Dear ****

I wrote an email to my mother about LIFAD today, but didn't send it. I've decided to just play the album to her when it comes out, and let her settle her own ideas based on the music. I did that with their earlier work, and she liked some of it a lot, despite understanding German, but I don't want to colour her perceptions of what's to come.

I thought I'd post it here though, as it's Rammstein, and it's me, and that's what this site is about, to a large degree:

Rammstein are releasing their sixth album in October. As usual they're approaching the world from below, giving us a fairly good view of its underbelly. Sex tourism, Fritzl, sex, Rammstein, sex, S&M, sex, etc. are amongst the subjects tackled. There should be plenty of shits and giggles, as ever.

The first single is here, with a pornographic video featuring all six band members with their heads composited onto porn actors' bodies banging a range of hot women silly, accompanied with images of a leather-clad musical performance, German flags, and a cat. The single is called 'Pussy', and it really, really nails down the subject matter...amongst other things.

Pussy is probably the track purported to be about sex tourism, since it mentions such things as driving abroad because 'I can't get laid in Germany', and German clichés like bratwurst and sauerkraut. It's crass, crude, explicit, and executed with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and it's catchy in a very poppy fashion. Definitely a primary source of the previously promised 'giggles'.

The B-side is a Rammstein anthem, in the same style as (funnily enough) 'Rammstein', and will be the album opener. Apparently 'epic' is the best description for it. It's called (obscurely) Rammlied.

Other tracks have explicit (and implicit) themes varying from Sharks (sex), through spring in Paris (possibly sex but probably love), and Fritzl (bad sex), the traditional huntsman's greeting (sex), and inflicting pain (during sex, I suspect), to B********, which is a word fabricated by the band to mean anything they like (probably sex). This is par for the course, but from the previews I've read it appears that this album is not more of the same, musically speaking. It sounds like they continue to evolve, despite Lindemann's propensity for sexual verbage.

The album is going to be called 'liebe ist für alle da' (LIFAD for short...and possibly for the Teutonically challenged), and has begun its life surrounded by controversy. This is appropriate. This is Rammstein!

The first shit-fight was over a leaked track (the title track), which trickled, then streamed, and then gushed through the fan scene while we were in Greece. Lots of drama, lots of legal action, and a PR nightmare later unreleased images then came to light and a fan community got hammered with yet more legal action. Soon after the promotional clips for the Pussy single came out, and broke the more fragile-minded amongst us. Then the actual single and video followed this week, and the faecal matter really became ballistic. This is the aforementioned 'shits'.

It's funny how people can handle violence of the 'Terminator' and 'Aliens' variety without turning a hair, but show them some good, healthy, rubbing of the uglies and they blush like nuns and make outraged noises.

I don't think anything else on the album is going to cause anything like the upsets we've already had though, so it's probably going to be fairly gentle from here on in, but anticipation is high, and I'm really looking forward to the album.

If you're wondering about the title of this post I refer to my mother by her name, rather than a maternal epithet, but don't choose to tell you what that is.

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