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From 1995’s Herzeleid to 2019’s untitled masterpiece, we rank Rammstein’s most incendiary offerings…

Photo: Paul Harries

Few bands have found their way to the top of the musical mountain without, at one point or another, finding themselves serving the whims of fashion and popular taste. Rammstein, however, have plotted their own path, far from the homogenous mainstream, using their various kinks and peculiarities as hooks with which to haul themselves into stadia. Children of the Neue Deutsche Härte (New German Hardness) dance metal movement of the 1990s, the Berliners have bolted on elements of chugging industrial, latex-clad gothic and hard rock bombast to reinforce an inherently theatrical package unlike any other in heavy music.

This singular sense of direction has been reinforced by a line-up that has remained stable since 1994. Multi-talented frontman Till Lindemann (a talented swimmer shortlisted for the 1980 Olympics, but scuppered by injury) has always been the block-headed face of the band, yet every member has become integral. Guitarists Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers, bassist Oliver Riedel, drummer Christoph Schneider and brilliantly weird synth specialist Christian “Flake” Lorenz all play their part and have attained varying degrees of celebrity in their native Germany.

Their back-catalogue boasts a similar consistency. With every track striving for a visceral emotional reaction, however – be that busting moves on the dancefloor, getting rhythmically turned-on or feeling stomach-churningly disgusted – there’s a particular pleasure in ranking our Top 20 listening experiences. Let’s hear yours in the comments.

With depressing inevitability, Rammstein – easily the highest-profile German band of the last three decades – found themselves subject to allegations of ultraconservative (read: Nazi) political affiliations just as their star had truly began to rise. Links 234 is their straightforward riposte. Translated as ‘Left 234’ they are stressing their liberal (left-leaning) personal philosophies, while the 2−3−4 marching beat is an ironic reference to the goose-stepping fascists to whom they are being compared. Incorporating that tempo into their crunchy industrial treatment made the point potently: that for all their militant precision, these were sounds better stomped along to on a sweaty dancefloor than any political rally.

19. Seemann (Herzeleid, 1995)

The fifth track and third single from Rammstein’s first album unfolds with a fragility, vulnerability and sincerity that has gone virtually unmatched across the two-and-a-half decades since. A ponderous love song dealing with uncertainty and heartbreak, it sees Till extending an invitation to ‘Komm in mein Boot / ein Sturm kommt auf’ (‘Come in my boat / A storm is rising’) as the bass-led composition swells and subsides like waves on troubled water. The singer initially thought it was the only real commercially-viable prospect from on Herzeleid and, although he has since been proven incorrect, it retains a special place in many fans’ hearts. Ironically for such a downbeat composition, it was also the first to receive the band’s legendary rubber-dinghy treatment in the live arena, having since been replaced by the more party-hearty Ausländer.

18. Radio (untitled, 2019)

Growing up in Soviet East Germany (the German Democratic Republic), Rammstein had a different formative relationship with music than many of their fanbase. Listening to Western radio and the music played on those stations before the 1991 fall of the Berlin Wall was considered subversive and deemed illegal. Consequently, it became a form of low-key rebellion and cherished escape for many of the youth at the time. The second single from 2019’s untitled LP is a simple celebration of that small liberation. ‘Jedes Liedgut war verboten / So gefährlich fremde Noten / Doch jede Nacht ein wenig froh,’ sings Till as the pulsing synths evoke heroes like Kraftwerk from the other side of the divide. ‘Every song was forbidden / Such dangerous foreign notes / But a little happy every night.’ The controversial music video – featuring a forbidden broadcast and listeners unnaturally besotted with their wirelesses – was every bit as memorable.

17. Ohne Dich (Reise, Reise, 2004)

Another heartwrought ballad in the style of Seemann – albeit one delivered with more heavyweight authority and orchestral grandeur – Ohne Dich (‘Without You’) finds the band processing their grief for list loved ones. There is a particular sense of poetry in lyrics like ‘Doch der Abend wirft ein Tuch aufs Land / und auf die Wege hinterm Waldesrand’ (‘The evening is throwing a cloth over the land / And upon the ways beyond the edge of the forest’), while many fans have found an environmentalist message in their description of retreat into the wilderness and lamentation of a time when the birds have disappeared from the wild. Proof of the band’s underrated emotional reflexivity.

16. Pussy (Liebe Is Für Alle Da, 2009)

There’s been so much saucy kerfuffle around Liebe ist für alle da’s lead single over the years that some fans forget how much of an earworm it is in its own right. The track first saw the light of day when its sexually explicit, Jonas Åkerlund-directed music video (featuring each, er, member of the band in X‑rated action) was launched on porn site Visit‑X. In the live arena, too, it has been accompanied by Till riding his (probably) oversized penis canon across the front of the stage and “ejaculating” over the first few rows of the audience. Its message is a politically charged one, though, with that unforgettable hook ‘I can’t get laid in Germany’ actually opening into an abstract commentary on the phenomenon of sex tourism as the communion of guitars and synth build to their explosive, ahem, climax.

The lead single from fifth album Rosenrot wholeheartedly embraced the pyromaniac tendencies that would make Rammstein stadium metal champions. Titled with the German word for gasoline, it sees Till fantasising about the fuel the way an addict would about drugs. ‘Brauch’ weder Arzt noch Medizin,’ he promises, managing a little lubricated innuendo. ‘Brauch’ keine Frau, nur Vaselin — etwas Nitroglyzerin!’ (‘Don’t need a doctor nor medicine / Don’t need a woman, just Vaseline – a little nitroglycerine!’) A typically low-key intro fizzles and ignites into one of their most blazing showpieces. The inspired music video – featuring the band as out of control firefighters – was another gleeful tease.

14. Feuer Frei (Mutter, 2001)

For many unindoctrinated observers, the fifth single from Mutter defines everything they know about Rammstein. Translating as ‘Fire Freely’ (the German military equivalent of ‘fire at will’), its escalation from plonky synths to blaring air-raid sirens and roaring riffage was all OTT bombast. Meanwhile, Till’s pseudo-sexual lyrics feel alien enough to add another level of threat. ‘Geadelt ist wer Schmerzen kennt,’ he declares. ‘Vom Feuer das in Lust verbrennt / Ein Funkenstoss In ihren Schoss / Ein heisser Schrei Feuer frei!’ (‘Exalted are those who know pain / From fire that burns in desire / A shock of sparks into her womb / A hot scream, fire at will!’) The song blew western audiences away when it appeared in absurd 2002 Vin Diesel (fitting name, that) action flick XXX. It’s taken on another dimension live, too, where several members of the band will don flamethrower-masks, burning just centimetres from their faces, and shoot flames several metres into the air. Toasty.

19. Seemann (Herzeleid, 1995)

18. Radio (untitled, 2019)

17. Ohne Dich (Reise, Reise, 2004)

16. Pussy (Liebe Is Für Alle Da, 2009)

14. Feuer Frei (Mutter, 2001)

13. Puppe (untit

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