German symbolism in rock music: national signification in the imagery and songs of Rammstein

Abstract

In this article, I discuss aspects of national identity in the performance style of the German rock band Rammstein from the perspectives of imagery, vocal style and the textual content of their songs. 1 Investigation into Rammstein's music reveals transformations of signifiers from earlier German performance styles and earlier textual themes that the band use as a means of relocating notions of German identity into their own performances. The adoption of national German signifiers enables Rammstein to establish connections between the band and the growth of national awareness among German youth who follow them. In this way, marketing and promotion of notions of a new national German identity to generations unaware of the origins of neo-romantic, national German signifiers in Rammstein's music supports a successful commercial enterprise that, I argue, runs close to boundaries existing between national and nationalist.

The formation of the West German power metal scene and the question of a ‘Teutonic’ sound

“…Moreover, metal from Germany, one of the largest metal communities in the world, has been acknowledged in metal historiography very rarely. If it did so, then either in the context of thrash metal with bands like Kreator, Sodom and Destruction (Kahn-Harris 2007: 116;Wiederhorn & Turman 2013: 254;Christe 2004: 138), or it was Rammstein being discussed as the prototypical German rock band (Burns 2008;Kahnke 2013). German power metal, notwithstanding its huge success and longstanding popularity in Europe, America and Asia, is just mentioned in passing at best (Weinstein 1991: 118;Kahn-Harris 2007: 116;Sharpe-Young 2003: i).…”

Heino, Rammstein and the double-ironic melancholia of Germanness

“…Rammstein has been known for drawing on a wide range of German artistic and cultural traditions. As Robert Burns (2008) works out in detail, the band refers to influences as diverse as German Romanticism, cabaret, German Expressionism, Constructivism, folklore, Bertolt Brecht, Grimm’s fairy tales, Leni Riefenstahl’s fascist imagery, the Neo-Classicism of the 1930s, and Richard Wagner. Obviously, the latter has led many critics to accuse Rammstein of promoting a neo-fascist agenda, which, coupled with their playing with Nazi references, has resulted in the band’s controversial image.…”

“…Obviously, the latter has led many critics to accuse Rammstein of promoting a neo-fascist agenda, which, coupled with their playing with Nazi references, has resulted in the band’s controversial image. Rammstein’s performance of masculinity, for instance, often appears reminiscent of the Nazis’ idealized broad-shouldered and naked German male image as representing the nobility and supremacy of the Aryans; the cover image of the band’s first album Herzeleid shows the band members’ imposingly muscular torsos, ‘which led to them being derided as ‘poster boys for the master race’’(Burns, 2008: 462; Robinson, 2013: 32). Furthermore, Till Lindemann’s vocal performance, his ‘deep and resonant voice, with its harsh timbre’, (Robinson, 2013: 31) his ‘guttural German and much commented upon rolling Rs’ (Weinstein, 2014: 132) and the band’s musical formula, based on marching drum patterns and male vocal sprechgesang , invite interpretations of Neo-Romantic right-wing Nationalism-with-a-capital-N (Anderson, 1991: 5; Burns, 2008: 457).…”

“…Rammstein’s performance of masculinity, for instance, often appears reminiscent of the Nazis’ idealized broad-shouldered and naked German male image as representing the nobility and supremacy of the Aryans; the cover image of the band’s first album Herzeleid shows the band members’ imposingly muscular torsos, ‘which led to them being derided as ‘poster boys for the master race’’(Burns, 2008: 462; Robinson, 2013: 32). Furthermore, Till Lindemann’s vocal performance, his ‘deep and resonant voice, with its harsh timbre’, (Robinson, 2013: 31) his ‘guttural German and much commented upon rolling Rs’ (Weinstein, 2014: 132) and the band’s musical formula, based on marching drum patterns and male vocal sprechgesang , invite interpretations of Neo-Romantic right-wing Nationalism-with-a-capital-N (Anderson, 1991: 5; Burns, 2008: 457). Considering their continual reference to established and familiar German fables and narratives, as well as well-known (and nationally coded) Neo-Classical and mechanical–kinetic imagery, Rammstein can easily be interpreted as performing ‘nostalgia for an earlier German culture’ (Burns, 2008: 457) with their intentionally ambiguous connotations.…”

Corvus Corax: medieval rock, the minstrel, and cosmopolitanism as anti-nationalism

“… 19 Schütte, ‘Introduction’ to German Pop Music makes the comment that David Robb showed that the Liedermacher of the 1960s and 1970s successfully removed German folk song from Nazi connotations (p. 11). For discussion on the contested use of symbols see Kahnke (2013) and Burns (2008). …”