained a shitload of heat and anger. They've been called Nazis, blamed for Columbine and other violent events, and have been accused of being gay, supporting sadomasochism and other damning accusations.

Whether they're loved or hated, the band is complex and interesting, so I'm going to evaluate and explore them. Let's dive into Rammstein and figure out what makes this band stand out among the rest.

Rammstein is very much an Industrial band. Whether its comedic, dark, serious or soft, most of Rammstein's songs are driven by Flake and his keys. Very few songs by Rammstein have synth in 50% or less of the music.

Another driving force to the band is Till. With a very operatic bass voice, he gives power to the lyrics. He can be soft and almost ballad like, he can go heavy and sound fearsome, and he can sound almost crazy or wacky at times. The point is: whatever he's singing, he adds some strong emotions to it.

While there have been occasional solos from Richard and Paul, they've never been blistering solos with fingers hitting half a dozen notes a second. While Ollie and Doom both share the bass section, Ollie part of the time joins Flake making most of the band's music, as his bass nearly plays as much as the keyboards. Not to mention occasionally both Flake and Ollie have soloed with their instruments.

Rammstein has done a wide range of song styles. Some songs could be considered hard rock, others could move more into the gothic rock section. There's a few that count as ballads and some move into the techno genre. There's one that's a western-like song with acoustic guitars and a harmonica.

Comedy

The band has fun, plain and simple, and some of there music videos are proof of that. A single from "Reise, Reise," Keine Lust (No Lust), features the band several years after retirement reforming in a random parking lot to do one last gig. One catch, all but Flake are now morbidly obese. Struggling to even finish the set, the band members need to be toweled down and fed spare oxygen. With the help of some fine suit wearing, bi-sexual assistants, they get through the song, with Flake joining later, now confined to a wheel chair. Since Flake joined late though, he gets left behind all alone.

Another example is there video for Benzin. In it, all the band members but Flake are firefighters who get a call to stop a fire. They themselves drive a huge fire truck that accidentally crashes into several objects, causing more bad then good. During the ride, Paul fantasizes about saving some damsels and becoming the hero. Once they arrive, Flake is on top of the building and the band members get a safety trampoline, but it rips and he dies, so all the shit they caused was for nothing.

Most likely, their most well known comedy was in Amerika (America), one of the few songs that used English lyrics. The song somewhat mocks how America has "Coca-cola-nized" the world, and how it needs to intervene in so many world situations. Not completely bashing the country, just joking about. The video has the band performing in space suits on the moon and mocking the "Faked Lunar Landing" allegations.

Another showing of comedy is their live concerts. On the Volkerball DVD, while doing a solo for "Feuer Frei!" (Fire at Will!), Flake is doing his key solo when Till walks up and knocks him in his helmet he's wearing which knocks him down, making him disoriented. Later on during the Acoustic song "Los" (Less), Flake isn't playing anything and does a crazy yet hilarious dance at the front of the stage which gets a huge reaction from the crowd.

Seriousness

The band might take some things lightheartedly at times, but other times there's no comedy to find at all. Need more proof then the band's self titled song "Rammstein". The song itself is about the actual plane accident that the band is named after, and the lyrics describe about some of the events that went down. It also fit well as a song for the Soundtrack to "Lost Highway". Even from the very first notes from Flakes keyboard, you get the feeling of where the song stands.

Mutter (Mother) is another example. Both Till and Richard are said to of had troubled childhoods with there mothers and the song is about that. The story for it is that a son takes his mother and drowns her in the river with plans to kill himself off as well, but the later fails and he's left in the same misery he had before. Inspirations of this were Mary Shelley's classic "Frankenstein" and the video has Till pulling a boat through water and him in an underground cage after his successful killing.

There are a few other songs, especially Mein Teil, but that's saved for another section. While not confirmed, some have speculated the song "Sonne" (Sun) could have been about Hiroshima, with lyrics counting up to 9 and talking about light that could burn and blind. Another example is "Morgernstern" (Morning Star) which is about a deformed woman who wishes the sun doesn't rise so the light won't reveal her ugly face.

Perverted

If you could say one thing about Rammsten, is that they''re horny fuckers.

First we can start with there first bit of real controversy, there song "Buck Dich" (Bend Yourself or Bend over). Doesn't take much imagination to know what that's talking about. The real controversy is there live performance, as Flake would bend over at the front of the stage and Till would pull out a rather large Dildo and well, take a guess. This didn't sit well in the US and the band was fined $200 and spent a night in Jail.

While no music video or controversial live act comes with it, Rein Raus (In, Out) is obviously a sexual song. The lyrics are talking of being a rider and someone else being the horse, talks of Elephants breaking out and being to short of a ride, not to mention the screaming of "Deeper, Deeper". You can also hear a distorted moaning of a woman and during the bridge a distorted man gasping.

Then they did it again, with a full blown music video. Rammstein was accused of being gay because of the cover art for there debut album Herzelaid, they've claimed otherwise but it don't help when you also do a song called "Mann Gegen Mann" (Man Against Man) which is about Male Homosexuality and a video fallowing. In it, all the members but Till are naked except for boots and are covered by there instruments, Till is wearing a Latex diaper, stockings, heels and longer hair. And to top it all off, there are large, oiled, masculine men wrestling completely naked.

How could they top that? They did it just last year with one of there most blatant songs ever, "Pussy" Mocking the sex industry, the chorus is literally goes "You have a Pussy, I have a Dicka, so what's the problem, lets do it quick!", yeah he really sings "Dicka". For the video, the band members play out classic porno scenarios, Till as a Rich Playboy, Christoph as a CEO, Paul as Cowboy, Ollie as Mr. Pain (BDSM), Richard as a Frat Partyboy and Flake as a Shemale. As the video goes along, the horny acts get so extreme that the video becomes literal porn. It's debated if they band used stand ins or not.

And to top it all off, for there last album "Liebe ist fur alle da", they released a limited edition box set with six Dildos, Handcuffs and Lube. Something for the ladies maybe?

Creepy

The band has done Funny, Serious and Sexual songs, but some songs are just plain fucked up. A Prime example is the song "Spiel mit mir" (Play with me). The song talks about a brother and his sibling (never specified if it's brother or sister) who're forced to share a bed and eventually get so close that they begin to incest. The song is supposed to imply that no family is perfect; you can't prove that more then with Incest.

Easily there biggest controversy has come from there song "Mein Teil" (My Piece). Armin Meiwes put an add on line saying "Looking for a Well built 18 to 30 year old to be Slaughtered – The master Butcher" and got a reply from Bernd Armando. Together they cut off Bernd's Penis, cooked it and ate it together, and after getting Bernd's consent, Armin killed and ate the rest of him. Armin was charged and sentenced for Manslaughter at first but later for murder and life.

According to Ollie, one of the members of the band brought in a Newspaper with an article about it during rehearsal and the band members where just so fascinated with it that they wrote Mein Teil, which is about it exactly.

The video that fallowed features Christoph as a cross dressed woman eating candy, Paul in a frantic stake running around and spewing something, Richard fighting a clone of himself, Ollie on the ground covered I white powder and suffering spasms nearly naked, Flake doing ballet in a drugged state and Till getting blown by an angel until he eats it's wings and kills it. The band are then shown fighting in mud (Except Cristoph) then finally at the end, Christoph walks all the members like dogs through a German town. The video was so controversial that it was banned before being played at 11PM.

The Song "Sonne" had a rather fucked up video for it as well. They used part of Snow White singing in the back ground for the song and they later used that theme for the video. In the video, all six members mine for gold as the dwarves. At night, Snow White (Vastly bigger then them) sniffs the gold and does other drugs. In return, she abuses, spanks and forces the members to pamper her. One day, they find her overdosed in the bath and take her to a mountain in a glass coffin, but an apple falls and awakens her, and things return to the way it was. Disney family story, this was not.

Most recently, Rammstein has released there second single of there latest album, "Ich tu dir Weh" (I hurt you), which has strong Sadomasochistic lyrics involved. Do to this, the song has been banned from being performed live in Germany, even an instrumental version.

Messages

As mentioned, Rammstein can be serious; they can also have a stance on things in there music as well. For instance, there song "Engel" (Angel) is a stance on there religious beliefs. All six band members claim to be Atheist and the song is meant to support that. The lyrics talk of how they don't think there are angels in the skies above the clouds and they don't want to be angels either.

Tired of the Nazi bullshit, the band decided to write "Links 2-3-4". The song is meant to support the bands stand, which is on the left side of the political agenda. It's also a reference to a past song, "Einheitsfrontlied", which was written in the 1930's and later re-done as an official song for the German Democratic Republic.

They again would make another statement with "Ich will" (I want). The song was about the media's strong obsession with getting the big story and how through it, the ones who do wrong will be immortal because o it. The video also fallows this theme as it features the band members entering a bank and robbing it simply to get famous. They then go out to the media frenzy and sulk in it, except for Flake who's wearing a bomb and blows up with the building. Later on, the band are taken from prison and given a media award for the story they gave in Flakes memory.

The song "Los" was also meant to be a jab at the sound the band has and how they're expected to keep it up. The song is very different, using Acoustic guitars, a rather simple drum set up and Till playing a Harmonica with a rather country sound to it, almost what you would hear around a campfire. There's a brief synth part, but it's only for around 10 to 15 seconds.

Live

If anything Rammstein is known for more then controversial lyrics and videos, it's there live show. There's a saying among the fan base that "Other bands play, Rammstein burns" and damn is it true. Part of the reasoning for this is that a good number of people who listen to there music don't understand the lyrics or read up on it, so they substitute lyrical intent with a fun live performance.

They first made headlines for there self titled song "Rammstein" and it's live performance, for it, Till would wear a large metal jacket that was literally on fire. Plain and simply, Till was on fire on stage. Till would later replace the flaming coat with arm attached flame throwers, but the image of him standing on stage in flames is still remembered today.

From then on, there acts would only get more crazy and insane. For "Du Reicht so Gut" (You smell so good) Till shoots a large bow which would trigger sparks to shoot out and he would then spin it to give it a flaming circle look, then later Paul and Richard would stand opposite each other and shoot flames or sparks from armbands. For "Feuer frei", 3 members (it changing over the years on who) would literally shoot flames from face mounted flamethrowers, and the song would end with Cristoph triggering exploding drum sticks. Something that's truly painful, Till would water himself down for "Ohne Dich" (Without You) and at the end of the song, would have sparks rain down on him.

And if any of you bands feel like trying this, just a heads up. Rammstein's members actually have there very own Pyrotechnics license. After a near accident at a show, they decided to get a little more professional. If you want to do similar acts to your band, get your license and get famous enough to afford what they pull off.

They've also have had some theatrics that don't involve Fire or Smoke. One example is Flake used to ride around stage on a Segway PT with a Keyboard attached. When they used to end there concerts with there cover of Stripped, Ollie would literally get in a rubber boat and surf the crowd. Most recently, for Pussy, Till has stood over a large pink cannon too look like a dick that shot out foam and white confetti.

Result

In the end, I'd say what makes Rammstein so controversial is that they don't hold back, they don't stay confined; they don't stick to 1 thing. If it fascinates them or they're in the mood for it, they sing and play about it. Some bands stick to a theme or sound or style, but Rammstein won't be contained.

They like sex as much as anyone else, so they have a lot of songs about sex. Sometimes they're in a dark or angry feeling, so some songs are rather dark or anger filled. Sometimes they just have fun with it. Whatever they're songs are about, there's something for just about anyone.

Explore there Discography, you have six whole albums to choose from.