Never cross Rammstein. No, seriously, they have flamethrowers, and apparently, lawyers too. According to Blabbermouth, via Deutsche Welle, the pyromaniacal industrial group are suing the German government for putting the clampdown on their 2009 album.
The story goes that the band’s 2009 release, Liebe Ist Für Alle Da, which translates as There’s Enough Love For Everyone, was put on an “index” by the Federal Department For Media Harmful To Young Persons, who take care of that sort of thing.
The Orwellian department are tasked with identifying any media that could be harmful to young people and then placing a block on it, which bars the producer from distributing or advertising the content, whether that be selling it, renting it, or broadcasting it.
The department is a throwback to the German government’s decades-long disassociation from its unfortunate history and most of the albums that appear on the index promote National Socialism or incite racial hatred, but music considered to be pornographic or violent is also included.
Apparently, the department objected to a song whose title translates as ‘I’ll Hurt You’ and an image contained in the album booklet, depicting a man about to hit a naked woman, insisting they promote unsafe sex and sadomasochism.
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We know what you’re thinking: that’s Rammstein in a nutshell, why were they suddenly ticked off? Well, that’s exactly what the band wanted to know and keyboardist Christian Lorenz told news outlet Bild Am Sonntag as much.
“There’s nothing on the album that could be more misinterpreted than on other Rammstein records. Why now and why this? One of the examiners presumably has a daughter who annoys him with Rammstein at full volume,” he said.
The album appeared on the department’s index for a total of six months, but the band was forced to destroy or store almost 85,000 copies of the album and they’re suing to recover damages incurred as a result, to the sum of 66,000 euros.
