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YMMV / Rammstein

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  • Anvilicious: "Angst" doesn't try to be remotely subtle about its condemnation of racism and the vilification of refugees based on their skin color.
  • Applicability: "Morgenstern" could refer to Venus, the Devil, or even the universe itself.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • While there are a few weird songs on Herzeleid, "Laichzeit", with its goofy synth loop and awkward guitar riff, stands out.
    • "Ausländer" on the self-titled record is weird in a similar way, but it adds cheesy bilingual phrases.
    • "Te quiero puta!", a track off of Rosenrot. It's Rammstein's first (and to date, only) Spanish- language song, and unlike the rest of the album, it's so goofy and over the top that it borders on self-parody.
    • Much like the cartoon sound effect in "Küss mich (Fellfrosch)" or the Blues Rock of "Los", it's probably just a reminder that Rammstein have a sense of humor.
    • "Amerika" off Reise Reise and "Pussy" off Liebe ist für alle da were comedic singles that deliberately played up the band's German Peculiarities for all their worth.
  • Broken Base:
    • Liebe ist für alle da is generally agreed upon to be better than Rosenrot, but is it a return to form or still weak compared to the rest of their discography?
    • Their untitled album has run into similar problems after its release. Besides the fact that it took them a decade to release it, fans are split as to how strong it is musically.
  • Creepy Awesome: When one thinks of Rammstein, their Creepy-Awesomeness is probably the first thing that comes to mind.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • Many of their videos, but especially "Pussy".
    • The cover of Liebe ist für alle da also qualifies: the band stand around a naked girl lying on a table, with Till holding a meat cleaver. The CD inlay card unfolds to reveal that they then cross the line a few more times.
    • This even applies to their official merchandise, such as their "Bück dich" soap and "Mein Teil" place mats.
  • Epic Riff: "Links 2-3-4", "Sehnsucht", "Tier", and the list goes on and on.
  • Even Better Sequel: Sehnsucht is considered one to Herzeleid due to its more streamlined and tighter sound and being where the band was really starting to figure itself out.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling the band Nazis because they're from Germany and appropriate totalitarian iconography (for satirical purposes) is an easy way to draw the wrath of the fandom. Rammstein have been extremely vocal about their hatred for Nazis when the accusation comes up, and "Links 2-3-4" was written as a direct response.note 
  • Fan Nickname: A small circle of fans gave Doom's... erm... manhood... a nickname, (Doomieconda) and it became a running joke that he has a case of Bigger Is Better in Bed. Not to mention the assorted nicknames for the band members, such as Reesh and Fly Boy for Richard, Paulchen and The Littlest Rammstein for Paul, and Tillie and Bear for Till.
  • Gateway Series: Whenever you meet a non-German fan of NDH or German metal music in general, chances are that Rammstein was the first band from the country they've heard of or about, a trait shared with fellow Germans Helloween, though they stick to the English language, while Rammstein sticks to German language.
    • Rammstein has also served as an intro to Heavy Metal for several metalheads.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While they are extremely successful in their home country, they also have an insanely huge foreign fanbase. In particular...
    • The USA fandom is especially notable given how insanely difficult it is for bands and artists that sing in any other language besides English (and to a much lesser extent, Spanish), and with that without any noticable accent, to break out beyond a tiny niche market. The Madison Square Garden show was sold out thirty minutes after tickets went on sale, making Rammstein the first German band in history to accomplish that feat. Basically, there's a good reason for why the German name for the Germans Love David Hasselhoff trope is called "Americans Love Rammstein".
    • Rammstein are also huge in Russia, to the point where many of their interviews are conducted there and many bootlegs originate out of Russia. Due to the band members originating from the former Soviet satellite state of East Germany, they are at ease with Eastern European culture. "Moskau" was written for their Russian fanbase. On a darker note, pirating of their music (mostly originating out of Russia) has made it unusually difficult to find their CDs secondhand in any Western country because so many have downloaded their music illegally.
    • Their Mexican fanbase is also huge to the point where their first Mexican tour, supporting Kiss, was met with mobs of fans on the brink of riots and whole families turning out to concerts, where the fans sing louder than the fans in their home country! This eventually led to them writing the song "Te Quiero Puta!", partially as a tribute to their Latin-American fans.
      • Costa Rican fans have the theory that the song is in honor of an actual lover that Lindemann has in the country as he's well-known (and liked) for being a frequent visitor of the country on vacations. This of course is merely apocryphal and probably untrue.
  • Heartwarming Moments:
    • The reason why the band has had the same lineup for their whole career is that they care about each other more than they care about industry pressure to make a new album or go on tour. As Richard put it:
    "We never give a shit about the people who think we need to get a record out every two years and that's one of the reasons why we're still together with the same lineup. We take care of each other, and if somebody needs to take the time off or do something else, we listen."
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • On the packaging of Liebe ist für alle da, the band censored "Buckstabu" as "B***" to make fun of the German government's tendency for censorship (even though it was a made up word). It became this trope when the German government forced the band to remove "Ich tu dir weh" from the same album shortly after release due to its lyrics, and refused to let the band promote the album. The band was not happy about this, and simply crossed out the title, replaced the track with four seconds silence, wrote on the packaging (in German) "Removed by order of the German government". The ban was eventually lifted due to the controversy, though Rammstein later sued the government for the losses they made on recalling many copies of the album and being unable to promote it.
    • "Stein um Stein" becomes pretty funny if you have seen Nichtlustig cartoons about Mr. Riebmann.
    • The video for "Mein Land" gets even funnier after people discovered that metal and surf music are the same thing.
  • Ho Yay:
    • The infamous "Bück dich" ("Bend Down/Over") routine. Till has been simulating exactly what the song is about on Flake ever since they first started touring. Barring some change-ups due to being arrested in Massachusetts for it back in '98.
    • Ever since the music video for "Mein Teil", the band sometimes opens "Bück dich" leashed and crawling onstage with a mussed Frau Schneider whipping them the whole way.
    • Speaking of "Mein Teil", Zoran Bihać, the director of the music video, describes the song as having a lot of homoeroticism to it.
      "Heute treff' ich einen Herrn!" note 
    • The original music video for "Du riechst so gut" definitely has a degree of this, what with all those shiny, shirtless bodies...
    • The music video for their cover of "Stripped" reappropriates scenes from a Nazi propaganda film - one of which is a detailled, slow motion sequence of a very well built, handsome swimmer skillfully jumping off a diving tower, putting emphasis on the man's physical form and beauty.
    • The music video for "Mann gegen Mann" - about the ups and downs of being a gay man - has all the band members performing nearly or completely naked amidst swarms of buff naked men.
    • Outside of performances and music videos, things like these pictures pop up from time to time, much to the delight of the shippers.
    • Paul has fantasies about Till-in-the-Snow-White-dress spanking him in the "Haifisch" video.
    • The band members can be seen briefly kissing each other in the "Deutschland" video.
  • Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Both Russian and American listeners are fans of the songs which openly mock or satirize the countries they're about ("Moskau" and "Amerika", respectively), usually because they agree with the satire.
  • Misaimed Fandom: The band has a lot of white supremacist fans who don't see (or, more likely, choose to ignore) the irony with which the band uses visual elements of totalitarian symbolism. For example, before comments on their YouTube videos were disabled, a noticeable portion of the comments on the “Mein Land” video came from nationalists who had either taken the song at face value or knowingly ignored its message.
  • Misattributed Song:
    • A demo version of "The Vampire Strikes Back" from Die Krupps was uploaded years ago on Youtube, under the title "Vampire", as a Rammstein song. Even disregarding the English language, the voice sounds nothing like Till Lindemann. Still, there's still a few people misattributing the song.
    • On a more dramatic note, a remix of "Sonne" called "Hitler", which is really a guy with a raspy voice yelling random words related to nazism (such as "Auschwitz", "Reich"), got somehow mistaken for an actual Rammstein song. In any case, the song's quality is so abysmal, it's mostly a source of Bile Fascination.
    • A false album named Dem Regen has been circulating on the web since the year 2014 which includes a song by the Spnaish band Blood under the name of Dem Regen.
  • Mis-blamed:
    • Jonas Akerlund, who directed the videos for "Pussy" and "Ich tu dir weh", has directed some pretty damn good music videos in his career, such as Metallica's videos for their covers of "Turn the Page" and "Whiskey in the Jar," as well as Prodigy's infamous "Smack My Bitch Up" video. However, some fans of the band just didn't feel either of those videos were up to the quality expected of Rammstein music videos and blamed him. Granted, there is the mitigating circumstance that neither "Pussy" or "Ich tu dir weh" were that widely distributed, relegated to being hosted on a porn site ("Pussy" for obvious reasons, "Ich tu dir weh" because of the indexing), but this isn't the point.
    • There were a fair number of people that blamed Rammstein (alongside Marilyn Manson and KMFDM) for the Columbine massacre due to the shooters being fans of the band.
  • Moment of Awesome: The videos for "Ich will" and "Sonne" are considered by many fans to be Rammstein's greatest videos.
  • Narm Charm: The first 75% of the "Mein Land" video, which is basically the best video the Beach Boys never made, except it's set to Industrial Metal music.
  • Older Than They Think: Rammstein may be the very first name that comes to mind when you think of German metal music (and likely the only one when you hear of German Industrial Metal), but their peculiar genre stems from a tradition of mixed EBM and Industrial bands that became popular in Germany during the '90s, culminating with the Oomph! band, whose second album Sperm is generally considered the Ur-Example of Neue Deutsche Härte (or NDH). Nonetheless, it was Rammstein's success that managed to popularize the genre worldwide, helping several lesser-known German metal bands, even those they took inspiration from.
  • Signature Song: "Du hast," with "Sonne," "Engel," and "Deutschland" also being good contenders.
  • Song Association: "Feuer Frei!" will always be the theme song related to XxX. The video itself featuring clips from the movie surely helps the notion.
  • Special Effects Failure: The music video for 'Benzin', which shows the band members as firemen plowing through the streets in a gigantic firetruck leaving a path of destruction behind them, features some very dodgy CGI.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Most of Rammstein's music videos had some sort of plot in the video. "Pussy" and "Ich tu dir weh"... did not. ("Pussy" was just gratuitous porn and "Ich tu dir weh" was a performance video.) They're already among the least liked videos. Hearing that the next video, "Haifisch", would go back to the normal formula had many fans breathing a sigh of relief.
  • Spiritual Successor: "Ohne Dich" is this to a song by Franz Schubert, "Wandrers Nachtlied II", which itself is a setting of the poem by the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, probably the most famous poem in German literature, in which a solitary man looks out over a peaceful forest in which "die Vögelein schweigen im Walde", "the birds in the trees are quiet", and feels that soon, he too will be at rest. In "Ohne Dich", a man looks at a forest which is "so schwarz und leer", so "black and empty", and in which "die Vögel singen nicht mehr", "the birds sing no more", because his lover has either left him or has died — but at any rate, he's "ohne dich", "without you", and not at rest at all, but in despair.
    • Although released afterwards (but recorded around the same time), "Wo Bist Du" could be seen as a prequel to "Ohne Dich" as it features a man searching the tranquil countryside for a lover who may be dead, and indicates that he's considering suicide if he doesn't find her.
    • "Tier" is one to the unreleased song "Tier '94" which has some similar lyrics about a pedophile.
    • "Heirate mich" could be seen as one to the traditional folk song "The Unquiet Grave". Like "The Unquiet Grave," "Heirate mich" tells the story of a man grieving his dead wife/lover. In both songs, the protagonist has been alone for a year. In the former, the man begs for a kiss from his dead lover, and in the latter, the protagonist exhumes his dead wife's corpse to make love to it. "Heirate mich" could be seen as taking the traditional song to its logical extreme.
  • The Woobie: One reason why Flake is a fan favorite. He gets put through so much both on stage and in the music videos, he is either The Chew Toy or the Woobie to fans.
  • Unconventional Learning Experience:
    • The band's emphasis on singing in German has led many people to learn how to speak it.
    • "Deutschland", especially its music video, sparked many people's interest in learning about Germany's history.

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