Author : Jos Hermans
This is an update of a text from September 2010.
Until two weeks ago I had never heard of the "Tanzmetall"-band Rammstein. Until filmmaker Paul Verhoeven showed an excerpt from one of their noisy shows in the VPRO program Zomergasten. I immediately noticed how the loud hypnotic music was being played in a very theatrical way, with unmistakable references to the Nazi aesthetic. Instinctively I suspected that there was a connection with Wagner. Googling for 5 minutes , I quickly learned that Katharina Wagner is a big fan of the East German headbangers. To Bild she stated : "When you see their music videos, it is of course very intelligent because they often employ very striking operatic means." In 2008, all the German newspapers reported that she wanted to stage an event around Rammstein in the Teutoburger Wald. Nothing came of it but the love remained. René Pape also seems to be a fan because he recorded a CD ("Mein Herz brennt") with music by Torsten Rasch to Rammstein lyrics. And director Philip Stölz, also a big fan, certainly found some of his inspiration from Rammstein as well. And Christoph Schlingensief, who died last week of lung cancer, not least infamous for his rotting Parsifal hares in Bayreuth, will surely have been a fan as well.
Whether their songs are about love or war, and whether the band members are left or right, one thing is certain : Rammstein's music is not European, but German. "Our music," explains lead guitarist Kruspe-Bernstein, "is German, and that's what comes through. What comes naturally in the music is what makes it so German. We just try to make the music that we are capable of. Classical music, the music of our ancestors, has been passed down in a certain way. We have a feeling for it. American music, black music, we don't know how to do that." And also : " The others try to imitate the English and the Americans. We are almost too German for Germany. The Germans are a bit ashamed of their nationality. They have had a disturbed relationship with it since World War II. We are trying to build a natural relationship with our identity."
"Rammstein is the inheritor of the German tradition of musical genius. Their rhythmic craftsmanship—unerring and precise—is unmistakably German, as is their intuitive command of musical tension and release. Their bombast, particularly, is reminiscent of Wagner, and so is the music’s eerie hypnotic quality. Carl Orff’s influence may be heard in Rammstein’s use of orchestral arrangements. String passages explode into skull-crushing onslaughts; low, synthesized chords follow and then recede, the effect eerie and thrilling. By comparison, American heavy metal bands seem clumsy, childish, and anemic. In keeping with a long German musical tradition, Rammstein’s vocal lines are, like Schubert’s, entirely integrated into the musical texture; they are not merely arias with accompaniment. The German language functions almost as an instrument in its own right. With its sibilants, harsh fricatives, unique phonotactics and stress rules, German lends itself particularly well to powerful, rhythmic song—as it does, of course, to powerful, rhythmic rhetoric.", Claire Berlinski believes.
Rammstein's lyrics seem inspired by the Neue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s. Visually, their shows reference the postwar expressionism of an Otto Dix, frequently embellished with pyrotechnic stunts that Adolf Hitler would no doubt have enjoyed. Perhaps even Richard Wagner, as the first act of Siegfried or the ending of Götterdämmerung are never far away. As they themselves say : "We feel as theatrical as Wagner in his operas. We like heavy, bombastic, romantic. Like the direction Wagner takes."
Wagnerian Rick Fulker of Deutsche Welle sees a lot of similarities with Wagner and believes : "These guys can only come from a culture that produced Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Sometimes their works take on epic dimensions." In other words : it is through their being German that Rammstein transcends the banality of pop culture.
Themes from Nordic and German mythology pop up in their videos, sometimes images of Leni Riefenstahl. The allegation that they are Nazis is adamantly denied. Rammstein was against the war in Iraq and they denounce American imperialism. They claim to be left-wing but their shows are full of references to the far-right aesthetics of fascism that Susan Sonntag once described as: "The color is black, the material is leather, the seduction is beauty, the justification is honesty, the goal is ecstasy, the fantasy is death." Rammstein flirts with the forbidden only to deny it afterwards. That ambiguity is telling and perhaps the only way to survive within the walls of a nation that is not coming to terms with its past.
How can Rammstein's success with German youth be explained? Imagine belonging to the great cultural nation of Germany anno 1945, and being blamed for fascism and the Holocaust. After being liberated from America by gum-nibbling Negroes, you are then denied your cultural superiority for forty years and a form of pacifism is forced upon you. Then the wall comes down and things start bubbling up. Rammstein responds to that complex set of suppressed impulses. Rammstein's success may be explained by that fact that it is helping Germany find its identity again after decades of self-hatred and narrowing German history down to the Holocaust.
Or as guitarist Paul Landers says, "The Germans certainly have a problem. It used to be "Deutschland über alles". And now Germany is below everything. At the very bottom. Our problem is that we actually think Germany is pretty good. But hardly anyone thinks so. Everyone is ashamed to be German and there is no German identity. Our goal is to help Germany, not to be openly patriotic like the Americans, but to be patriotic and not be ashamed. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses. Some have more character, others less. In my opinion, Germans have a certain kind of character that no other nationality has. It is difficult to describe. It would be a shame if that were to disappear." Die neue Deutsche Härte does not refer to decibels.
It was a nice idea by conductor Marcel Mandos to bring together music by Wagner and Rammstein in one concert. That was the concept that the Noord Nederlands Orkest together with Rammstein cover band Feuerengel, lived towards for two years. The two sold-out concerts in February of this year had to be cancelled. Rammstein did not want to be associated with Wagner because of his anti-Semitism. It further perpetuates the ambiguity characteristic of Rammstein.
Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund's capture of Rammstein's March 2012 show in Paris, with all its pyrotechnic bravado, was given a very beautiful, congenial design. Watchable in full on Arte Concert until 29.11.2022.
Source: Claire Berlinski, "Rammstein's Rage. Heavy metal and the return of the Teutonic spirit". Azure Online, Spring 2005