20 Years of Mutter

This year makes twenty years since Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein dropped their third album, "Mutter". This has always been one of my favorite of their albums. Not only does it feature some of their most popular songs like "Sonne", "Ich Will", and "Mein Herz Brennt", but it also has some lesser known gems like "Zwitter" and one of my personal favorites, "Adios". In addition to including some of their more well known songs, I feel like it was in this album that they finally totally found their sound and ran with it. Don't get me wrong, I love "Herzeleid" and "Sehnsucht", but I kind of feel like in both of those albums, they weren't a hundred percent comfortable yet. Especially their singer, Till. In the first album, he didn't really sing much, he really just talked the whole time. On "Sehnsucht", there were a few songs where he actually sang, but on "Mutter" he really came into his own and sounds totally confident. There's also a ton of little details that make this album so great. The soft intro on "Feuer Frei" that then suddenly slams and makes you jump, the gorgeous acoustic lines in "Mutter", that deep guttural story telling intro to "Spieluhr", and the absolute beauty of a ballad that is "Nebel". This is just such an iconic album that so many people love. I listened to my first copy so many times that it got all scratched and I had to replace it. I still love this album, and think it is an absolute masterpiece. ~Gangis

Photocredit: Album cover for "Mutter" by Rammstein released on Motor and Universal Music.