This is my first blog ever and it's funny that it should be about Rammstein. Although born and raised in Germany and still in possession of my German citizenship, I was never big on music from home. I have a sneaking suspicion that my mother's anti-German attitude has a lot to do with it. I know, I know! It doesn't make much sense for somebody to condemn art simply because of the language it is performed in but who said my mother has to make sense? It took a very long time to remove that veil from my eyes and I'm sure the transformation to a more open-minded self will never be complete. I'm a work in progress.
I've been somewhat of a closet fan of Rammstein for quite some time, catching a couple of their songs in movies and skipping repeatedly to those parts. Finally, I had the brilliant thought (insert a big fat DUH! here) to purchase one of their 6 CDs. Ok, so I bought 4 of them but I just couldn't help myself. First I was a little cautious. There are a lot of rumors and I remember hearing this or that being said about Rammstein before I moved to the US. Unlike a lot of people, though, I took the time and made the effort of getting to the bottom of these allegations. I read articles and I listened to the song lyrics in order to form my own opinion about the band and their music. Never in a million years had I expected to find what I found and I would like to use this blog to share some of it.
Lastly, I decided to write this blog in English for several reasons. First off, my American keyboard is missing Umlaute - for those of you who don't know what those are, they are the "ä" "ö" "ü" letters that make up a big part of the German language - and constantly having to type ae, oe and ue would not only drive me nuts, it would also look bad. Second, it has come to my attention that Germans either love or hate Rammstein and there seems to be no middle ground, whereas, I still see hope for the US. Without existing prejudice against the group, an American might read this and decide to give Rammstein a listen. He or she might even decide that they like the music and that the six band members aren't bad guys at all.
If I had to sum up Rammstein in a nutshell I would say it's heavy metal with poetic lyrics. Don't believe me? Fine, let me prove it to you in this blog. Am I confident that I can? Absolutely!
