Since I kinda got a request to write about Rammstein, I'll kick this one off by talking about their frontman Till Lindemann.
Seriously.
Till's got such a badass reputation, comparable to that of Chuck Norris (even though he's an old meme) just read Till's definition on the Urban Dictionary. The definition that better illustrates my point, being: "Till once beat Chucks ass and thats why he is no longer the main character in any movie."
But hey, he's actually quite nice.
He's a gentle giant, a cookie monster. You probably can't picture this if you pass judgement based on any concert or video you may have seen, (what with the pounding of the thigh, the costumes akin to S&M, the fire-spitting dildos, bursting into flames, and banging his head with a microphone, all while sounding big and ominous) but I'm here to defend the man behind the curtain.
Till Lindemann's a well-educated sensitive poet (published, actually), who loves Chris Isaak and milk (his words).
...Besides, after watching him as a dopey villain in a movie about a penguin (Amundsen der Pinguin), can you really buy that violent onstage persona as anything other than, well, an onstage persona?
So everybody who's always been like 'afraid' of Rammstein (me, age 14...) and pawn on them a bunch of crap about them being nazis -the truth could not possibly be further than that!-, homos, masochists or similar retarded judgements, really have no idea.
And when I say 'everybody', I refer to a classmate I had back in high school (Susana, I'm looking straight at you!); this girl pissed me off so much. She was a left-winger who thought knew everything about everything, just cos she had read two crappy Marx books and liked indie local bands. She just believed any crap anybody told her and was ready to jump at the slightest sign of fascism, be that true or not.
She always made me feel bad or stupid if I tried to defend them, just cos, well, in those years with so little access to proof (ie, before the internet), proving your point was way harder.
But hey, read any news related to these type of things and you'll notice it's usually foreigners that have the most trouble with either Rammstein or Mr. Lindemann. So take into consideration that a lot of this derives from not being actually familiar with their culture/language.
Yeah, language. Kind of important to actually, I dunno, understand the lyrics...?
It's happened before: they go to Mexico or some other faraway country and what happens? Some idiot will show up wearing a tee shirt with a swastika on it, because that's a thing that to them means 'Germany', and then Rammstein has to do a press release asking people to please not do that, please avoid these type of symbols, they're actually really bad, blah blah blah. Not to mention the Columbine shooters were Rammstein fans, which of course was yet another casualty that got pinned on them. Try sleazing out of that one.
Here's the point:
does this not prove that whenever we hear Germany, we inmeadiately think (somewhere in our minds) OMGnazis?
How many of us know enough german to fully understand their lyrics, anyway? I mean, really, really feel them. Face it, german's not exactly on every school's curriculae.
...And it's not like there are many many german musicians who've hit the big time everywhere else.
Seriously, name something. Kraftwerk? Die Toten Hosen? Ask someone sitting next to you if they're familiar with these artists. Yeah, I thought so.
So the less exposition your culture gets out there, the less people will relate you to positive things (just consider how many think about Japan as nothing but a madcap land based on cultural gaps so huge, you wonder why are they not wearing dead fish and eating booger soup, while walking their rhinestone-covered iguanas)
Where there's such ignorance, there's bound to be misunderstandings.
If you're interested, I suggest you give Rammstein a good listen: better to start with their most known work, which would be their second album, Sehnsucht (recommendd tracks: Engel, Du Hast, Bück dich, Eifersucht and Du Riechst so Gut)
From later albums, I'd recommend Ich Will, Feuer Frei!, Mutter, Mein Teil, Amerika, Benzin and hell, I'm even gonna throw in Te Quiero Puta!, ven though the lyrics aren't exactly poetic, because it's just so damm funny to listen to this guy sing insanities in spanish.
Don't wanna spend your moola? Find them on YouTube, most of these tracks are pretty mainstream. I won't link you to countless Evangelion FMVs that use 'Engel' or 'Feuer Frei' (because Asuka's OMGgerman, gais!!!). I'm not *that* much of a nerd...
Incidentally, if like me, you were ever into punk rock, I also suggest listening to Die Toten Hosen. They're pretty much one of the last pillars of punk rock and quite talented as well.
Just the silly rivalry between their frontman and Rammstein's frontman is worth the price of admission.
[Not to mention there you have another literate rocker: DTH's frontman, Campino (nicknamed after those strawberry-yoghurt candies -cute, I know) is quite versed on all aspects of modern culture, himself having tried his hand at writing (journalist) and
acting...]
...But hey, that's a story for another post :)
Seriously.
Till's got such a badass reputation, comparable to that of Chuck Norris (even though he's an old meme) just read Till's definition on the Urban Dictionary. The definition that better illustrates my point, being: "Till once beat Chucks ass and thats why he is no longer the main character in any movie."
But hey, he's actually quite nice.
He's a gentle giant, a cookie monster. You probably can't picture this if you pass judgement based on any concert or video you may have seen, (what with the pounding of the thigh, the costumes akin to S&M, the fire-spitting dildos, bursting into flames, and banging his head with a microphone, all while sounding big and ominous) but I'm here to defend the man behind the curtain.
Till Lindemann's a well-educated sensitive poet (published, actually), who loves Chris Isaak and milk (his words).
...Besides, after watching him as a dopey villain in a movie about a penguin (Amundsen der Pinguin), can you really buy that violent onstage persona as anything other than, well, an onstage persona?
So everybody who's always been like 'afraid' of Rammstein (me, age 14...) and pawn on them a bunch of crap about them being nazis -the truth could not possibly be further than that!-, homos, masochists or similar retarded judgements, really have no idea.
And when I say 'everybody', I refer to a classmate I had back in high school (Susana, I'm looking straight at you!); this girl pissed me off so much. She was a left-winger who thought knew everything about everything, just cos she had read two crappy Marx books and liked indie local bands. She just believed any crap anybody told her and was ready to jump at the slightest sign of fascism, be that true or not.
She always made me feel bad or stupid if I tried to defend them, just cos, well, in those years with so little access to proof (ie, before the internet), proving your point was way harder.
But hey, read any news related to these type of things and you'll notice it's usually foreigners that have the most trouble with either Rammstein or Mr. Lindemann. So take into consideration that a lot of this derives from not being actually familiar with their culture/language.
Yeah, language. Kind of important to actually, I dunno, understand the lyrics...?
It's happened before: they go to Mexico or some other faraway country and what happens? Some idiot will show up wearing a tee shirt with a swastika on it, because that's a thing that to them means 'Germany', and then Rammstein has to do a press release asking people to please not do that, please avoid these type of symbols, they're actually really bad, blah blah blah. Not to mention the Columbine shooters were Rammstein fans, which of course was yet another casualty that got pinned on them. Try sleazing out of that one.
Here's the point:
does this not prove that whenever we hear Germany, we inmeadiately think (somewhere in our minds) OMGnazis?
How many of us know enough german to fully understand their lyrics, anyway? I mean, really, really feel them. Face it, german's not exactly on every school's curriculae.
...And it's not like there are many many german musicians who've hit the big time everywhere else.
Seriously, name something. Kraftwerk? Die Toten Hosen? Ask someone sitting next to you if they're familiar with these artists. Yeah, I thought so.
So the less exposition your culture gets out there, the less people will relate you to positive things (just consider how many think about Japan as nothing but a madcap land based on cultural gaps so huge, you wonder why are they not wearing dead fish and eating booger soup, while walking their rhinestone-covered iguanas)
Where there's such ignorance, there's bound to be misunderstandings.
If you're interested, I suggest you give Rammstein a good listen: better to start with their most known work, which would be their second album, Sehnsucht (recommendd tracks: Engel, Du Hast, Bück dich, Eifersucht and Du Riechst so Gut)
From later albums, I'd recommend Ich Will, Feuer Frei!, Mutter, Mein Teil, Amerika, Benzin and hell, I'm even gonna throw in Te Quiero Puta!, ven though the lyrics aren't exactly poetic, because it's just so damm funny to listen to this guy sing insanities in spanish.
Don't wanna spend your moola? Find them on YouTube, most of these tracks are pretty mainstream. I won't link you to countless Evangelion FMVs that use 'Engel' or 'Feuer Frei' (because Asuka's OMGgerman, gais!!!). I'm not *that* much of a nerd...
Incidentally, if like me, you were ever into punk rock, I also suggest listening to Die Toten Hosen. They're pretty much one of the last pillars of punk rock and quite talented as well.
Just the silly rivalry between their frontman and Rammstein's frontman is worth the price of admission.
[Not to mention there you have another literate rocker: DTH's frontman, Campino (nicknamed after those strawberry-yoghurt candies -cute, I know) is quite versed on all aspects of modern culture, himself having tried his hand at writing (journalist) and
acting...]
...But hey, that's a story for another post :)
Yay, I'm glad somebody wrote about these things!
ResponderEliminarMy brother and me, we sometimes talk about how other people from other countries view Rammstein..for example that some American people must like them so much because they represent americas view on germany..[well at least some peoples view] Plus, German is not the nicest language out there, it sounds harsh and therefore people could belive the lyrics are about...nazi-things, dunno XD well, you know they're not XD
I really think that's a good article, I liked some passages very much. Like
"So the less exposition your culture gets out there, the less people will relate you to positive things" you made a good point in that!
aaah before that comment gets waaaaay to long XD thumbs up for knowing Die Toten Hosen!! That's so cool too! I knew they have quite a big fanbase in Agentinia, but I didn't know they were known in other countries, too :)
tl;dr: Thanks for such a well researched and written article ^^