Written by Christina Ruiz
Image by Joseph & Rachel
When one thinks of heavy metal and its history, there are certain bands that have to be mentioned--Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Black Sabbath, just to name a few. There is another band that has had relatively great success, even here in the United States but does not get any recognition as heavy metal pioneers—Rammstein.
The band hails from Germany, has played sold-out venues in America, but does not get “love,” so to speak. This leads to a deeper underlying fact that Germany just isn’t acknowledged as a heavy metal homeland. The band has its own ideas of why this may be the case. In an interview with the New York Times in 2005, guitarist Paul Landers offered his reasoning, saying, “[before] it was ‘Deutschland über alles’ – Germany above everything . . . [and] now Germany is below everything. . . [everybody’s] embarrassed to be German,”. There is a sentiment that because of Germany’s complicated history there can be no pride in anything that may come from the country. It may be some time before that complicated history is distanced before Germans are proud to speak of their contributions. Until that time bands like Rammstein may have to stay in the background of the mainstream consciousness.
Image by Bojana Janjić
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